DR. MICHAEL GERHARZ
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Posts in Tag: Presentations

They won’t know what hit them

Alright, this is it. The big meeting. I’ve got all the facts lined up, PowerPoint is flawless, and my talking points are sharp. I’m ready to persuade the heck out of them. They won’t know what hit them.

Okay, opening slide – good. I can see they’re listening. Time to ramp it up. Point one, point two, hit them with a statistic! Why do they look confused? No worries, I’ll explain it again, but faster and with more emphasis.

Wait, why is Sarah looking at her watch? And why is Mike doodling? They should be hanging on to my every word. Alright, double down. Speak louder, be more assertive.

Uh oh, I’ve lost them. They’re nodding, but it’s that empty nod people do when they’ve checked out. What went wrong? I pushed all the points, I laid out all the facts.

“Don’t persuade harder, resonate stronger.” That phrase suddenly pops into my head. My old mentor, Michael, used to say that. I brushed it off back then, but it’s ringing true right now.

I need to pause. I need to breathe. What do these people care about? What matters to them? I’ve been so focused on what I want to say that I’ve ignored what they need to hear.

Alright, shift gears.

Let’s try this again.

Slow down … tune into their frequency … and hit the right notes.

Time to resonate …

Stop scrolling

Watch someone flick through TikTok reels and you’ll see a repeating pattern:

Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Oh, what’s that!? -> Stop scrolling !!

Only to discover – usually in a matter of 2-3 seconds – that it’s still kind of lame. So: flick again to continue the loop:

Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Oh, what’s that!? -> Stop scrolling !!

And this time, it’s actually kind of interesting. And before they’ve even noticed it, they’ve watched the reel for 40 seconds.

It’s a very simple principle:

  1. Get their attention
  2. Spark their interest
  3. Only then dive deeper

With presentations it’s much the same, albeit on a very different time scale.

Someone starts their PowerPoint, you think: “Lame!” and tune out to switch your attention to planning your evening.

Another one starts their PowerPoint, you think: “Lame!” and tune out to switch your attention to improving your tennis swing.

Another one starts their presentation, you think: “Oh, what’s that!?” but they land on a generic agenda slide and you go “No, still kind of lame!”

It’s the same principle:

  1. Get their attention
  2. Spark their interest
  3. Only then dive deeper

Your audience’s tolerance to dive deep – and therefore your impact – is limited before you’ve established attention and interest.

Keep lighting the path!

Not so easy

Most questions that are worth investing the time to prepare a presentation for don’t have an easy yes-or-no answer.

If there would be an easy answer, we wouldn’t even bother with gathering everyone in a room. We would just send a memo to inform everyone about the answer.

One of the problems with meetings is that a lot of trivial stuff gets disproportionately overblown and floods the attention of participants. So, they tune out. And start not paying attention to presentations.

Another problem with meetings is when you pretend that there is an easy answer when in fact there isn’t. That’s a huge potential for frustration and a great way to start into fights.

Treating the team as smart takes you a long way. Some things are complex.

Smart teams don’t need complex things dumbed down. They need a way to make the complexity accessible. They need simple words to explain difficult concepts. And even then they appreciate it when we acknowledge that there’s room for different opinions on the matter.

Thank you for your attention

The most overrated speaking advice is to never say “Thank you for your attention!”

It will ruin your talk, the advice goes, because

  • it’s boring (at least not energising)
  • it’s disrespectful to the audience because you can’t be sure they actually paid attention (although great speakers usually can)
  • there are much stronger ways to close your talk (which there are)

The advice is (mostly) valid. It makes for some great anecdotes about bad talks everyone can relate to.

And it has close to zero effect.

I have yet to see any talk where that closing line makes or breaks the talk.

If it does break your talk, you almost certainly have much bigger problems than that line.

Ditch that line. But also, don’t waste your time with the unimportant stuff.

How cool is that?

“How cool is that? I can speak about my idea for 30 minutes and everyone’s going to listen? Wow! This is great. Let’s get to work. I want to make sure that this is going to be the best presentation we ever did.”

Well, sadly, this was a rather unusual way of looking at things. More realistically, reactions are often more like this:

“What? Thursday? Impossible! I still have to write that report plus a bunch of meetings. How long did you say? 30 minutes? Phew. Martin, you did a similar presentation the other day. Can you send it to me? Let’s see whether I can just wing it from there. Yes, Wednesday is fine. I won’t have time to prepare, anyway.”

Crazy, isn’t it? And yet, it’s the typical reaction.

But honestly: Where else do you get 30 minutes of exclusive attention from an entire audience other than with a presentation?

So, what are you going to do with it the next time this opportunity opens up for you?

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