Managing Stage Fright through Effective Presentation Design

In this economy when firms must count on higher performance from speakers in short-list interviews, technical professionals are finding it increasingly difficult to manage the stage fright that comes with this industry-required ritual.  Unfortunately, stage fright in a short-list presentation, or any high-stakes presentation for that matter, is normal and expected, even for those of us who present regularly.  Due to the importance of the outcome and the challenge of the assignment, it’s perfectly logical to experience some level of fear.  And for some, this fear can become debilitating.

Early in my career, I ascribed to the common misconception that stage fright is “stage energy” and can make a speaker livelier and more engaging. As I get older, more experienced, and perhaps more jaded, I think stage fright, no matter how we package it, is never a good thing.  Stage fright results in a full compliment of really nasty psychological and physiological outcomes, none of which do great things for a speaker’s content or delivery.   Particularly among technical professionals, managing stage fright is unfortunately not as simple as deep breathing (though that helps), positive self talk, or using planned movement.  Managing stage fright starts with how technical professionals prepare for presentations, not in terms of the time they devote to the process, but more broadly in the entire methodology many use to get ready.  From a content standpoint, many speakers develop content by starting at the introduction and writing until they reach the conclusion.  I’ve described this to many as the “Snoopy Effect.”  As Peanuts’ fans will attest, Snoopy has been writing a novel for the past 70 years. Despite having conquered the typing challenge (on a manual typewriter no less!), Snoopy still can’t get past the introduction, “It was a dark and stormy night...”  Despite the compelling nature of the introduction, that dog can’t write beyond his first three lines because simply, he doesn’t know what happens next.  Unlike Snoopy, presenters need to work from the inside of their presentation out vs. starting at the beginning and working to the end.  In other words, if I have purpose for speaking (and every good speaker has one), what are the key content blocks that will support the purpose?  By developing content blocks of information, and then organizing them in a logical manner, a speaker can create a roadmap for the presentation.   In addition to the benefits of clearer organization, speakers can learn the stopping points along the “road” from introduction to conclusion. For many professionals, stage fright means fear of “forgetting what I’m going to say next.”  As a result, having a clear roadmap can be priceless. For example: If my purpose is to clarify my team’s unique process for public involvement, I might employ a simple topical outline with three topics in chronological order.

1. We engage our entire team in the identification of stakeholders.
2. We will use social media to engage difficult to reach stakeholders and bring them in to the project "conversation."
3. We will document all stakeholder processes to provide a clear record of decisions to guide the project.
   

Note that this outline focuses on three critical areas of public involvement (bolded text) in a three-part outline that a speaker can further develop.  More importantly from a stage fright management standpoint, the speaker knows s/he has three main points or stopping points in the presentation and is able to “chunk” the presentation into three smaller units, making each easier to remember and easier to present.

What if I now took this outline and created an organized “content matrix”?  This might enable a nervous speaker to have an even clearer roadmap for moving through the content of the presentation. 

For example, “unpacking” just the first of the three points from my outline:

WHAT we are going to do:	WHY it’s important	HOW we are going to do it	PROOF that we can do it
Stakeholder identification	• Multiple and diverse stakeholder groups • Risk from missing one key stakeholder group (Use City of XX example)	1. Engage our entire team – lots of community relationships 2. Work with client organization to find common groups 3. Use existing groups to identify others 4. Reach out using a variety of venues	City of XX Master Planning Process  • Same project type with similar schedule • Same project team • XX Public meeting story

Now the presentation gets much easier to develop – and much easier to present.  Using both the Y axis of the matrix (flow of the presentation from beginning to end) and the X axis (the flow of each sub point in the presentation), speakers can learn the pattern of the presentation and can be more comfortable as they move through the content.  Plus, they can speak more conversationally because they aren’t learning lines; they are learning logically sequenced blocks of content that can be delivered more extemporaneously.

Content design alone can’t eliminate stage fright, but it’s an important first step for most technically oriented speakers.  By effectively mapping content, speakers gain control of their presentations and reduce the risk of forgetting important points or going off-track.  By taking the fear of forgetting off the table, these speakers are better able to focus on a more engaging delivery during the actual presentation. Next week I’ll write about managing stage fright through more effective rehearsal and delivery.  However, for me and my teams, managing stage fright starts well before the first rehearsal with content that makes logical sense and is easy to follow.

