I’m a bit different than the standard presentation coach in that I don’t focus a great deal on how speakers hold their hands, articulate words, or stand in the room. Not only are these elements of presentations not particularly interesting to me, I don’t really think they matter all that much to selectors. I believe that most selectors are more interested in the speaker’s approach to the project and how his/her experience indicates future performance. So, unless someone’s delivery is seriously getting in the way of the message, I tend to leave delivery issues alone. In my world as a coach, content rules the day; delivery is just the vehicle to get the content communicated.
This does not mean that I don’t care about delivery. I do. I just care more about team delivery than I do about individual performance. Teams that come across as collaborative and supportive, and that work together well, will always win over teams with excellent, polished speakers who aren’t well connected. And, the coach can’t create a connected team by picking on individual speakers.
Everything I know about presentation skills in particular and communication in general, is that they are learned behaviors. This is good news for all of us who make our living coaching presentations – and it should be good news for presenters: it means that anyone can learn effective presentation skills, no matter the skill level at which they start. However, the bad news is that speakers come to us with 20-30-40 years of learned behavior, which needs to be unlearned in order to make some delivery skills more effective. To think we can “fix” a speaker in a short period of time just doesn’t make sense.
The worst time to try and correct someone’s deep-seeded delivery issues is when the team is days or hours away from an interview. As a result, I’ve decided that delivery coaching right before an interview requires the coach to carefully choose her battles, and not mix training and coaching. In training, we try to help a speaker slowly improve his/her skills through repeated practice and trying new techniques. In coaching, we try to help a presenter give his/her best performance in a very short period of time. This means carefully selecting the minor corrections we can make in delivery and “ignoring” behaviors that we might otherwise comment on in a training context. For example, I coached a recent winning team where one of the key team members has a habit of loudly clearing his throat before beginning to speak. He does this repeatedly at the start of the presentation and at key pause points in his delivery. But, otherwise, his delivery is friendly, his content is well-organized, and his message is solid. I decided to let it go. The quality of the presentation was otherwise strong and I believed that trying to change this habit would have made him much more nervous, perhaps resulting in negative outcomes for his presentation overall. In other words, I chose my battles and decided to focus on the overall goal, which was a confident speaker with strong content.
I also believe in coaching with kindness, using humor when appropriate to get the best speaking behavior possible from each presenter. When a speaker feels picked on or ridiculed, it doesn’t help his/her ability to present with confidence. I try to tell speakers what I like about their delivery, helping them build upon those strengths versus continually pointing out and correcting deficiencies. I’ll adjust the presentation parameters to help a weak speaker be successful. For example, if a speaker is more comfortable speaking from his chair, I’ll try to accommodate that to make him more comfortable. And, if another speaker wants or feels she needs to use notes, I’ll find a way to help her use notes most effectively.
When I’ve got a delivery “train wreck,” and there have been a few, I always take the person aside and provide some one-on-one coaching, again choosing my battles to help the speaker be as confident as possible. There are always options for speakers with a great attitude, even when they have limited skills. These options include limiting time, having the team present in a conversational back-and-forth manner, using visuals as notes, and even creating directed response with a team leader. In only the rarest of occasions have I recommended someone be removed from a presentation team; in those cases, the problem was less about the speaker’s delivery and more about his/her negative attitude combined with extremely poor delivery. And, if that person is the project manager, project executive/principal, or lead designer, your options are much more limited.
As I get older, I’m more comfortable with the “quirks” speakers bring to teams –and I think that makes presentations more interesting. I’ve been professionally speaking for more than 25 years. I’m pretty good at it, but I know that I’m not ever going to make speakers deliver just like me, nor would I want to. Speaker differences make for more engaging and interesting presentations. My goal as a coach is to help each speaker give his/her best performance in the limited time we have to get a team ready. Ultimately, in short-list interviews, we want to be compelling, interesting, and memorable. But content still trumps delivery and real people speaking with passion about the details of the project always trumps scripted or overly polished presenters speaking in generalities.
This is interesting analysis about Interview Coaching.
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