How to Prepare a Successful Talk (Part 2)

In the last issue of Leaders’ Link we provided effective alternatives to common mistakes made when preparing talks. Here are three more.

Message Overload: Some speakers attempt to cover the details of an entire project or paper in their presentation. The resulting presentation is likely to leave the audience more confused than enlightened about the study or project.

Try This: What is the single most important idea that you want to share? What do you want the audience to remember? Prepare this main message first. Then include only relevant facts that support this idea.

Data Confusion: Often a talk begins well but “flatlines” when it moves into the data. The speaker may present as if the data’s significance is as obvious to the audience as it is to the speaker. But this is rarely the case, even in presentations to an audience from the presenter’s field.

Try This: For every finding you present, describe what it shows and—equally important—the significance of what it shows, in the context of your main message. In other words, provide each conclusion point following the data to which it applies. (You can then recap all the conclusion points after reviewing all data.) Interpreting your findings also reveals your thought process at work, a strategy that can make the talk more rewarding for the audience.

Reading vs. Speaking: A speaker who prepares text-heavy slides either reads them, thus boring the audience (who can only listen to the speaker read); or confusing the audience (by forcing them to choose between spoken and written information streams). Text-heavy slides may also leave the subtle impression—whether warranted or not—that a speaker is unsure of how to describe the work without them.

Try This: Prepare slides with a visual component, using text only in the title of the slide. Try using note cards that contain a few key words or phrases (not full sentences). This will enable you to speak to the audience rather than to the screen or to a script; it will give the audience a single focus at every moment of the talk; and it will let you speak extemporaneously, a delivery method that helps everyone to learn.