Stage Fright is a common disease of our dynamic corporate world. Astonishingly, not many senior executives undergo a formal training in the art of public speaking or in making presentations. And only those senior executives who understand the importance of posture, pauses, blank spaces, facial expressions, flow and quality of words, variation of voice pitch and timings try to learn this art.

I take it as serious business.

After having attended a formal “Effective Speaking” training program in 1996 at the British Foreign Office training center in London, I was quite hopeful to develop my skills as an effective speaker and presenter. This three day program covered the above techniques in addition to a session on effective writing. I remember our facilitators kept repeating;

“There is only one tool that helps deliver good speeches or presentations – Practice, practice and more practice”.

In the past 15 years, I have delivered uncountable presentations and spoke at numerous public forums, conferences and seminars. And equipped with what I learnt at British Foreign Office Training, I also tried to analyze various fellow presenters.

My observations confirm that particularly case of senior executive that did not go through a purpose-designed program, there always are three common key missing links:

- Control on body movements
- Voice variation
- Expressions

In my opinion, one cannot doubt the knowledge and quality of contents of an expert speaker. However if the above ingredients are missing, it is highly likely that your audience will lose interest. I have also seen that extensive and complicated presentations also cause severe damage to presenter’s ability to engage audience. I have also observed that some presenters keep going in the flow of their thoughts, and in trying to impress their audience forget that a normal human has a short attention time span. In my opinion, if your listeners can not retain 25% of what you have said – “you have failed to deliver your message”.

Let’s discuss the common what can be done to avoid “Presentation Disasters”:

Understand your audience:

Highly important. One must not prepare a presentation without knowing the audience. Try to gauge the level of education, expertise, areas of interest, issues faced, and then only develop your presentation. This is the only way to keep your audience engaged throughout.

Write from your heart: Often I have seen people delivering presentations or speeches written by others. For trained and experienced presenters, this is okay, however if you have not contributed towards developing the presentation or speech, speaking from your heart will be too challenging, hence creating an impact too will not be possible.

Avoid reading from paper: I am not a fan of reading from a written paper. Fine to do it only in case of a specific government level speech or expressing point of view, but for any other presentation, if you read from a paper, you are inviting a reputational disaster!

Practice: Okay, here is the key – as I mentioned above, for making highly effective presentations, extensive practice is unavoidable. And when I talk about practice, I am not only suggesting “speaking practice” but also reviewing the flow and carefully thinking about expected questions and how to respond to these questions. Surprisingly, very few presenters follow this strict rule.

I have also seen presenters struggling with technical glitches, ask yourself:

How difficult to have an additional soft copy of your presentation and a printed version? How difficult it is to check the microphone volume? How difficult it is to control the lights at the stage to avoid blindness?

And the final word “Your audience do not know what you would tell them next, so if you have forgotten a point, keep moving on, they won’t notice it”.

If you follow these points, you will be repeatedly performing better.

Happy presenting!!

Validation is a crucial exercise. We do all sorts of things in life, yet it’s the things we do that find favour amongst others, especially others we richly respect, that compels us to continue to do the things we do.

I found reassurance in this fact recently when I read one of the most respected and time-honoured pastors in Perth give his blessing to those, like I, who minister in the ether. Those of us engaged in speaking about God using internet tools like blogs, Facebook and Twitter etc can safely look to our elders who’ve preceded us in this work.

And when I cast my mind over some of these local champions of faith I thought of three (amongst many) that have made such an impact on the immediate world around them. These are Pastors Margaret Court, Phil Baker and Graham Mabury. The latter-most is the person who’s effectively blessed the practice of cyber-discipleship and cyber-evangelism. (I’d call myself more passionate regarding the former than the latter.)

But, let us get it into context. This is why I love the Bible–the words never change (though our meaning for those words can change due to our growth with God).

Graham Mabury’s benedictory quote goes like this:

“God bless every one of you who is prayerfully, creatively, Holy Spirit powerfully being salt and light in cyber space. You are His witnesses in MySpace, Facebook and to the uttermost blog on the net. Go into all the [virtual] world and make disciples, and He will be with you to the end of the [technological] age”[1] –Technologically ‘enhanced’ paraphrase of Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20.

This unreserved ‘blessing’ does not come without qualification. We who do this are to do so considerately, and with respect and fairness i.e. prayerfully. We who do this are to do it in a way that hopefully inspires and enlarges people’s lives and their visions of life i.e. do it creatively. We who do this are finally to do it in a way that is powered by the Holy Spirit, for we cannot be salt and light to the world without living a spiritually-congruent ‘called’ life.

Who knows what medium we’ll be using in 5-years, let alone twenty. Let us hope we can urge those ambassadors of God to also be prayerful, creative and led by the Spirit in the way they do ministry. Most importantly, however, because we are ‘in attendance,’ let us carry the present baton with distinction.

Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

[1] Graham Mabury, “On air with Graham Mabury” in The Advocate (June 2009 edition), p. 4. www.theadvocate.tv Graham Mabury presents his program on Perth’s 6PR (882AM) every weeknight from 8:00 pm to midnight. He has also been pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church for many years.

Public speaking is rarely what we want it to be. More often than not fear, sweat and anxiety overwhelm us, leaving us shaking like a five-year old in front of a reprimanding teacher. The uneasiness that you experience before and during public speaking can make your presentation a big mess.

Don’t let a churning stomach and sweaty palms disrupt, or even worse, destroy your speech. While it’s not possible to completely eliminate your nervousness, improving your presentation skills is still possible once you learn a few tactics to control your nervousness.

Understand How Nervousness Manifests Itself

Unless you know what ruins your speech, how can you work on improving your presentation skills? The strange thing about speech nervousness is that it can take on different faces. It can be expressed through physical uneasiness, but it can also interfere with your language. People who are anxious about their speech often stammer, shake uncontrollably or have a squeaky voice, messing up their speech.

This is often a self-fulfilling prophecy: you focus so much on what might go wrong that you eventually make it happen. However, if you understand why and how your nervousness is expressed then you can easily learn to tame it and start improving your presentation skills.

Break Free From Your Nervousness

The first thing you should do is change your attitude towards public speaking. Understanding how deeply nervousness interferes with your public speaking success will give you a good perspective on how important it is to overcome it.

Control, Don’t Try To Eliminate

People set themselves up for failure when they try to completely eliminate their uneasiness. Even the most experienced, top-notch speakers will tell you they’re still feeling that subtle (or not so subtle) nervousness before their speech. And it’s fine too.

The key to adequately calming your nerves is to realize you cannot entirely and irreversibly eliminate them. Remember, improving your presentation skills means minimizing nervousness impact, not banishing it completely.

Be Prepared

Being fully prepared for you speech will sooth your nerves. You gain confidence when you know you can anticipate and handle any incidents during your speech. Get familiar with the speech room and its equipment. Network with your audience to remind yourself that they’re only human beings and not really that scary after all. Practice your speech until there’s no room for mistakes. Have alternatives for cases when something goes wrong, such as a forgotten point, a confusing conclusion, or a slide show being stuck.

Just Breathe

Being conscious of your breathing a few minutes before your speech will calm your nerves and give your lungs plenty of air to release all the built-up tension accumulated over the last few days. Deep breathing will improve your lung power and make you more alert thanks to better brain oxygenation.

Relax Your Mouth Muscles

Have you ever wondered why cats always seem so peaceful? They meow constantly. While you shouldn’t walk around your preparation area meowing around other speakers, you can still master the silent meow. This is something halfway between a yawn and a meow movement. Placing your hand over your mouth will conceal your trick of relaxing your mouth muscles for better articulation and freedom.