Being a manager means helping others, and themselves, to do the right things. A manager is not just someone who says what they want to do and waits for people to do it, they also set goals, inspire innovation, promote positive action and help the team find its way. leads to success. The only way to achieve any of this is through clear communication, in other words management needs to hone their public speaking skills.
This can be said to be the scariest skill. It haunts people before, during and even after the conversation ends. So what can you do to improve your public speaking and, by extension, your management skills? Below are some key points that the speakers have gathered over many years of working and would like to share with you.
“Knowing how to present well is important for leadership development because it helps you communicate your ideas to others effectively.”
Shares from speakers on how to give good presentations
“Don't dilute your message. Goals are essential to have a good presentation"
If you mix yellow and blue, you get green. If you mix yellow and red, you get orange. But if you mix red, green, blue, and some other colors, you'll have a mess. Speaking and presenting are the same. Too many ideas will dilute what you say and confuse the message you want to convey.
My first presentation tip is to always have a goal in mind. The objective will help define the structure and act as a thread that runs through the entire presentation.
When you have something to present in front of many people, don't rush into designing PowerPoint slides, but determine what you want to achieve through that talk. Do you want to introduce a new product or do you want employees to be excited about the company's new plans? What do you want your listeners to feel? What do you want to reveal? What do you want them to discover? Perhaps it's an interesting discovery, important research data, a new trend, or an "aha" moment. Be clear and let it guide you.
“Short, simple and clear is better than complex erudition”
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod to the world, he might have said something like: “Today, we are introducing a new portable music player that weighs just 170g, is the size of a sardine can, and has a capacity of large capacity, impressively long battery life and lightning-fast transfer speeds.” But no, he said: “iPod. A thousand songs in your pocket.”
Or when describing the MacBook Air, he could say “MacBook Pro is smaller, lighter with a glossy 13.3-inch LED screen, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution ensuring sharp images and a very flattering keyboard. ”. Instead, he walked on stage with an envelope, pulled out a notebook and simply said: “What is a MacBook Air? In short, it's the thinnest notebook in the world."
Obviously, using simple, clear, direct, easy to understand, and memorable language is extremely impressive, right?
Now let's look at one of your recent presentations. Does it stand out with simple, specific, status-worthy titles? Is the content simple enough that a 7-year-old child can understand? Do you contextualize data and statistics in a way that is clear and easy to remember? Have you cut out all the jargon, including overused, meaningless terms like “integration”, “platform”, “lead”, “synergy”…?
Complex ideas are difficult to understand and easy to forget. When presenting in a management role, you need to make the complex as simple as possible.
“Tell your story in 3 acts”
Contrary to the traditional way of presenting "Hello everyone, my name is..., my company operates in the field of... today I'm here to talk about... my company's products/services have many differences." …and why you should buy my product/invest in my company right now…”, famous speakers rely on a 3-act structure. Just like a play has a development, climax and conclusion, their speeches will take the listener on an exciting journey consisting of 3 stages: the reason why the listener should care, the idea or product. how it will make their lives better and what actions they need to take.
This good presentation is effective because the first thing you need to do when standing in front of a crowd is to get their interest.
“Lead listeners with a message, not with a set of slides”
Just as a drunk person uses a lamppost for support rather than illumination, most people use PowerPoint to repeat information rather than illustrate their own arguments.
If you use slides in your talk, make sure they work effectively. These are the secrets that the best speakers use:
- Create slides after preparing your talk, not before;
- Use slides in visual form (prioritize images and diagrams over text). Slides should be a note-taking tool to emphasize key points rather than repeat what is being said;
- Check that each slide can be read and understood in 3 seconds so the audience can return to listen to you.
“Practice makes perfect”
Of all the great presentations, this is certainly the most overlooked. Have you ever thought, “I should have been more prepared” or “Maybe I should have written everything down or read it in person.” Do you wonder why such thoughts appear in your mind?
This is because you haven't practiced well or maybe even aren't sure about the presentation. There are too many emotions appearing at the same time, such as nervousness and excessive worry, making your mind completely blank.
We all know that practice makes perfect. You will never run a marathon without training. So there's no reason not to prepare carefully for an important speech.
When practicing for your presentation, you will have more confidence because you are familiar with the messages, know where you are lacking to correct, thereby making the content more complete by cutting out the things that are not. necessary. In addition, you can control body language and complete tasks on time.
How long do you need to practice? If your presentation lasts 20 minutes, you can rehearse continuously for 80 minutes. Accordingly, if 30/40/50 minutes of presentation will be equivalent to 90 minutes/100 minutes/110 minutes of practice.
Rehearsal may also depend on your level of satisfaction and therefore time may vary. In short, the more you practice, the better your results.
From presenting to employees or customers to giving keynote speeches or communicating with investors, managers are constantly doing some form of public speaking. It's not easy, but there are still good ways to present that help us become attractive speakers if we practice hard.
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