Have you experienced the following?
- You’re at a non-interactive presentation where the audience is bored stiff
- You’re at a non-interactive presentation where the audience is mesmerized
- You’re at an interactive presentation where nobody wants to talk or knows what to say
- You’re at an interactive presentation where everybody talks and amazing ideas pop up everywhere
Certainly, these various outcomes are largely dependent on the presenter. That’s why scads of books and blogs are dedicated to creating and delivering highly effective presentations.
But these outcomes also depend on the temperament of the audience. Some people are interacters – they like conversation, a back and forth exchange of ideas and questions and answers. Some people are non-interacters – they’re perfectly fine with listening to a lecture, absorbing, silently reflecting.
Lately, for one-on-one and small group meetings, I’ve been giving people a choice. I have a formal PowerPoint presentation called Introduction to Business Blogs. It’s very informative and almost always well received. However, I’ve noticed something.
Sometimes, the audience sits and listens, asking few if any questions. Other times, I can’t even get off the intro slide before a barrage of questions hits me.
So what I’ve been doing is asking the client or meeting coordinator, Do you want me to go through the formal presentation, or do you just want to talk?
I’m often surprised by the answer, but it always turns out to be right.
That simple question has saved me a lot of grief, making it easier for me to lead the presentation with confidence, and making it easier for the audience to get the most out of it. It took extra up-front preparation, because I had to think through how I’d handle a discussion format meeting and yet be sure to cover all the relevant points. But I think when you give attendees the freedom to choose their presentation format, you’re much more likely to succeed.
Have you ever tried this approach? Do you think giving your listener(s) the opportunity to pick the format would improve your effectiveness?
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I gotta admit; I’ve never thought of this one, Brad!
But it makes sense – after all, one of the rules of presentations is to know your audience, right? Sometimes you can gauge the mood of the room right off, especially if you have a chance to mingle with ‘em first. But that rarely happens.
I like it!
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Hi Robert, You can gauge the mood of the room in advance, but if you don’t have a couple presentation options ready to go, you could be in trouble. I suppose skilled presenters can handle different audiences with ease off the cuff, but for me, I’d rather be prepared.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Different Audience Temperaments Require Different Presentation Styles
Right on Brad. To me the mark of a good consultant is a comfort with “not knowing” and therefore asking, but being prepared. This is true in the situation you outline. It is also true in the really hard strategy questions like: What do or could you do uniquely well that would be of tremendous benefit to a group of customers? When the client/audience creates the answer, you have the start of true learning.
Best regards, Kay
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Hi Kay, What a great question! Did you ever consider doing a little PDF or blog post where you assemble questions like this for speakers? I did a post once bullet pointing probing questions for sales people to ask, and it was well received.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Different Audience Temperaments Require Different Presentation Styles
You certainly are onto something, Brad, with asking your pivotal question up front. It is so basic that many presenters miss it in their blind spot – or simply choose to avoid the opportunity given them. As you have indicated, preparation for “either/or” takes a bit more time – but has to be well worth it for the presenter and the audience!
I serve, from time to time, as coordinator of a large adult Sunday school class that works with a structure involving guest speakers. (May call you one of these days, if interested, since you live in the area!) The backgrounds of those presenting and topics involved run the gamut, from college profs. discussing theology to a former congressman and an occasional Trib staff writer covering different areas of expertise. One thing in common seems to be a more or less locked in approach on how they want to present vs. trying to get a feel for the audience. When I’m acting as coordinator, I try to give the presenter – esp. those before us for the first time – a sense of what to expect from the group. It usually helps and, if the person is reasonably well prepared, they can often roll with the punches a bit. Also see/hear speakers who will take a minute to explain at the outset how they plan to present and where – not whether – during the time available questions fit best. Both approaches work reasonably well!
Hi Bill, The phrase “locked in” is key! This is not only a serious flaw in presentations, but crops up in simple sales calls as well – I’m sure you’ve seen it. Many a time, I’ve been on the receiving end of a sales presentation where the sales rep is so hell bent on getting through his presentation, he glosses over questions and misses buying signals. Yikes. PS – Sure, I’d be interested in speaking – thanks for asking!
Brad,
In my university days, I had the experience of the first scenario which you describe every Monday afternoon, when it was time for my classmates and me to sit through yet another dry auditing lecture.
In the ideal, situation, you would be able to learn a little about the audience prior to the presentation, and in cases where this is possible, I would have thought that you would have some idea beforehand as to the style of presentation which is appropriate for the audience concerned, and therefore, you would be able to devote the majority of your preparation time being geared around what you would imagine would be the most appropriate style of preparation.
That said, the world is not perfect and I would certainly imagine that if you were performing presentations on a regular basis, there would inevitably be some occasions where you are not able to predict with any degree of confidence how the audience might respond to your presentation or what style of presentation would be appropriate. In such cases, the preparation of more than one style of presentation is a must if you, as a presenter, are going to be confident that you can adjust to the needs of your audience.
Even in cases where you are fairly certain that you have a fairly good handle on what type of presentation that you think is appropriate, it would still be prudent to prepare some form of a backup plan so that you are prepared to respond in an appropriate fashion in cases where the response of the audience is different than what you expect.
