How to manage unruly question time

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A while ago I posted about various ways to manage hostile Q&A sessions.

There was one powerful technique that I missed out.

Ask each questioner to state their name before they ask their question or make a comment. They’re likely to behave better.

This technique was inspired by research on the way people behave when there are mirrors around. I haven’t been able to find a link to the original research but here’s a quote from a New York Times article:

Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to be less inclined to cheat, compared with control groups performing the same exercises in nonmirrored settings.

Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae, Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that people in a room with a mirror were comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes about, for example, sex, race or religion.

“When people are made to be self-aware, they are likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,” Dr. Bodenhausen said. “A byproduct of that awareness may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward more desirable ways of behaving.”

In Yes: 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion Robert Cialdini and his colleagues report on research which shows that asking people their name can have the same effect.

Anonymity allows people to behave in ways that are socially disapproved of - and get away with it. If you ask people to state their name before they ask a question or make a comment during a public consultation meeting they are no longer anonymous. They become personally accountable for the way they behave in their interaction with you. It makes sense then, that they are likely to behave better.

The power of anecdotal evidence

In your business presentations, you may be tempted to stick to hard, proven facts and statistics to persuade your audience. But a powerful anecdote can trump objective facts.

The power of the anecdote

1. Vaccinations and autism

A recent Scientific American article by Michael Shermer “How Anecdotal Evidence can Undermine Scientific Results” discusses the medical controversy over vaccinations and autism. Many parents are convinced that their children developed autistic symptons as a result of a childhood vaccination. There is currently no scientific proof that this is so and many scientific arguments that show that it is highly unlikely. Despite that many parents continue to strongly believe in a causative link.

Michael Shermer explains:

The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns.

So our brains naturally make connections from anecdotal evidence -even though there is no scientific proof.

2. Chronic causes and high-profile emergencies

Further evidence of the strength of anecdotal evidence is the struggle that charities have in funding vital ongoing work such as fighting malaria and AIDS,  compared to the deluge of funds that pour in for high profile crises, such as the Asian Tsunami or Hurricane Katrina.

Here are the statistics for the estimated number of people who die each month from chronic causes:

AIDS   250,000

Famine 150,000

Malaria 80,000

Infectious diarrhea 180,000

TOTAL  660,000 deaths each month

By contrast the number of people who died in the Asian Tsunami was 280,000 and Hurricane Katrina, 1,093. When there’s a crisis, the emotional video footage and tragic stories motivate us to donate money. The sobering statistics can’t compete.

Combining statistics and anecdotes

You would think that combining statistics and an emotional anecdote would be even more powerful.

However, a fascinating experiment reported in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick shows that mixing analytical information with an emotional anecdote may nullify the power of the anecdote. In the research at Carnegie Mellon University, George Loewenstein and his co-researchers compared the effect of three different charitable appeals for poor people in Africa:

1. Statistical information on the plight of people     Gave $1.14
2. Story and photo of a 7 year old girl called Rokia  Gave $2.38
3. Both the statistics and the story                           Gave $1.43

So the group who read about Rokia gave twice as much as the first group who only saw the statistics. And the third group gave only slightly more than the first.

The researchers followed up with a second experiment using the Rokia story. Before giving people the story to read, they either primed them to think analytically (had them work out a maths problem) or primed them to think emotionally (asked them to describe how they felt when they heard the word “baby”).

1. Primed to calculate   Gave $1.26
2. Primed to feel           Gave $2.34

An additional follow-up experiment I would be interested in would be looking at the impact of offering statistics after the emotional story. Would that lessen the amount of giving? On their blog, Chip and Dan Heath look at an example of exactly that - a video called The Girl Effect which moves from a story of a single poor girl to the statistics that she represents (I blogged about it a few days ago). Chip and Dan Heath praise what they call the micro-to-macro approach.

So if you’re combining anecdotes with statistics, ensure the anecdote comes first, then follow up with the statistics to give credibility.

