QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FROM 19 JANUARY 2011 WEBINAR SPEAKING WITH CONFIDENCE: THE THREE PILLARS OF GOOD COMMUNICATION

Q: Do you have any advice how to control nerves when speaking / presenting? A: If you are prepared technically that is a huge help to controlling nerves and that means being warmed-up vocally. It is important to do breathing, voice and diction exercises beforehand. Some exercises to help you have been provided with this webinar. Also there comes a point when you need to stop, think about yourself and consider the audience. They need to be in a position of comfort to receive your message the last thing they want to be doing is worrying about the presenter so start thinking more about the audience and less about yourself and how you are feeling. Lots of good preparation will build confidence and reduce anxiety.

Q: Is it necessary that the presenter is very knowledgeable in the subject about which they are presenting. Is a deep study required on the subject matter of presentation? A: When you are asked to speak, it is because you generally know our subject very well. It would be foolish to try and speak on a subject that youre not familiar with. Back to preparation. Prepare well and know your subject. Most presentations are followed by a question and answer session be prepared for it think about every type of question you might be asked. Q: Can you advise us how to handle delivering bad news / a bad story (eg, poor financial results)? A: Resist any temptation to deliver bad news in a light-handed manner. However, dont be heavyhanded. This is where Status comes into play. You need to adopt a mid-level neutral status physically vocally and emotionally to give bad news this will automatically help you to empathise with those receiving the information. People receiving bad news may very well be in a fragile state emotionally and youll need to be straightforward, clear, open and honest with them. Smiling through this kind of communication is probably not a good idea. Q: What do you do if you notice you start losing the attention of the audience? A: If you are loosing the attention of your audience it will almost certainly be because you have not prepared properly. Make sure that you have constructed and edited your material well before you deliver it. Make sure you have fully rehearsed its delivery and preferably in front of someone whose opinion you value. They will let you know if you are going to loose your audience. If you do lose them stop! Dont be afraid of a short bit of silence it will help you compose yourself and collect your thoughts and it will allow your audience to settle and re-focus. Q: When I address and audience and try to maintain eye contact with them, I tend to loose focus and concentration about what I am about to say. Is there any way of keeping your concentration while connecting with the audience? A: Focus and concentration are crucial when presenting. A random distribution of eye contact is essential. Make sure you dont focus on one person too often as they will feel uncomfortable, and your audience will see that you are using one person as an emotional prop. Make sure you look at people randomly around the room. This needs to be rehearsed. Its back to preparation. The more you rehearse your presentations the more familiar you become with your material and the more you are able to connect personally with your audience. Rehearse dispensing your second circle of concentration around the room. You can even make decisions about exactly when you are going to switch your circle of concentration. When you have made these decisions and rehearsed their

execution you will be able to maintain your focus naturally. Always remember that your material and your delivery are equal parts of a performance. Q: How much emphasis would you place on hand gestures? A: I would not place great emphasis on hand gestures. If gestures feel natural to you they will quite probably look natural. If you are going to use hand gestures they must be an integral part of your thought processes and relate to what you are saying. Gestures should not distract from what you are saying: they should be used to emphasise the importance of what you are saying or to let your audience know how you feel about what you have to say. My advice is to be sparing with gestures and examine if they are actually connected with what you are thinking and feeling. Q: I dont know what to do with my hands while presenting, what do you suggest? A: Holding your hands together can often defuse the awkwardness you may sometimes feel. Getting a prop can also help a sheet of paper, your glasses if you wear them or a pen (but for goodness sake dont click the pen! That will irritate your audience.) I once saw the British newsreader John Sargeant speak holding a folded sheet of paper. He looked very comfortable and we never did get to know what was written on the piece of paper if indeed there was anything written on it! That folded piece of paper was his comfort blanket. Q: How do you handle a question that you don't have an answer? A: Honestly. You tell them that you dont know the answer. Dont make up an answer just for the sake of it. You tell them that if they give you their business card you will find out the answer to that question for them as soon as you can. Or that youll talk to Y person who is the expert in that field and can will email them / contact them later with the answer. Dont say you dont know the answer to their question if it really is a question to which you should know the answer! Make sure you are prepared beforehand, and have thought about all the different sort of questions (and the answers) that the audience might ask. Q: Is it best to use handouts or not when making a presentation? A: I dont see anything wrong in using handouts if you feel that your audience will benefit from some written information. I think it is wrong to give the handouts at the beginning of / during your presentation because that will take the audience focus away from you and what you have to say. Give handouts at the end, but do tell people at the start of your presentation that you will provide handouts at the end. Q: I have been told in a presentation, the body language and voice are actually more important than content. Would you agree? A: No I think they have equal importance. It is true that sometimes we dont remember what people have said to us but we remember how they made us feel and that is done by the unspoken non-verbal leakage and the pitch, tone and speed of delivery. But our story is equally as important as how we tell it. Q: I tend to lose my voice when explaining the simplest of things to people higher up in the hierarchy at work. How can I stop that from happening and maintain substance in my speech? A: Status! Status! Status! When you inhabit the middle ground of status this will not happen to you. Those higher up in the hierarchy will find you open, accessible, appealing and strong and that includes your vocal status. Q: How can you overcome low self-esteem / low confidence when presenting? A: Status and esteem are two very different things that are nevertheless inextricably linked. Esteem is how we feel about ourselves status is how other people perceive us. If you want to increase your self-esteem you must check that you are in a mid-level of status with your communication that way people will view you favourably and your confidence and esteem will grow. Its a very simple equation.

