29th February 2012 proved to be quite a big day
for me. Not only was it the first presentation I’ve had to give in quite a
while, but the purpose of the presentation was to introduce the principles and
concept of Knowledge Management to our Research team leaders, with a view to
introducing KM over the next few months.
Some people take presentation and public speaking in their
stride – I’m very envious of this ability! Over my nearly thirty-year career,
I’ve had to get up and talk to people from time to time, and for me, it doesn’t
seem to get any easier. No matter how thoroughly I prepare, I’m always nervous
on the day. On this occasion, the self-imposed pressure was increased by the
feeling that I had this one chance to get my message across – I’d introduced the
principles of KM to my senior manager before Christmas, and he was keen to
spread the word further. This is an opportunity for me to raise my profile at
work, and work more closely with the Research team and others across the
company.
So, how did I approach the task in hand? I read blogs on
public speaking and presentations, and attended a seminar on presentation
skills. I went to a talk on “Confidence in the Workplace”, and read presenter
Kate Atkin’s book , “The Confident Manager”. I also drew lessons from the
recent NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) course I’d attended. On the practical
side, I worked hard to make my presentation relevant and interesting, flagging
up the benefits of KM early on and reiterating them at the end. I’m afraid I
DID use bullet points on quite a few slides, but not many on each one, and I
definitely did not read them out!!
One of the blog posts I’d found very interesting and useful
was Bethan
Ruddock’s post on using scripted presentations. I really identified with
this from Bethan’s post:
“I’d love to be able
to talk off the cuff, come up with apt and informative points based on minimal
notes, but I can’t. No matter how many times I practice, if I don’t know
exactly what I’m going to say next, I go all of a flutter, and end up saying
nothing but ‘umm… errr… umm’.”
This is exactly my problem, and for a long time I toyed with
the idea of doing my presentation from a script. In the end, I didn’t, but
having written a script really helped me to get into my head some of the
phrases and terminology I wanted to use. I rehearsed using my script several
times, then decided it wasn’t going to work for me (partly because I knew the
presentation would take place in a small room, sitting around a table, and it
would be so obvious if the script was in front of me!!). I tried rehearsing
with nothing at all, and was pleasantly surprised to find that, as long as the
slides were in visible, the words were coming. Not always fluently, but I
thought I should be able to get by. There were a few key phrases I wanted to be
sure to have at my fingertips, so I wrote those out to refer to, in case I
needed them.
The big day arrived, and I woke up with the familiar knot in
my stomach. Actually I was quite pleased with myself for getting this far
without one – in the past I’ve started to feel nervous earlier than that! The
presentation was booked for 3 pm, so I had to get through the rest of the day,
and get some productive work done, before it started.
Finally, there we were, in the meeting room; I was
introduced, I opened my mouth and the words came out. Sometimes not exactly as
I would have wanted them to, but no-one left because of it! The slides worked,
and I only referred to my notes once. I’d forgotten at the start to invite
questions and interruptions at any time, and when I did so part-way through, I
got one straight away, and dealt with it with no problems.
There was a useful discussion when I’d finished, and we
agreed that I would meet individually with each of the attendees as a next
step, to find out what their individual concerns and issues are, with respect
to Knowledge Management within the team.
What did I learn from the experience?
- No matter how well I prepare for presentations, I may have to accept the fact that I will always feel nervous beforehand. Two people I’ve spoken to since have said this is a good thing! I tried hard to identify what exactly I was nervous about, and still haven’t been able to answer that fully. So – recognise it, accept it and move on!
- Once I’d started, it was easier to relax and enjoy it. I’ve noticed this before, too, and it’s something to remember when I’m feeling nervous beforehand. From my NLP reading, I’m convinced that because I’ve got into a pattern of thinking “I hate doing presentations and always feel nervous and get tongue-tied”, this is my automatic response whenever I’m asked to give a presentation. Pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy!
- One of the tips I picked up from the seminar I attended on giving presentations was to do with breathing. It’s obvious really, but if you don’t breathe properly, the lack of oxygen to the brain can impede clear thinking. I made a real effort to take some deep breaths before I started, and took my time to breathe when I could feel myself gabbling a bit!
- There’s not much I would have changed about how things went, but I will ensure next time that I mention at the start that questions and interruptions are fine (if that’s the case).
- If nothing else – this went well and was a good confidence booster for next time!
Useful links:
Bethan Ruddock’s post on presenting, mentioned above (and
links within it): http://bethaninfoprof.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/presenting/
Excellent blog on presentations/public speaking:
Kate Atkin’s book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Confident-Manager-Confidence-Communication-Successful/dp/1906316155
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