Passionate Speaker Beware the Dark Side

Be Passionate about your message - but don’t turn to the dark side

It’s important to express your passion when delivering your presentation. Your passion can be a powerful force delivering your message.

Naturally, your audience still expects you to tell the truth.

Perhaps you’ve witnessed speakers commit this mistake. Maybe in the heat of the presentation you’ve been temped.

It’s dangerous when your passion seduces you into stretching the truth by exaggerating or lying. Don’t get seduced by the dark side.

When you’re excited or anxious it’s easy to fall into the trap of grasping at false facts, claiming absolutes or simply lying. Why might that happen? Because you are eager to convince your audience about the significance of your message and you’re getting desperate.

You believe that your point is valid and relevant but in your desperation to build a stronger argument you fabricate facts.

Astute listeners will see the flaw in your delivery. Others may feel uncomfortable because they might not immediately identify the weakness but your message “doesn’t feel right”.

Those who believe you might discover the falsehood later and feel betrayed.

Perhaps you believe your honest passion should persuade them but the result is that your dishonest “facts’ dissuades them from believing you.

Learn from the speaker who conveyed lies in these two ways. He was clearly passionate about his message but…

Vague Statements

Don’t be vague. The speaker said, “I hear this all the time.”

What does that mean? Does that mean you heard it today, last week, last month or last year? What does “all the time” mean?

That statement is vague, unprovable and lacking substance. It adds no value to the message and easily distracts the listeners with unanswered questions.

It would be more effective to be specific. Did you hear it three times this week, from five clients in the past month or three times last year?

Don’t be vague – be specific.

False Statistics

Don’t claim a specific that is untrue. The speaker stated that “99.9% of the time”…

It’s good to be specific but don’t fabricate facts. That’s considered false facts. Even though there’s a lot of that going around, it’s not acceptable.

The claim of “99.9%” was thrown at us without a source of reference and the circumstance was unbelievable.

Too many people make up statistics to support their point. Some merely repeat unsubstantiated statistics. Perhaps you’ve heard an indignant person defend their claim with “I saw it on the Internet so it must be true”.

Be specific. Confirm and clarify your statistics.

A passionate lie is still a lie.

If it’s not true – it’s a lie. Who wants to be known as a liar? Even if the point is valid, the lie sullies both the point and messenger.

The next time you’re on-fire while delivering your message don’t be tempted by the dark side.

Remember this school yard taunt…

Liar, Liar pants on fire.

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The World's Worst Presentation? What do you think?

This video will be painful to watch "the first time". But, it's worth watching all the way for the suprise and as a test of your observations skills.

How many lessons and notes can you make about what not to do during a presentation? How would you use these lessons to help yourself and other presenters? You might need to watch it more than once.



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How to Answer Questions...or Not?

How to answer questions or not?

Many presentations include time for questions from your audience. This offers the opportunity to clarify key points and nurture trust.

There might be questions that are irrelevant. Naturally, you don’t need to answer that type of question. But what happens when the question is valid and the answer from the speaker is irrelevant?

In this video, Anderson Cooper points out the ridiculous response from Florida Governor, Rick Scott.

Watch this video to see how ridiculous a speaker looks and feels when he persistently avoids the question.

Does this man feel slimy?

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Sloppy TEDx Presentation Opening

"Hi Everyone, ah, Thank you for your time today. It’s, ah, very daunting to get up here after those wonderful talks this afternoon. Ah, I’m here to talk to you about the next generation of the Internet, the way we see it, ah, in particular, the mobile internet, um, I have mobile internet here with my notes, (held up his phone) hopefully the mobile internet keeps working …"

He continued his talk with many more ums and aahs. I wondered if he had prepared and rehearsed his presentation. He cleared up that question by admitting that he had created his presentation on his phone while on the plane. Clearly, he didn’t rehearse.

He seemed proud of that lack of preparation and yet the TEDx organizers still let him speak.

Naturally, I couldn’t stand listening to anymore. I quit that TEDx video after 2 minutes…

There was nothing in his opening to grab our attention, demonstrate that we should listen to him or even respect him.

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Show More Courtesy for the Audience

Imagine that you’re attending a conference, arrived in the room early, sitting in your chair, waiting for the presentation to begin. How would you feel while watching the pre-presentation slide show and one of the slides read…

That’s like a restaurant posting a sign stating “As a courtesy to our chefs please be sure to eat everything on your plate”.

I found that slide and the arrogance behind it ironic for three reasons:

1. The onus is on the speaker to keep it interesting. I would stay as long as I believe it was in my best interest to stay. I would leave when I want to leave.

2. The speaker was already discourteous by starting late and loudly blaming “the person who was supposed to bring my presentation”.  Why didn’t the speaker have a copy of his slides with him? When he started, he seemed to rush through the presentation and still went late. I’m not sure what his key message was. I walked away remembering nothing from his presentation. Perhaps I should have left before he started as a courtesy to me.

3. The event organizers were discourteous to the attendees in several ways. That included the 15-minute late start for the opening program; the lack of directions to the main stage, and hiding the coffee room - among other transgressions.

Hmm, imagine what courtesies the attendees might request from the organizers and speakers.

Event Organizer, as a courtesy to your attendees:

Post directions and/or maps to the different rooms especially the main stage.

Start on time.

End on time.

Don’t place the exhibit booths on the other side of the curtain in the same room as the keynote presentations because it’s too noisy for everyone.

 Arrange proper lighting for the main stage. The dimmed chandeliers might be appropriate for a wedding reception but not for a business event.

If the speaker is not using slides, blank the projector. Don’t flash your promotional slides during the speaker’s talk. That’s distracting and discourteous to the speaker as well as the audience.

The promotional slides that you show between speakers can be effective if the audience can read them. There’s no point in listing all 30 exhibitors on one slide. Consider splitting that list across three slides.

Clarify the start and end times of the presentation with the speaker and MC including speaking time and question period. Allow the speaker to manage how they use that time.

MC, as a courtesy to your audience:

Prepare your transition phrases. Avoid the overuse of these meaningless words:  “so” “I just wanna” “as was mentioned”…

Silence the room before introducing a speaker.

When conveying instructions for a networking activity state the directions clearly and indicate how you will signal the end of the activity.

Confirm the ending time with the speaker before the presentation starts.

Speaker, as a courtesy to your audience:

 

Be in the room with all your materials well before it’s time to speak.

Prepare and rehearse your opening.

Prepare and rehearse your closing.

Prepare and rehearse your presentation so you don’t need to read it from sheets of paper or your slides.

Use slides if they help illustrate your message. If they don’t, then don’t use them. If you plan to use the slides for your notes, see previous point.

 

Courtesy to the Audience

The audience should never feel trapped. They’re attending the program for an enjoyable experience and/or to learn insights and capture useful ideas. Telling them to stay in their seats like compliant kindergartners doesn’t enhance the experience or the learning. Naturally, the need to deliver rules like that suggests that the organizers believe that the speakers aren’t good enough to hold their audience.

In my experience as a professional speaker over the past 20 years I’ve learned that the audience can vote with their feet or mobile devices. Often I openly invite people to leave the room whenever they want. I’d like them to attend but only if they want to be there. For that reason I ask the organizer to keep at least one door open so people can easily leave or enter the room while minimizing any disruption. That seems courteous to everyone.

PS: You might be surprised to learn that all of these observations were gathered at one conference that I attended.

What discourteous practices have you experience?



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