Have you ever wondered why professional swimmers warm up and stretch a moment before getting inside the pool? Couldn’t they jump right into the water and start swimming? The answer: they could but they don’t because that initial warmup and stretching help them optimize their performance and also reduce the chances of injury. This way they can do what they are supposed to do in a better way, i.e. SWIM effectively.
As a presentation coach and facilitator, I have witnessed many presenters take similar action of jumping into the pool right away. That is, they fire up their laptops, boot the latest Presentation software, and start designing and adding in the slides. This might have worked for some people and got the job done, but I must say that this isn’t the ideal thing to do to present effectively or be an effective presenter. Here’s how I help my students do it in the classroom.
In my recent class, I divided the class of 25 MBA students into four teams and used the idea from the famous movie Wolf of the Wall Street’s “Sell me this pen” dialogue. The teams had to sell (pitch) one of the four items: a nail cutter, a pink mini fan, a notebook, or a bottle of water. But this time the pitching wasn’t on any software, it was on paper. I introduced them to the activity designed by my teacher/mentor Mr. Umes Shrestha called “7 Papers, 21 Words.” This activity lets students use 7 A4 size papers and 21 words in total to talk about or convey an idea. The constraints of papers and words push students to be more mindful of what they say, how they say it, and why they say it. And, more importantly, how they SHOW it.
The activity started with 15 minutes on the clock. I could see my students carefully choosing the words to be written on the paper and trying hard to save some word counts. Some of them started to draw; a group even fold the paper in half. They wanted to replicate what would be a transition between slides if done on Powerpoint/Keynote. From scribbles to mistakes, from debates to discussions in the group about what goes where and why it is more important, the chaos slowly started to come in order with more clarity on what, why, and how of their content. While the drawings might not have been perfect, the articulations of their ideas/points were clear, concise, and to the point on paper. The content was more visual and the human articulation in form of design made the content more real, connecting, and contextual.
By the end of the activity, the teams looked convinced about what they have put on their 7 pages, the only thing remaining to do was get it off the paper and onto the slide. Once the students achieved this level of clarity on content, structure, and visualization, they found it easier than ever to make slides.
Therefore if you want to avoid the mistakes made by almost all the presenters, I would suggest not to jump right into the pool, start with a good warm-up and stretching. And in the context of presentation, do not start your presentation from slides, know your content well, then structure and visualize it.
