ABA Banking Journal - September 2007 - (Page 45)

ON THE JOB Time to power up your presentations I often hear comments that my topics are interesting, but I sense the audience has a difficult time in paying attention. I have seen a video, and the truth is that I sound and look boring! In my position, I am required by our attorneys to read my presentations, and just wish I knew how to be more interesting, more powerful. —Thanks, Karen, from Ames, Iowa. Next to overcoming stage fright, a frequent reason given for signing up for my class is insight into how to keep an audience tuned in and awake when the presentation is read word for word. Something lost Experts in the field of communications generally agree that we have lost something in today’s America. “Unlike the British, who have this wonderful sense of, and appreciation for, the English language, we no longer do,” says Dr. Amy K. Kilgard. “For example, the way in which Tony Blair or most other British, Australian and Canadian leaders use our common language is often poetic, even when delivering their presentations from prepared manuscripts. When we think of speakers such as FDR or Winston Churchill during the darkest years of World War II, or John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, they all moved and inspired audiences through a powerful delivery. Few speakers come close to that today.” Kilgard teaches courses in Oral Interpretation and Performance Art at San Francisco State University, and often discovers resistance from university students when coaching them in effective reading from prepared texts. “It is so often as if they only see words and not the feelings those words carry,” she told me. Even though it may not be the best way of delivering a presentation, there are times when you may advised to, or required to, read your speech. But it need not be boring! “Anything, and I mean anything, can be read in an exciting way,” says Professor Emeritus Donald Salper, from California State University at Northridge. “The key is, discover what is important in the material you are going to read. The greatest problem to overcome is that feeling of well, I can read, and don’t have to do anything special to prepare for this.” www.ababj.com/subscribe.html Make it live! Okay, you’ve got a presentation to deliver and it must be read. Here is a step-by step prescription that will convert a potential “ho-hum” into something that your audience will remember and appreciate. First, know the material and let it speak to you, so that the real meaning is allowed to surface. Reading a prepared speech requires practice. This means rehearsals over several days, if you have the time, and in front of friends or family. Second, avoid the single most critical mistake speakers who read their presentations make repeatedly: Taking your eyes away from the audience at the wrong time! “You can easily lose your audience, when reading a speech, by glancing down at your material at precisely the wrong time,” says Salper. He suggests a kind of Mantra: “Think to yourself, ‘I am about to reach an important part of the speech. The audience needs to hear and see me giving these words to them now, at this moment. The most important parts of the sentence are found here, so don’t look down, look up at them, and live those words’.” Let me close with this thought. The learning curve of getting better, and becoming a more confident speaker is rapid indeed. You get better with practice. You get better when listening to good speakers—even when hearing poor ones, as you’ll know what to avoid doing. But if you want to become the kind of speaker you’d admire, live your speech! BJ By Dennis Beaver. When not giving his class on Effective Presentation Techniques at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, you can find Beaver practicing law in Bakersfield, Calif. He can be reached at Lagombeaver@hotmail.com ABA BANKING JOURNAL/SEPTEMBER 2007 45 http://www.ababj.com/subscribe.html

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ABA Banking Journal - September 2007

Contents Editor's Column Briefing: Why Money Sense is a Top Priority Briefing: Sleight of Mind Briefing: Snapshot: What the First Half Tells Us About the Second Half Briefing: ABA Resources ABA Chairman’s Position Briefing: Get Away and Get Ahead: ABA's Banking Leaders Forum Community Banking: Trim the Fat: Winning the "Battle of the Buck" Community Banking: Pass the Aspirin Cover Story: Meeting the Challenge of the "Unbanked" Bank Marketing: Don't Miss the Boom! On the Job: Time to Power Up Your Presentations? Insurance Sales: The Art & Craft of Cross Selling Tech Topics: The Price is Right? Tech Topics: Security: Protect Information First Tech Topics: Hackers for Hire? You Bet'cha Tech Topics: Case in Point: Tellers Scan, Too, at First Federal Compliance Clinic: Adverse Action Clarified The Economy Banker’s Mart To Advertise/Index of Advertisers

ABA Banking Journal - September 2007

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