Managing Leadership^®

It is a startling truism that people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying. In fact, so overwhelming is this fear that it sometimes seems that doing the one will lead to the other. Hardly a useful attitude for managers, who are commonly called upon to make presentations before groups, some quite large, and sometimes even before the public.

You can only expect an industry to spring up to cater to this dilemma. It has, of course, and it has generated its own peculiar set of eccentricities. For example, one highly subscribed effort is operated by a theatre group, led and taught by the group’s actors. Is there really any value in this sort of training?

First of all, there is no doubt of two things: 1) the fear of presenting before groups is real, and it afflicts everyone to one degree or another – for some people it actually energizes them, improving their performance, but for others it can be paralyzing; and 2) the need to present effectively is an inescapably important skill for a manager to develop.

So, anything that helps resolve the first issue enough so that managers can accomplish the second has to have something going for it. According to the linked article, efforts to address this can range in cost from a few dollars for a book to thousands for an off-site training program or (they’re everywhere, now) a coach.

Take your pick. Personally, I would suggest going the book route, and practicing upcoming presentations in front of a mirror, your family, or your friends and colleagues. But many people genuinely benefit from the various measures of personal guidance and multi-media input provided by the other vehicles. Just bear a couple of things in mind:

• The presentation isn’t about you – it’s about accomplishing your purpose for giving it. Certainly, many people’s anxiety increases as they consider their personal responsibility for success or failure in that effort. However, one of life’s many ironies is that the more you worry about your potential for failure, the more likely you are to cause it. Focus on the goal of the presentation – as you prepare, bend every thought toward how what information, delivered via what media, will help your audience arrive into the state (of awareness of your topic, approval of your proposal, etc.) you are aiming for.

Do not try to be funny if you aren’t naturally, or if your humor adds nothing to the message. Do not attempt to present a facade of invulnerable self-confidence if you don’t feel it; be yourself, not a mockery of yourself – your audience will forgive you for the first, not the second. Do not resort to showy stunts like appearing before your audience from within a puff of smoke (this sort of thing is done, especially by “professional” presenters). Manipulative pretentiousness will not help you succeed in the long run; rather, the reverse.

• Pay attention to technical issues about your personal communication methods. There are real concerns about things such as eye-contact, diction, and volume – even posture. Another major problem seen even among veteran presenters is the presence of what are known as distractors; these are mannerisms of speech or movement that become so distracting to your audience that its members begin to concentrate more on your distractors than on your message.

Transferring the focus of your personal role in the presentation from center of attention to vehicle for conveying a message, as suggested above, will do much to reduce the anxiety that produces many of these technical problems. However, others may simply be a completely unnoticed part of one’s way of communicating, or reflective of coping mechanisms one has developed as general personality characteristics that have nothing to do with the presentation at hand, even though they adversely affect its delivery. This is where practice in front of other people comes in handy. And if they are unwilling or unable for whatever reason to honestly critique you, then an off-site training program – or even a coach – may indeed be a good solution for you.

This is a genuinely important and large topic, deserving of much of the attention it receives. A key function of managers is the formatting and delivery of information in numerous ways – including presentations. It must be mastered. But, as in so many other things in management, it is mastered by taking the focus off of yourself, and putting it where it belongs: on accomplishing your purpose. We will spend more time on this topic in future posts.