Assumptions and Questions

Every time I gratefully receive a vegetarian meal, I’m also amazed at the assumptions people make about us non-meat eaters.  Vegetarian meals are generally full of healthy foods, which are nice, but they generally don’t include great desserts.  I’m currently sitting on an airplane, watching my fellow passengers enjoy chocolate cake, while I snack on healthy fruit.  Folks, just because I don’t eat meat, doesn’t mean I’m not a committed fan of chocolate cake – or chocolate in any form for that matter.  To keep me from falling in a sugar-seeking frenzy on the cake of my seatmate, let me instead write about the topic of assumptions.

As business development professionals, it’s important to carefully avoid assumptions and ask good questions from our clients about their projects and about their needs and expectations for design/construction professionals.  For example, is it true that budget conscious clients want cheap solutions or that they don’t want to spend money?  No; they just need clear justification for expenditures and may, in fact, prefer a more expensive alternative.  Do bureaucratic clients always take more time to make decisions?  No; they just need to have timeframes and the cost of late decision-making explained to them.  Do all clients hate change orders?  No; most clients just hate to be surprised with change orders.

Before meeting with any client, I recommend to my own clients that they create interview guides to direct questioning and make sure they’re really probing for important information.  An interview guide is not a formula for a conversation. Rather, a guide is just what it sounds like – a “map” that helps conversation flow in a productive direction.

An effective conversation guide starts with project-related topics of interest such as budget, schedule, or project history.  It should also include process-related topics such as working relationships with consultants or communication preferences.  And, it should include personal-related topics such as role on the project or personal interests as they relate to project performance.  By including a full compliment of topics, the BD professional can learn extensive amounts of information in a shorter amount of time.  I recommend conversation guides be pre-written, first by topic and then by question.  More experienced business developers can prompt themselves with topic areas; less experienced professionals may find that writing questions out helps them keep questions open-ended and information generating.

A good business development interviewer doesn’t make assumptions about what s/he hears; rather, s/he starts with open-ended questions to get the client talking and then hones in on areas of interest through increasingly specific probing questions. And, good probing questions require active listening skills, not simply moving on to the next question on the list.

For example:

·        Business Developer:  “Ms. Jones, what has led your organization to the point of needing new space?"

·        Client:  “We’ve experience tremendous growth as a result of our new product line, which is something we really didn’t expect and it’s created some significant space challenges.”

·        Business Developer:  “Can you tell me about those space challenges?”

·        Client:  “Our new space requirements are really specific; we just can’t seem to do what we need to in the existing space.  As a result, we think it’s a good time to be thinking about a new building.”

·        Business Developer:  “What is specific about your space requirements?”

·        Client:  “We need large, open laboratory spaces that accommodate teams of researchers working collaboratively in a well-ventilated environment.”

·        Business Developer:  “Why a new building vs. other options for this type of space?”

·        Client:  ”We’ve always wanted our own building to make a real statement for our company in the downtown core. This seems to be a catalyst for making that happen; our management has reached that ‘tipping’ point that they’re ready to act.”

Interesting conversation, one that could still lead in many different directions; I’d love to see this one evolve.  Instead of spending time talking about his/her firm, this hypothetical business developer comes to the conversation with a genuine interest in the client and the project.  S/he asks a first open-ended question about the client’s needs (product needs).  S/he listens carefully to the answer and follows up with increasingly specific questions designed to clarify the client’s real project needs.  In four questions, s/he’s found out that the client wants a specific type of space, that the organization wants a statement building in downtown, and that they need space quickly to accommodate unexpected growth.  Were I the principal of the design or construction firm pursuing this client, this would indeed be valuable information.

The takeaway (and they did take away the remains of the chocolate cake) from this is that business developers need to think carefully about what they need or desire to know about projects and clients.  And, they need to plan conversations to cover a broad range of topics – product, process, and personally related – quickly.  Finally, they need to really listen and use probing questions to clarify what the client is saying to get at the information that helps us win projects by being able to address the client’s real needs, expectations, and aspirations.