Lessons from Cialdini #2: How to persuade using the power of the negative

Pop psychology culture says focus on the positive. But if you do, you’re missing out on huge persuasive power.

In Yes: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion Robert Cialdini and his co-authors explore the concept of “loss aversion“. Loss aversion means that most people would rather avoid a loss than receive a benefit. You can use the power of loss aversion by thinking carefully about how you frame your messages.

This was demonstrated by researchers from the University of California. They told one group of homeowners that they could save 50 cents a day by carrying out energy efficiency improvements in their home. They told a second group of homeowners that they would continue to lose 50 cents a day if they did nothing. The second group were 300% more likely to carry out the improvements.

How can you use the psychology of loss aversion to persuade your audience:

1. Frame benefits in terms of loss

Let’s say you’re presenting to the senior management team of your organisation on the need to implement a new software system. Rather than talk about the time savings (a benefit) talk about the productivity loss that the organisation will continue to suffer if the software is not introduced.

2. Remind your audience of the problems they’re facing

We were working recently with a project manager in charge of implementing organisation-wide change. She was concerned that the management team weren’t doing enough to drive the project forward. She started her presentation by reminding the management team of a recent project that was behind schedule and at risk of failure because they weren’t driving it. Getting the audience to connect with current problems is an effective motivational tool.

3. Engage your audience with the consequences of doing nothing

We often work with public officials involved with emergency management. One of their major roles is motivating the public to “Be Prepared” for a major earthquake or flood. The most effective way of doing this is to paint a picture of what life might be like immediately after an earthquake for the unprepared - worried because they can’t contact members of their family, hungry because they have no emergency food supplies, unable to wash because of lack of water.

So don’t dimiss the power of the negative in your next presentation.

Lessons from Cialdini: what can we learn from hotel towels?

Robert Cialdini is recognised as an authority on persuasion. His latest book Yes: 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion co-authored with Noah Goldstein and Steve Martin has many nuggets for presenters. I’ll be reviewing these in a series of posts. Here’s the first one:

We are strongly persuaded by what people like us do.

In the book Cialdini and his co-authors outline a series of experiments on the cards in hotel bathrooms attempting to persuade us to reuse the towels. The standard appeal on these cards is to our concern for the environment. The authors experimented with changes to the wording on these cards. Here’s what they found:

• Guests who were told that most other guests reused their towels, were 26% more likely to reuse their towels than those who saw the standard message.
• Guests who were told that most other guests who stayed in their particular room, were 33% more likely to reuse their towels than those who saw the standard message.

So what does this mean when you are seeking to persuade in a presentation.

1. If other people are doing or supporting what you want your audience to do, bring that into your presentation. Here are some ways of doing that:

• find an endorsement from a credible expert that your audience knows and trusts
• use testimonials from people similar to your audience
• develop case studies of people/organisations that are similar to your audience
• use statistics to show how many people are using your product or taking action (this is taking it from the micro to the macro).

2. Be subtle about the way that you do this. If you tell people “Of course, you’re going to be persuaded by what other people have done” this will backfire on you. When Cialdini asked people whether other people’s behaviour influences their own, they insisted that it did not. We don’t like to think of ourselves as simply doing what other people do.

3. If you’re trying to persuade your audience not to do something, don’t focus on the number of people who are doing it. The implicit message that people will take away is that other people are doing it, and therefore it’s OK. Cialdini gives an example of a sign at Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park which said:

Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.

The book authors experimented with these signs. They used marked pieces of petrified wood along the trails to see how much visitors would steal. When there was no sign 2.92% of the pieces were stolen. When the sign above was used, 7.92% of the pieces were stolen! So despite the good intentions of the National Park management they were actually promoting the stealing of petrified wood.

Persuasion based on what other people do is called using “Social Proof”. As you can see it’s a powerful persuasive tool for using - with care and discretion - in your presentations.

In the next post in this series, I’ll look at the surprising results that Cialdini and his co-authors report on the use of negativity in persuasive messages.

