Rant mode on… because okay, calling it a scandal is probably over-stepping the mark. It’s not as if there are proactively corrupt politicians making thousands of pounds for every bad presentation that’s given (actually, if there were, that might explain quite a bit!) but it’s pretty clear to me that there’s an awful lot of money and time being wasted in bad presentations.
And it’s not as if there’s not a plethora of good advice on how to make better presentations available – all you have to do is look on Google for plenty of videos, tips and blogs like this one. (Mind you, there’s a lot of rubbish out there still – I couldn’t believe my eyes the other day when I saw someone still actively teaching the 7% rubbish of the Mehrabrian myth!).
It pays to shop around when you’re looking for advice, just like for everything else.
So why is it, that with all the good, free advice around that there are still so many shockingly bad presentations being made?
Here’s my list – based on experience, not research, so I may be talking rubbish. Let me know!
• Just like saying ‘I can’t do maths in my head’ seems to be acceptable, it seems to be acceptable to waste your colleagues time in an inefficient or even ineffective presentation. If everyone else is settling for ineffective, why should you bother doing something better?
• Fear of standing out. Lists of bullet-points don’t work but at least they’re familiar. Using a bit more imagination, making your presentation better, marks you out as different. And who dares to be different?! After all, if you get a reputation for being able to make presentations you might get stuck doing more and more of them!
• Laziness. There, I’ve said it. Powerpoint’s defaults don’t help – the seem to encourage ‘bad practice’ in that bullet points are what’s expected. When this point and the previous point jointly reinforce each other things can get really entrenched. Having everything on bullet points works as a cheap-and-easy (that is, lazy!) way to remember what you’re saying.
• Other priorities. This is a big one: I’ve come across it time and time again! “I’d love to learn how to do better presentations but I don’t have the time – I need to do my real job”. Really? If telling people about what you’re doing isn’t part of your ‘real job’ why are you making the presentation in the first place? Either it is or it isn’t. If it isn’t, stop taking everyone’s time up with your presentations. If it is, why not learn how to do it just like you learn to do the rest of your job?!
Bit of a rant? Absolutely!
But not one that’s come from no-where. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time now :) My wife is a teacher and comments on the irony of the fact that, at Parents’ Evenings, it’s generally the parents of the kids who’re not causing concern that turn up. So it is with some would-be presenters… the very ones who need the training most are the ones who resist it the most!
Not so very long ago I did an online survey of why people didn’t take presentation skills training – the results were a bit disappointing to be honest, as most people who said they didn’t take training because of the reasons I’ve just outlined above. The rest said it was because they didn’t need it – although most of them also went to say that they thought almost everyone else in their organisation did…
Not sure the maths of that stack up, to be honest… like the motoring survey of driving skills which suggests that almost every thinks they’re “slightly above average”. By definition they can’t all be right.
So have a couple of very challenging questions for you, gentle reader… ;) Firstly, what’s your excuse for not getting your presentations above average?
And secondly, what are you going to do about it?!
Okay, rant over! :) I’ll go and take my meds now!