So, on behalf of my seatmate, thanks for keeping my mind occupied while she finished her cake.  And, good luck to all the dedicated business developers who take the initiative to learn the depth of information it takes to win in our increasingly competitive design/construction environment.

“Selling” the Joint Venture

Joint venturing on projects is common practice in the A/E/C industry to add capacity, strength, or portfolio to a project pursuit.  In some cases, firms joint venture at the suggestion of the potential client, but most of the time, they do so to increase their competitive advantage.  Having been a party to creating presentations for multiple JV teams, let me add my voice to the discussion of how to successfully joint venture on a project.  Regardless of financial arrangements between firms, real management structure, communication flow, and all the other things firm leadership must consider in a joint venture, I’m primarily concerned with how we sell the JV to the potential client to give the team the maximum chance of winning the pursuit.

In my experience, most JVs aren’t successful in the pursuit – not because the JV wasn’t a good idea, but because in the push to meet all parties’ needs in the venture, the needs of the potential client and the project were forgotten. If the firm leadership hasn’t carefully considered how the JV is going to work for the client and project, I find it’s almost impossible to win with  the JV team.  In many cases, firms push for a  “balanced” JV relationship, making sure no one firm is slighted in the arrangement. Too often, this results in double staffing:  two project executives, two project managers, two technical leads or split design responsibilities, etc.  Looking at this from a client perspective, not only is it difficult to identify a single point of contact, the client sees a team that’s overstaffed and appears very expensive.

On one hugely successful pursuit, I had the honor of working with a JV team that got it right.  This team’s leadership put their collective egos aside and thought about what it would take to win the project and create comfort for the owner in the organization of the team.  The client was presented with one project executive, one senior project manager, one project architect, one design lead, and a clearly defined set of technical experts.  Roles and responsibilities were clearly presented in the proposal and the team did not waffle on roles and responsibilities in the interview.  Interview time was used to explain how the team would approach the client’s work, not on explaining the organization or giving talk time to multiple project managers or designers.

Conversely, on a recent JV design/build pursuit, we had to bring almost 20 people to the interview:  two designers, two project managers, project executives from each firm, etc.  The firms’ leadership was so busy worrying about not offending each other, making sure each firm had equal talk time that they forgot that they had to win the job first.  As a coach, I found it difficult to focus the team on relevant differentiating content because team members weren’t coordinated in their approach or their relationships.

If a team can’t put corporate politics aside and come together in a united proposal and presentation, it’s pretty clear the client is going to have problems with this team as they deliver the project.  Surprisingly,  I’ve found that most potential clients don’t actually mind a JV – in fact, they can see that partnering on projects can bring the best expertise to technical and community challenges. But, these clients need to see a real partnership and teaming arrangement from the beginning in order for them to have comfort in the team organization.

The most important discussion the leadership of a potential JV should have – once they’ve figured out they want to pursue a project together – is what the organization chart should look like.  Independent of percentages and final division of the work, what does the potential client need to see relative to leadership and organization?  How can the team look streamlined and well organized?  The “math” is pretty simple:   If the combined firms don’t figure this out and communicate it clearly in the proposal,  they lose. 

Joint venture partners need to consider the logic of the project, not the logic of how they will divide up the work.  Organization charts need to make sense – to the team and most importantly, to the client.  We should never have two project managers.  We might see deputy project managers responsible for specific scopes of work, but there should be a single point of contact for the client. Similarly, we should never see two lead designers.  There should be one unifying design vision for the project even if specialty designers will handle specific portions of the project.  And, there’s no reason for two project executives.  Owners can still get the combined resources of both firms with one executive speaking on behalf of the joint venture.  From my perspective, if firm leadership doesn’t trust their partner to speak on their behalf, there’s a bigger problem at play than who has what title on the organization chart.

At the end of the day, from a marketing perspective,  the best joint venture relationships are seamless:  The client doesn’t see different firms. The client sees the best technical and management experience brought to bear to resolve project challenges and create project excellence.