How to multiply the power of a single anecdote

Anecdotes and examples engage people - but a discerning audience may object that they don’t prove anything. Combining the engagement of an anecdote with the credibility of numbers will multiply the effectiveness of both.

Watch this video produced by The Girl Effect to see the power of this:

Dan Heath has “deconstructed” the video on the Made to Stick blog. Here’s the point I want to highlight:

The approach they use is “micro –> macro”. First, they paint a picture of a single girl. They show how the investment has cascading effects in her family and in her community. Then, they shift to the macro. “Multiply that by 600 million girls in the developing world…” [The zooming-out effect with the dots is a nice touch to make this more concrete.] This micro/macro approach also works well for entrepreneurs — I’ve often seen entrepreneurs highlight a single, vivid customer situation and then switch to the macro (”Our market research shows that there’s a $1.2 billion market made up of 181,000 customers with the same needs as this one.”)

You can use this micro to macro technique in your presentations to harness the power of a single anecdote.

How to create authenticity - the inside-out approach

Be authentic, be yourself - that’s the advice of most public speaking and presentation experts. But what if your authentic self is not a particularly engaging presenter? And can you coach someone else to be a more engaging presenter and authentic at the same time?

The wrong way - focus on the outside

The wrong way to do this is to focus on what you can see - the outside. For instance tellling the person you’re coaching to smile more. The horrible result of this approach can be seen in this video of John McCain.

McCain’s smiles are plastered on - and disconnected with what he is saying. As many commentators said: “weird”. McCain’s smiles in this video are fake. Fake smiles and genuine smiles are controlled by different parts of the brain and they look different. The difference is subtle but we’re generally good at spotting it - try this test if you want to see how good you are (I scored 18 out of 20!)

The right way - focus on the inside

The right way to coach is to focus on what is going on inside. Get the presenter to connect with something inside that will produce what you want to see on the outside. We call this inside-out coaching. It isn’t always straightforward and you may need to try a couple of different ways before you find the right approach for the person you’re working with.

Let’s say that you’re coaching someone who is very low-key. And they’re like that in normal conversation as well - so you could say that they are being their authentic self. But that particular self is going to put an audience to sleep in minutes. Telling them to be more animated isn’t going to work - most likely they won’t be able to do it anyway - and if they do manage it - it’ll look forced and unnatural. Here are some inside-out approaches:

1. Get them to connect with something about the topic that interests them or that they think is important.

We sometimes work with people who think that their topic is boring and other people are bound to be bored by it. Ask them why this topic matters? What does interest them? Go deep into that aspect of the topic. At some point, they’ll forget themselves and start talking enthusiastically. Let them carry on for a minute or two - and then tell them that the way they were talking was great - and get them to transfer that way of being back to their presentation.

2. Ask them who they’d most like to share this information with - and then get them to imagine them as their audience.

Sometimes, a presenter may not be able to create any enthusiasm for presenting to a particular audience. Maybe there’s a different audience they’d love to share their knowledge with - children, graduate students…

3. Get them to talk about something else that they are passionate about.

OK. Sometimes they really can’t find anything they find interesting or important about the topic - and nobody they want to share it with. If the presentation can’t be cancelled - what next? Find out what they do care about, what they are enthusiastic about - and once they’ve captured that state of  being - transfer that to their presentation (yes, I know this isn’t totally authentic - but this is a last resort!)

4. Use video feedback.

People who are low-key are often concerned about looking silly if they show any passion or enthusiasm. By showing them what they look like when they are talking enthusiastically they’ll see that they can afford to let their enthusiasm show - without looking silly.

So how would I coach McCain? He seems totally disconnected from his words - there’s no difference in his tone or manner - whether he’s talking about Hillary Clinton as an inspirational role model for his daughters or Barack Obama as a formidable opponent. I would have him connect with what he’s saying - so that his tone and manner match the meaning of the words - naturally.

What are your approaches to helping people to be more engaging and authentic at the same time? You can add to this post in the Comments.

