“Greg is all style and no substance”, my erstwhile colleague happily told everyone who would listen, while I was on stage. It was an occasion where each Division Head presented to the entire company on what they were doing and where they were taking their part of the firm. He had preceded me and immediately felt his own inadequacy as a presenter, seeing me work the room. His preferred option was to attack, to stitch his pathetic, wounded ego back together again. When his remark was relayed to me later, I just outright laughed. Not a shy, timid, embarrassed laugh, but a real “that is so pathetic, it is funny” laugh. He obviously had no clue then and I would guess he still has no clue today wherever he is. Unfortunately, I have run into several versions of him since that time.
In these cases, the speaker is grappling with what they see as a two-dimensional choice between being “content heavy” and using “spurious techniques” to deliver the talk. I was watching a group of engineers giving their talks to inspire the audience to vote them on to the committee of a prestigious volunteer business organisation. If I listed up their firms for you, everyone would know them, because these were the representatives in Japan of serious brand name companies. Initially, I was sold on the brand power. Sitting there, I was expecting some excellent five-minute talks on why they should join the committee. They were mostly shockers, barely able to string two sentences together and seemed to me incredibly dull candidates for consideration. Their technical education had not prepared them for this eventuality and it showed.
We also get this phenomenon in our High Impact Presentation Course classes, where the speaker is wedded to their content and just dismisses the importance of the delivery component. Somehow, in their mind, the incredible quality of their information is all they need to be a successful communicator. The latest statistics, in-depth findings from recent research, industry white papers, buyer surveys, referencing scientific papers etc., are seen as the Holy Grail for being an effective speaker.
It was hard enough for this concept to survive before, once the internet made the access to information and free information at that, so widely available. When I was at University, the library stacks housed the limits of possible knowledge and the choices were made simple. For my son, his educational experience has been different. He has spent his time trying to sort out which bits of the information from the internet firehose are the most relevant, as he drowns in readily available data.
Now ChatGPT and all the other AI driven information sources have made instant information and data more of a commodity than ever before in human history. Yes, some of it is fake news, like that dodgy American lawyer who recently used AI to do his research and it created legal cases and precedents which were completely fictitious. Reflect, though, that we are at the starting point of the AI charge and these systems will only get better. Why do we need to be impressed by the fact you have data, when we can easily access it ourselves? Insight based on the data is the value pivot we speakers need to make to elevate our content to make it powerful, relevant and attractive. We still need to deliver it in a way however which completely resonates, engages and persuades our audience.
There is an opposite problem, though. This is the fluffy talk delivered with tremendous verve and vigour. I saw such a speaker, who was very good with the delivery. At first blush, it seemed impressive as a talk. When I sat back though and reflected on what he was telling us, it was only then that I realised that his actual content was totally unremarkable. My metaphor is that the value of his content was more like drinking the warm froth on a beer, rather than enjoying the cold body of the refreshing craft ale, on a humid Tokyo summer day.
So we have to be more than just one dimension. We need to be both good at talking and good at content. That changes our perspective about what is our role as the speaker. When I tested ChatGPT on putting together the outline of a talk on leadership in Japan, it did a workman like job. It wasn’t remarkable stuff, but if you were someone who wasn’t skilled in this creative activity, it would provide you with a base from which to further refine the content. Even if it produced something truly brilliant, you still have to get up on your hind quarters and deliver it to the audience.
You can read it to me, of course, but in that event, just send it and I will read it for myself, so I don’t need you hanging around. Much better would be studying how to be a competent speaker who can bring the content to life. This is all knowable by the way and there are few mysteries involved. Hard work in rehearsal with proper coaching will lift 99% of the speaker dross we are assaulted with in business to a much more digestible and impressive level. Eye contact, voice modulation, gestures, body language, pacing, pauses, emphasising keywords and phrases are some of the key basics which we can and should master.
Getting the content to sing is our goal and we do this with the idea of building our personal and professional brands. Regardless of what you do, you are affecting your personal and professional brands anyway, when you present, for good or bad and we must never forget that. Given the choice, we should aim to bolster the quality of the content with an excellent delivery, based on coachable skills. Make that the goal and you will never go wrong.
