Jerry Seinfeld once commented as part of his routine that the number one fear is public speaking, with the second fear being death. As Seinfeld observes, “if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
All modern technology has not completely eliminated this fear from Humanity, it has provided solutions to help mitigate this terror.The most popular of these public speaking crutches comes in the form of a software package produced by Microsoft called PowerPoint. Now people can fill these slides with graphics, data points, and Interesting transitions. No longer do we have to feel the intimidating gaze of a room full of people staring at our every move. instead we can diverting attention to the glowing screen above.
As we’ve become more and more accustomed to this digital crutch, we become more dependent on the technology to really drive a presentation skills then relying on the age-old traditions of storytelling.
Storytelling? BUT…
Sure, a rendition of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” might not be appropriate for the budget review meeting. There are ways to keep your audience from glossing over and entering that state of consciousness where the eye’s remain open and fixated but it is obvious that Elvis has left the mental building. Before I go any further, let’s address one common misconception.
“I’m not a storyteller.”
Um… have you ever been at a dinner and shared an experience or funny event that happened to you? Have you ever told a joke, any joke (no judgement here)? Then you my friend, are a storyteller. Of course the situations where you find yourself sitting around the table swapping tales of life’s mishaps and adventures is a lot less formal than being on the spot in the middle of a conference room with only the sound of your voice to break the awkward aura.
Build Your Presentation on the Basics
If you are familiar with the concept of “the Hero’s Journey,” a reoccuring theme that has been identified in all popular stories, both modern and ancient (and the underlying plot for just about every movie in Hollywood), then you might start to wonder how all this can connect to your budget presentation. We’re not going to go so deep into the constructing of the story. We’ll take it even back to the most basic story construct.
Hero – Villain – Conflict – Resolution
That’s it. Look at what you need to present, identify who the hero is, who the villain is, where the conflict appears and what the resolution is. Bada boom, bada bing. And thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this…
“But what about the budget presentation? I don’t see a villain, hero, etc. It doesn’t work in this situation. You’re so full of sh…”
It does work!
So you have a budget presentation… have you been hitting your budget numbers? No? There’s your villain! Your conflict, the company needs to get the numbers back up. The hero could be anywhere. It could be an idea that you have, the marketing department’s new campaign, engineering’s new widget, etc. The resolution, to unleash the hero to save the day!
But maybe the budget numbers are great, record sales and everyone loves the company! Well the hero has been identified, but there may be a villain lurking within the profit and loss statement waiting to pounce. Competitors gaining market share, economic downturn, or any number of challenges could be the culprit. The conflict then becomes the ability to prepare for the unknown.
You don’t have to blatantly and publicly identify who the heroes and villains are in your “story.” If you know who they are and are thinking in terms of “what story does this tell?” any and every presentation you give will have improved tremendously and your audience will be grateful for it… even if they don’t know exactly what they are grateful for.
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