Presenters: Are you making these 2 critical mistakes in your presentations?

Are you a presenter who is making these two critical errors when you give a talk?

I recently attended a presentation with a team of two eager speakers. They had carefully prepared for their talk, but were unaware of two major points.

The first speaker came up to the podium, stood away from the mike, and asked,"Can everyone hear me?" Most people with hearing loss will not admit to it. One brave person, however, said "no". Ironically, the speaker did not hear him.  The speaker spoke clearly, but the volume was soft because of the large size of the room and his distance from the microphone, which dissipated his speech's sound waves. To make matters worse, the microphone was a uni-directional mike, which worked only when a person spoke directly into it. The speaker, however, constantly turned his head and body to look at the PowerPoint behind him. At those times, he was almost inaudible.

The second speaker spoke more loudly, but also turned frequently to look at the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint had 14 lines of type in a small font on it. The room was large, and the words were very hard to read in the back of the room.

What could the speakers have done to prepare better?

First, they could have printed out their Power-Point slides and looked at them instead of turning to look behind them at the slides on the screen. Then, whether the mike was uni-directional or omni-directional, they would have been heard by the audience.

Second, they could have easily moved the microphone closer to their mouths.

Third, they could have used a maximum of seven lines of font in a large size per slide.

Ten thousand baby boomers per day are turning 65. Hearing loss is occurring in 33% of those age 65 and 50% of those aged 75 and older.  It is also now occurring more frequently in those in their 20's, for the first time in history. 

Presenters cannot afford to ignore possible hearing and vision impairments in their audiences.  Make sure you use a microphone, face forward so people can hear or lip-read you, repeat any questions or comments from the audience before answering them, and use large size font. These things are necessary to reach your audience!

For more practical and easy strategies to giving a professional speech, click here.

Leadership development: Effective Meeting Management

Your supervisor tells you to be at a meeting. It's a discussion, but several people in the group do all the talking.  The rest of the group is silent. The meeting leader does not appear to notice this.  What is the impact of this on the group, and on the bottom line?

First, some meetings are to share important news, not to discuss matters. That's fine - if it only happens rarely. (Sharing news can also be done by e-mail.)

Second, a leader who allows many people to sit silently during discussions may not know why there is so little participation, what the cost of this is, and strategies to change this.

People are quiet for various reasons. Among them is a lack of interest in the topic, a lack of new information to share because the topic is ancillary to their job (and they may not be appropriate attendees), a fear of speaking in public (and a group to these people is considered to be speaking in public), hearing loss and a lack of certainty as to what was just discussed, or other reasons.

The cost to the company of minimal participation is considerable.  There is a Cost of Meeting Clock, which determines the cost based on the number of attendees, average hourly pay rate, and length of the meeting. This determines the entire financial cost of the meeting. However, think about the amount of work that is not getting done because of the meeting, and the boredom factor of attendees who want to be anywhere but in that meeting. In addition, helpful information is not being shared among the attendees.

According to a new Gallup study, 50% of employees leave because of their supervisor. Often this has to do with poor leadership communication skills. Employee turnover is extremely expensive to a company, involving recruiting and training costs, as well.

What can a leader do to be more effective in eliciting participation at meetings? The solution depends on the problem's cause, of course.  To start, look at the reason for the meeting, and determine if the meeting needs to actually be held, or if an e-mail would be sufficient. Which participants really need to attend? Do they know in advance what to bring or prepare to talk about?

Does the leader know how to control participation by encouraging quiet people to talk, and talkative people to give others a chance to contribute? 

Techniques to resolve these issues  with meetings can be found on pages 10 - 11 of  the e-book, Executive Communication Strategies. On other pages, you'll  learn about Customer Services/Persuasion, Decision Making Paradigm, Questions Leaders Should Consider, Professional Listening Skills, Public Speaking Techniques for Leaders, and more! Get Executive Communication Strategies now and find out the practical, easy-to-use strategies to improve your communication skills!