Last week, I witnessed somebody skidding off the road! A presenter inadvertently defied a rule that every seasoned speaker has known for a long time. Unfortunately, what was supposed to happen, happened. The presenter froze in front of her team and could not restart. The cause of the accident? She had memorized her presentation word-for-word! Sometimes you just have to experience it for yourself.
Here are the symptoms, causes and remedies:
The cause of the accident? She had learned her speech by heart!
Here are the symptoms, causes and remedies:
SYMPTOMS
The following symptoms may be present depending on the candidate:
• Hesitations, uh....hum...
• Pronunciation errors or difficulty pronouncing certain common words.
• Absence of variation in voice or natural intonations that support attention.
• Too few gestures or incongruent gestures.
• Uneven flow without pauses and sometimes fast.
• Shallow breathing.
• Frequent and furtive glances on sheets of notes.
• Little or no eye contact.
• Little to no conviction or passion in delivering the message.
• A slight general discomfort felt by the audience.
CAUSES
• The presenter focuses on the exact reproduction of a written text.
• Words seem to be more important than the meaning of the message in the speaker's mind.
• The presenter wants to make a perfect presentation at all costs.
POSSIBLE REMEDIES
• Stop writing down every word of our presentation and committing it to memory.
• Draw a diagram (Mindmap) of your presentation to make the connections between the main ideas.
• Think of each slide as if it were an image and not a text.
• Think of each of your slides as a 'story' that has a beginning, a body and an end and practice telling each of these stories.
• Focus on the keywords on your slides and build your speech around those keywords.
• Punctuate your speech with anecdotes and examples that prove your point.
• Slow down your flow and take longer breaks.
Reciting a presentation learned by heart is like driving a vehicle through the snow with your gaze fixed on the dashboard. Sooner or later, either you will lose sight of the road and find yourself stuck in a snowbank, or you will even less fortunate. The key is to keep the focus on the road ahead.