Three lessons from the art of copywriting

I believe that a great presentation starts with great content. The art of writing can teach us a lot about how to create that great content. Here’s a recent post on copywriting that I think presenters can learn from:

Three sticky ways to hold reader attention by Sonia Simone

Here are the three points that she makes:

1. Pair your copy with an arresting image
2. Use questions to capture and keep reader attention
3. Get nitty gritty.

How does this apply to presentations:

1. Pair your copy with an arresting image

In the presentation world I see many people use the first image that they find that seems to fit. Sonia reminds us to find images that evoke emotion and curiosity.

2. Use questions to capture and keep reader attention

We can use questions to get the audience thinking. But many presenters use questions awkwardly. Some people are desperate to get audience interaction and throw out unplanned questions just to get some feedback from the audience. These achieve nothing and can leave the audience bewildered. Questions should be carefully planned to get the audience to actively process information. So don’t make them too easy, don’t make them too hard. Test them out on a few people - you’ll be surprised at the variety of answers that come back. Then refine them to increase the likelihood that you’ll get the type of answers you want.

3. Get nitty gritty

Put in specific detail but don’t overdo it. This is a trap that many people fall into. In an earlier post Sonia shows how to do this without overdoing it.

Strip out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. You don’t have to take them all out, but these modifiers are more powerful when they’re used sparingly. Whenever you can, make adjectives unnecessary by using a more specific noun or verb. Experiment to see how much you can cut and still keep your meaning.

Before: The gleaming red motorcycle’s engine roared loudly as the bike raced down the street and turned the corner amazingly quickly.

After: The Ducati snarled around the corner.

I’ve subscribed to a number of writing blogs to improve my writing- and seen parallels with presenting. Here are the writing blogs I subscribe to:

Copyblogger by Brian Clarke

Probably the best known- and has excellent resources - dig into the archives for a complete writing course. Also has guest bloggers contributing  - that’s how I discovered the next one on the list.

Remarkable communication by Sonia Simone

I love Sonia’s straightforward simple style of writing. Occasionally strays from writing to give us lessons from life.

I’ve just subscribed to The Writers Bag by Steve Osborne - I’ll let you know later what I think of this one.

The four secrets to speaking with experts in the room

Many people who are otherwise confident presenters get nervous when they know that other experts will be in the audience. They think that when they’re the presenter they should know more about the topic than anyone else.

Some presenters focus so much on the other experts, that the presentation goes over the heads of everyone else in the audience.

Here are the secrets to speaking to an audience - with experts in the room.

1. You don’t have to know more than anyone else

Let go of the belief that you should know more about your topic than anyone else in the audience. That’s an unrealistic assumption and will set you up to be a nervous wreck by the time of the presentation.

2. Plan with the majority of the audience in mind

When you first start planning your presentation, plan with the majority of your audience in mind. Forget about the experts. Forget about the newbies.

3. Tweak for the newbies

Go through your presentation and look for any jargon, terms of art and acronyms that they might not instantly understand. Add an explanation. This will only take a few seconds and will ensure that they can stay on track with you.  Sometimes the experts in the room will say - oh I didn’t realise what that acronym stood for - so it can be useful for everyone.

4. Tweak for the experts

Let go of having to say something new or surprising to them. You can’t - they know all the facts and figures. And if you try and impress them in this way, you’ll quickly lose the rest of your audience. Instead impress them with they way that you explain your topic. For example, use a metaphor which hasn’t been used before. Have them say to themselves: “I hadn’t thought about it that way before” or “That’s an excellent way of explaining that concept.”

So you can deliver a presentation which is useful and engaging for every person in the room. What tips do you have for speaking with experts in the room?

You can learn to be a better presenter

Barack Obama is well-known for his speaking skills. But it was not always that way. Here are some comments on Barack Obama from his early days in politics:

From Time magazine:

[Obama's] delivery was stiff and professorial–”more Harvard than Chicago,” said an adviser who had watched Obama put a church audience to sleep.

