Many business executives have a huge disconnect in their communication styles.
When they are speaking one-on-one with colleagues and friends, these executives are lively, interesting, conversational, and persuasive. But put these same dynamic executives in front of 12 business colleagues for a so-called “formal presentation” and these presenting executives turn into mind-numbingly boring zombies who can do nothing more than read bullet points off of a PowerPoint screen in sleep-inducing manner.
They know they can do better. They know they should do better. And yet, they just can’t seem to shake the idea that a presentation absolutely, positively has to involve standing up and reading fact after fact as quickly as possible. They know they aren’t communicating. They know they don’t listen to anyone who does the same to them. Still, old habits do, in fact, die hard.
How do you break this defeatist mindset?
I get my clients to focus exclusively on two words: Re-live events. If you can simply re-tell an event you experienced that is relevant to the message you are communicating, you can communicate to a business audience. Re-live the event by re-telling what your colleagues said to you at the moment, what you were feeling, where you were, what your problem was and what the solution was. If you can simply focus on accomplishing this, you can transform yourself from being dishwater dull to a toastmaster extraordinaire overnight.
So if you don’t want to obsess over new slides or the perfect hand gestures or humorous stories, that’s OK. Simply focus on re-telling events you have experienced that are relevant to your audience and you will do fine.