Your approach represents a prudent approach – that of a presenter who is determined to succeed no matter what type of audience reaction that he or she is confronted with.
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Hi Andrew, My sympathies to you for having to endure that auditing course. I know the feeling! Is it just my imaginations, or are teachers more locked in to a given presentation style than business people? Maybe it has to do with teachers having total control over their students … teachers would probably laugh at that statement. Now that I think about it, control doesn’t explain it. Most of my athletic coaches were very versatile in their presentation and communication styles, and they certainly had control.
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Different Audience Temperaments Require Different Presentation Styles
I like this advice Brad, sure could have saved me some meetings that were more difficult than they should have been. It feels as if I’m involved with more of the informal discussions now than in the past. I wonder if that is part of a cycle – powerpoint allowed us to formalize presentations that used to be discussions and now we’re getting back to the discussion mode. Don’t know.
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Fred, Yes, the pendulum keeps swinging. It’s pretty hard to combine PP with conversation, but potentially it’s a great match.
[rq=3393,0,blog][/rq]Different Audience Temperaments Require Different Presentation Styles
Brad,
my experiences regarding presentations are more in the university field. As someone who had to listen to a presentation I often had the impression that the man or woman in front of me had been occupied to the last minute with getting his content ready and had not spent any time on how to present it. He or her showed power point files and simply read what was on them.
As someone who now and then gives a presentation I learned that the most important part is to have an eye for the audience and to be flexible. You have to look at the audience’s faces: Do they get what you say? Do you give an answer to their problems? Are they bored? Are they fascinated? Are you going too slow? Too fast?
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Hi Ulla, If you know your material well, it’s easier to concentrate on the audience, which, as you say, is so very important. It may feel a little silly to rehearse a presentation out loud to yourself, but it’s something I should do more often!
[rq=9816,0,blog][/rq]Different Audience Temperaments Require Different Presentation Styles
Hi Brad – Asking makes so much sense. I almost always prefer interactive learning but I know some people don’t.
Cath, I share your preference. But you are aware that many people would prefer a lecture format – that’s why it really helps to ask. Unfortunately, presenters sometimes don’t realize people may have a very strong preference one way or the other.
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Brad,
With respect to your point about teaching, I would say that you are probably right, and I think that the reasons for this would boil down to at least two key factors:
(1) Lack of variation in audiences.
I could only imagine that in a profession like yours, you would have had to at various stages make one on one presentations, presentations in front of a large group as well as presentations to audiences of varying ages, income levels, levels of professional education and technical expertise, and differing levels of seniority and authority within organizations, as well as presentations in settings which vary in terms of their level of formality.
Accordingly, in the area of sales presentations, it certainly makes a great deal of sense to develop the ability to customize one’s presentation style to suit the audience and the setting to a certain degree.
This is not so much the case in teaching. Personally, in my first three years of teaching in Korea, I taught in a middle school environment on an almost exclusive basis, and whilst some classes tended to have students of a higher level of confidence and achievement than others, there was not a great deal of variety in terms of the characteristics of each class (all students were of similar ages, racial and social economic backgrounds and from the same area).
In this environment, I have found that there was not a great need to adjust the temperament of the lesson since the temperament of the audience did not vary a great deal from class to class.
(2) Volume of class instruction time.
Teachers are typically teaching for twenty to thirty classes per week, and given this volume of presentation time, along with the workflow requirements associated with related tasks such as marking of tests and homework assignments, it would be very difficult from a workflow perspective to prepare presentations of a substantially different nature and style to each individual class. Accordingly, teachers need to develop some form of standardization in terms of their presentation approach if they are to manage adequately from a workflow perspective.
So yes, I would imagine that over time, it would be possible for these factors to manifest themselves in a somewhat reduced degree of flexibility in terms of presentation style as teachers progress throughout their careers.
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Hi Andrew, Excellent points about teachers, things I wouldn’t have about those factors that impact your presentation style. Do you look forward to returning to a business environment where you can have more flexibility?
Brad,
I look forward to returning very much, especially to having more open conversation in the workplace (open conversation with colleagues in Korea is very difficult due to language barriers).
I also look forward to being able to communicate at normal speed using regular words – at the moment, in order to facilitate student understanding, I have to speak very slowly in the classroom and I have to limit my speech to short sentences using very simple and basic words and expressions.
I certainly look forward to being able to speak normally again!
I am curious, and I think I may have asked you this before, but I can’t remember – throughout your professional life, have you often had to deliver presentations to audiences where a high portion of the audience were not native English speakers? If so, have you had to adjust your message in order to cater for limitations in English proficiency of your audience?
Andrew, Glad you are excited about your upcoming transition in vocation/location!
There are only two situations I can think of when I had to deal with language.
The first was in my sales career, where I had occasion to work with people in the Chicago market whose first language was Spanish, Korean, Polish, Chinese – quite an array. It was difficult. I was not prepared for it and struggled to make myself understood. It was quite frustrating not being able to understand the customer. But with practice I managed to get by.
Now, I’ve started a LinkedIn Group where people have joined from all over the world. Although they all write and most likely speak English quite well, I am very careful to avoid slang and idiom in my group postings, as I imagine those things would be difficult for members to understand.