Q: Sometimes when presenting, I tend to lose focus (start thinking something else) or go into too much detail. How can I avoid doing this? A: Prepare properly. It sounds like you havent made firm decisions about exactly what you are going to say and that you certainly havent edited your material at all because you are putting new things in as you go along! Decide on the route you are taking stick to it and rehearse sticking to it. That will help you focus. Live in the now, dont drift off into areas you have not previously thought about your audience will not be interested. Q: How distracting are words like errrrr and ummmm in presentations? And how can you stop yourself from using them? A: Very distracting. It is known as audible pausing. The only reason we say errrr and ummm in everyday life is because we are afraid that someone will take our turn at speaking. When we are giving a presentation nobody is going to do that so there is absolutely no need to do it! Once we understand that we are on the way to stopping doing it. We generally do this when we are searching for a new piece of information or linking one piece of information to the next. Be brave and use silence to do this. We do not need to fill the space with sound. Pauses are very effective. Rehearse them! Q: I've been told that you shouldn't put more than three bullet points on a Powerpoint slide. Do you agree with this, and should you include facts and figures in this rather that broad ideas? A: I am not a fan of PowerPoint presentations that contain great blocks of text on screen. In fact I think that is a turn off for any audience. If someone wants to expose me to that amount of print I would rather they send it to me in an email. Presentations should inform and entertain, so limit the amount of text you include in your presentations to the absolute minimum. Remember that you are telling a story and say to yourself if I had to tell this story without technology how would I do it if there was a technological malfunction could I still tell this story? If the answer is yes (and the answer should be yes) you are on the way to creating a more engaging and entertaining PowerPoint presentation. I do understand that in the world of finance you often need to show the facts and figures but lets not forget that those facts and figures are telling us a story. Sometimes, even in the most analytical of worlds images can be extremely powerful! Q: Youve mentioned that preparation is key to good communication. Do you have any tips on preparing for a presentation? A: Yes - good preparation is everything. I think a great help when preparing is to find the end first find your conclusion your objective. Decide where you want to take your audience to and what you want them to take away. Make decisions about how you want your audience to feel at any given point in the presentation particularly at the end. Then edit, edit and edit again! Remember less is more! Dont give them everything save some material for the Q & A.

Q: Can you give some tips of how to apply the three pillars of good communication (story, status and focus) in an interview situation? A: Whether talking to one person or presenting to a large group, the principals of great communication are the same, only the size of performance varies. You have to have a good story and you need to be able to tell it well. That means adopting mid-level status physically, vocally and emotionally. Try not to answer questions too quickly. Sometimes it helps to give a slight beat before responding. This gives value to the question being asked it demonstrates consideration in the response it shows respect for the person asking the question. Prepare! Think through every conceivable question and have a response ready. Use first circle of concentration to give consideration and spontaneity to your answers.