From Chicago Magazine:

Ted McClelland, who covered Obama’s failed 2000 congressional bid for the Chicago Reader, recalls that back then Obama “was not real comfortable or confident as a stump speaker.” McClelland found him wonkish and aloof. “He was stiff and monotonous, and he spoke like a poli-sci professor-a pedantic lecturer who used lots of deadly boring, neutron bomb language.”

Obama has clearly put in some hard work to achieve his rhetorical brilliance. I strongly believe that any person can become a better speaker. You don’t have to be born with the talent. I’m evidence of that. I was a shy introverted teenager much more interested in horses than anything to do with people. It was through joining Toastmasters in my mid-twenties that I started to develop some skills.  In many areas of endeavour there is a debate on what is most important - innate talent or hard work. Through coaching hundreds of people to become better speakers, I believe that if you have the basic skill of carrying on a conversation with just one other person, you can also become a great speaker. But it does require application and hard work. Obama has come a long way in his speaking ability. And so can you.

Note: I’d love to see some videos of Obama’e early political speeches to see if he really was as bad as these comments make out - I searched for a couple of hours but with no luck.  If you know where to find one, please post the link in the comments!

Business presentations - don’t take performance too far

Is a business presentation like a performance? I believe we often take the comparison too far. Garr Reynolds has often noted that the similarities between the presenting and performing and in a post on Benjamin Zander, comments:

We often talk about presentations being conversations, which is what I believe they are. But they almost always have an element of performance to them as well.

I agree that for professional and highly-experienced speakers - performance is an element. But I don’t think it’s a useful concept for most business presentations.

Two reasons why thinking of a presentation as a performance is not useful

1. It puts pressure on the presenter

Many people are nervous about presenting. Thinking of the presentation as a performance puts more pressure on you and makes you more nervous. Thinking of the presentation as a conversation lessens that pressure. See yourself connecting to the individual people in the room, not delivering a performance to an audience. You’ll feel less nervous and as a result you’ll be more effective and enjoy the presentation more.

2. It makes the presenter less conversational

Many people change the way they normally talk when they get up to present - they go into “presentation mode” - and they lose the connection with their audience.  They’re thinking of the presentation as a performance and they can’t retain the conversational element. For most people being conversational and delivering a performance at the same time is quite tricky. It requires a lot of practice and coaching to be able to combine the two elements successfully. Focus first on being conversational and connecting with people in the audience. As you get more experienced and comfortable in front of an audience - you can start playing with adding performance to the mix. It will then be an addition to your conversational style - rather than supplanting it.

Two ways in which a presentation is like a performance

But there are ways in which a presentation is like a performance:

1. Presentations do require preparation and rehearsal

Thinking of your presentation as a conversation is not an excuse to wing it. A presentation does require preparation and rehearsal. If you think you can get away with winging it read this illuminating post on rehearsal from Nick Morgan.

The alternative, winging it, is never as good as you think it is.  And your audience won’t tell you the truth.

Unfortunately, what happens is that the speaker who wings it gets pumped full of adrenaline, comes charging off the stage and asks the first person he sees, ‘how was it,’ with a big smile on his face.  Only a churl would reply with, ‘well, it was disorganized, there were lots of minor screw-ups, and you kept making the same points over and over again’.  Most people say, ‘it was great!’ and the speaker think to himself, ‘That’s all right then; next time I’ll do it the same way.  Obviously I’m too cool to rehearse’.

2. Show your best front to the world

When something goes wrong in your presentation, don’t spend time catastrophising. Move on. My business partner and life partner, Tony, does some amateur acting. When he fluffs a line he knows he can’t afford the luxury of beating himself up - or he’ll fluff the next line as well. Sames goes with presenting.

So there are some ways in which a presentation is like a performance, but for most people, focus on being conversational first. You’ll feel less nervous and connect more with your audience.

See also my post on Conversational Presenting and Unlearning Presenting.

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