Week 5: Presentation Skills

The following are the essentials of any good presentation:

1. Attractive and Powerful Opening statement.
2. Command over Simple language
3. Thoughts /concepts presented in an order
4. Apt and chosen examples/exercises/stories/case history/slides/problems
5. Pace and timely pause
6. Knowing when to stop and when to start
7. Composed mannerism
8. Balanced movement
9. Knowledge about use of effective tools
10. What to do and what not to do in a given situation.

How and Why does one fail to give effective presentation?

James Clear, author of the famous book ‘Atomic Habits’, in one of his popular blog posts on jamesclear.com titled “The 3 Stages of Failure in Life and Work (And How to Fix Them)” refers to three stages of failure in life and work as follows:

Three Stages of Failure:

1. Failure of Tactics – HOW MISTAKES

2. Failure of Strategy – WHAT MISTAKES

3. Failure of Vision – WHY MISTAKES 

These three stages of mistakes happen in training also. As a trainer one needs to know how to fix them. 

Failure of Tactics – HOW MISTAKES

A Trainer may have a wonderful vision about what he/she has to deliver.  The vision may be very clear in his mind. He/she may have different ideas and very good plans about his/her presentation.  But he/she may not work on HOW he/she is going to execute the plan.

A trainer may choose a wonderful exercise to explain a concept. But he/she may not work on the details as to how the exercise is going to be conducted.  Failure of tactics   is due to lethargy or laziness on the part of a trainer to work on the details as to HOW he/she is going to do what he/she has planned to do.

In order to overcome failure of tactics:

1. The trainer has to meticulously work on even the minute details of presentation
2. The trainer should have many exercises/examples/stories/case histories on various concepts related to mediation.
3. The trainer must have clarity on how he has to do what he has to do in a given situation.
4. How to do necessarily involves how not to do.
5. Failure of tactics may also occur due to the failure on the part of the trainer to work on instructions.

The instructions are 

1. Self – instructions which a trainer has to give to himself/herself. 
2. Instructions to be given to trainees.
3. Preparation to avoid failure of tactics includes having at least A, B and C options on every part of training process.

Example:

A trainer decided to use case histories to explain the concept of conflict.

They picked up a case history and started narrating, in detail, everything that happened in mediation. The narration could not get completed in 45 minutes’ time allotted to the trainer. The trainer could not drive home the point to explain the concept of conflict.     

Failure of Strategy – WHAT MISTAKES

Failure of strategy occurs when a trainer tries to adopt what does not  work for him/her.

Trainer may know what to do, and why to do what to do also, but if he/she chooses the wrong “What”, the whole thing will collapse.

Example:

A trainer gets inspired by the presentation given by a co-trainer using slides. 

Said Trainer decides to use slides for his /her presentation also. Trainer uses the Slides prepared by the co-trainer and starts the presentation and cuts a sorry face, being unable to explain the pictures and signs and codes used in the slides prepared by the co-trainer.

Failure of Vision – WHY MISTAKES

This occurs when trainer does not have clarity on why the trainer is doing what he/she is doing.

To avoid the failure of vision every trainer has to seriously contemplate on what is planned by the trainer. Trainer has to visualize the same before bringing it on the actual floor.

Example:

While dealing with the topic of adult learning and unlearning a trainer used the story of two frogs.

STORY

“The two frogs fell into a deep well. When these two frogs were trying hard to come up, other frogs discouraged the two. One frog stopped trying. The other tried hard and came up notwithstanding the discouragement because it was deaf, and did not hear the words of discouragement.”

Having completed this story, the trainer suddenly jumped to another topic. There was a total disconnection. The trainees did not understand why the “frogs’ story” was told. The trainer did not explain in what context the story of frogs was told. The trainer did not have clarity on how the story will be useful in explaining a given concept of adult learning and /or unlearning.  

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(All copy rights reserved by the author S.Susheela)