DON'T BE FRIGHTENED OF FEAR

Well, that’s easy to say but harder to do.

It was on Wednesday that I got really angry the Times for its smug insensitivity. They’d run a piece about “glossophobia” – that’s the fear of public speaking. As someone who helps people with this problem I feel sympathy with anyone who suffers from it.

So what made me cross was not the news piece on page 5 (of which more in a second) but the leader – yes they actual wrote a leader about it – which said it was not obvious why people should feel anxious about public speaking. Try talking to the 75% of people who do feel bad about it. Even Steven Spielberg said he thought it would be the next topic on which he’d do a frightening film.

I’ve worked with people who when confronted with the prospect of speaking to a hundred of their peers forget their own name. That’s an extreme version of drying up. Others feel ill. Others simply want the ground to swallow them up.

The Times leader writer doesn’t get that.

Nor did the Editor of the Times either seem to get that his leg was being playfully pulled. The piece on page 5 winningly headlined “Speaking in public ranks worse than death for most” had been derived from a dodgy piece of promotional research by OnePoll who describe themselves as “creative researchers” and to go a step further as the “pulse of the people”.

Creative research like creative accounting may need to be treated a little sceptically.

In their research fear of public speaking came ahead of being buried alive and death as something to be avoided.  Holes in doughnuts and woolly jumpers were regarded as pretty frightening too.  Women were more frightened of public speaking than men.  And dogs were absolutely incapable of doing it at all (I made that up.)

I want to consider this “pulse of the people” idea.

52% of people think cupcakes are a bit rude (squashy like well you know…) and breadsticks are hardly ever bought by men (penis envy). Ed Miliband is regarded as a sex symbol in Manchester (those eyes staring with unrequited passion) and research proves Pepsi makes you fart whilst Coca Cola doesn’t. And 90% of Times readers believe what they read.

This is not a hallucination: this is the pulse of the people.

But cutting through all this I strongly believe that teaching people to speak with confidence and with wit and charm is as important as teaching them to read.

But not as important as Britain’s most serious newspaper stopping behaving like a stand up comedian.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY...

Why presenting well is worth more than an MBA today

We are declaring “death to boring” in presentations wherever they happen – whether to the public, to employees, to colleagues or to investors. Dull is dead. Welcome to world of engagement and entertainment.
This new world of presenting involves a series of realisations. That the audience is always right and they’re all that matters. That jargon is out. That conversation is in and rhetoric is out. And that the long-fangled speech has been replaced by the 12 minute chat.

TED has been a major influence on this. TED as you probably know and if you don’t (www.ted.com/) is an American not-for-profit dedicated to having good guys standing up and spreading ideas worth spreading. It has inspired some of the best speeches/presentations I’ve seen.

But it doesn’t stop here. We had that great “pitcher” of new products, Steve Jobs. We have 5x15 in the UK.(a  similar concept to TED.)  All over the place we’re seeing “keynotes”, conferences and debates.

Speaking in public is big news right now.

Vivid opinion and engagement is in. Dull ideology and company policy is out. We’ve created a world where people are standing up and talking. But that’s really, really hard to do well. You need coaching. You need confidence. And you need to be great. The word “competent” doesn’t exist in this tough world. You are brilliant or you’re  forgotten.

It really is just a fifteen minute opportunity.

My new book Brilliant Presentation (now in its 3rd Edition) published by Pearson (the one with the BLUE cover) describes this world and how to win in it. It takes you through the world of presenting and concludes:
Slides still work – if done really well. Bullet Point is a problem unless you are a bully and want to be seen as such. The big message is about storytelling. In the rush to PowerPoint (of which I remain a fan –when it’s used well) we forgot the primal art.

2011 and beyond will demand an ececutive doing more than just standing up there spouting numbers. He’s expected to have a strong narrative flow, lots of colour, anecdotes (research is not enough), what people want to know is what really lies behind the numbers, how the heartbeat of the business feels. In short he’s expected to be an engaging – no more than that - an enthralling teller of the story he’s directing.

The art of presenting has never been more important. 
It’s really much more important than that MBA.
It’s career defining.

Brilliant Presentation 3rd Edition (Blue Cover – just out)
www.colourfulthinkers.com