Navitas Professional Year | Working with Diversity and Making Presentations
Practically, delivering a presentation effectively is to ensure effective communication with your audience so that the information can land clearly. Three pillars of effective communication are VISIBILITY, AUDIENCE, EXPECTATION.
Visibility
It is human nature to feel discomfort to some extent when we are visible, and we tend to think of a long list of things that we do badly. Consequently, our inner critic gets noisier due to self-uncertainty. This is when we need to focus on the inside of us and reflect. However, once we have done the reflection, how do we shift some of our focus to reaching out to whom the reflection aims to serve?
We have to acknowledge that it is not easy to turn off the inner critic, but we can develop an inner coach to relax ourselves and accept the nerves as part of the human condition. Therefore, what matters the most now is whether or not the audience can understand the information to the extent that meets our expectations.
Audience and Expectation
According to Albert Mehrabian's '7%-38%-55% rule', when there is no congruence between verbal and non-verbal messages,
7% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in the words that are spoken,
38% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said), and
55% of message pertaining to feelings and attitudes is in facial expression.
We can clearly see that the content is not significantly important for message delivery. Hence, in terms of the words, we should hold the view that 'less is more': in most cases, list only top three points that are key to your presentation. Besides, try to use more data and figures rather than wordy and tedious paragraphs, which make it comfy and cosy for your audience to read, understand and accept.
We talk to our families, friends, colleagues and some other people every day. But how do we ensure that we can make our voice heard during a presentation? Here, voice includes pitch, pace, volume, intention, etc. For example, we all say things like 'Thank you for coming!' or 'I'm glad you all came!', but try to recall a moment when you said those, and ask yourself: 'Did I really mean it? Did the words sound like I really mean it?' Even for the very first words, you need to make sure you sounds like you 100% mean it. Do not be super dramatic, of course.
More than half of the message goes to physicality, which means your appearance, including posture, energy, smile, breath and eye contact, really really matters. And how do we ensure our appearance is totally okay? Apart from dressing in appropriate attire, the inner coach that we mentioned earlier will be crucial to clam ourselves down and show the best of ourselves to our audience.
Plus, given the current pandemic and 'work from home' situation, we probably need an additional pillar to ensure, for example, that we make eye contact with other participants on a zoom meeting by looking at the camera instead of the computer screen.
You might have been exhausted, reading all the words above, which could also remind you again that do not make your presentation long-winded. So, at last, let's get into an infographic* of 10 practical tips for an effective presentation.
References
* The infographic is a group work, contributed by Frederick Jia, Mangesh Zarkar and Shounak Das.
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