When Presenting You Gotta Have Rhythm

Usually a speech or presentation is somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour long. Obviously, the longer the talk, the harder it is to keep the audience’s attention. Even worse, today, everyone has their internet connection to email, social media and apps in their hand, right there under the desk, while we are speaking. We have all become fervent multi-taskers, listening to someone speak while surreptitiously scrolling through our email feed, Facebook or LinkedIn or all three!

For the speaker to be persuasive there must be a transfer of passion and belief to the members of the audience. How does this work when we speakers are only getting the partial attention from those we wish to persuade? The irony is we have never had so many devices to aid our message communication and yet we are becoming less communicative thanks to our small screen obsession. Talking at others is not communication. Having our listener follow what we are saying, digest it and agree with it, must be the goal. Otherwise, why are we bothering? We could just send everyone the 10 key bullet points by email and we can all head off early to cocktails.

Words carry their weight through the delivery. I was reminded of this recently when some clever person put together a video of Donald Trump speaking, but dubbed him with a very polished Oxbridge style, British accent. The precise same words were there from the original speech by The Donald, but they were magically transformed into something that sounded more intelligent. How was that possible? The delivery is what made the difference and the dubbed speaker was very skilled and polished.

Many people imagine that the content of their talk will be sufficient to carry the day with their presentation and that emphasising delivery skills is simply dabbling in verbal voodoo. Such beliefs are often firmly held by technically oriented people, for whom proof, evidence, statistics and data are sacrosanct, solid and sacred. The weight of the evidence is all we need to persuade others. Not true!

“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it matter?”, is one of those cool, Zen hipster questions some people like to throw around. Here is another version: “If your evidence was compelling, but nobody was paying close attention, would it matter?”. The answer is obviously “Yes, it matters”. The degree of difficulty in being heard in a cacophonous, blue screen focused world is increasing everyday. We have to rise to the task.

Let’s presume that the presentation’s opening has been well designed and is successful in grabbing the attention of even the most distracted audience. Before we get to the wrap up and call for Q & A, we have our main points to present. This number will probably range between three and five points. If it is a 40 minute speech, then we have roughly 30 minutes for the main body and so around 5 to 10 minutes per section of the speech. There may be main points and sub-points in each section, depending on the density of the topic.

We can take a bracket of 5 to 6 minutes as our framework for the speech. Every bracket needs to have a change of pace to keep our audience’s attention. Even within the same topic or sub-topic, we need to switch gears and vary the delivery. This is not something we leave to happenstance – we plan this from the very start.

We might introduce a powerful visual effect be it on screen or in the room using a prop. I used a rolled up Japanese scroll to great effect in a speech. I wanted to unfurl the scroll so it would drop quickly and reveal what was written there. I attached some small weights to the bottom of the scroll to have it make a slight snapping sound for even more dramatic effect. 

On the scroll was written “DatsuO NyuA” (脱欧入亜), which was a play on words reversing a Meiji era slogan of Japan turning away from Asia and going toward European civilization. I was making the point that my country of Australia was moving away from Europe toward Asia. I could have just said so in words, but the scroll drop was much more powerful.

On another occasion, I was making the point about Australia being as safe a Japan, because of the similar strict gun control laws. Hidden in my suit jacket I had a plastic replica Magnum 38 handgun, which Clint Eastwood made so famous in his Dirty Harry movies. It has a very long barrel and is a physically big gun, so even when viewed at a distance, it has visual impact. I slowly pulled the gun out and held it in profile view to the audience, high above my head, saying “This is illegal in Australia, the same as in Japan”, to make my argument about the safety of sending their children to study in Australia.

Now our speech cannot become littered with too many such devices every five minutes, because we will be exhausting our audience.  However, there should be a change of pace at regular intervals to keep our audience with us. It might be a powerful quotation, a joke or a visual on a slide that grabs our attention. We are going for the mental equivalent of an audience stretch break every five minutes or so. The key is to plan the speech this way from the beginning, if we want our message to be heard.

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcast “THE Leadership Japan Series”, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.