Good presenters: born or made?

The fact you are thinking about it is already a good start, but I suppose the bigger question is “who is the presentation for?”. I’ve done presentations for entire companies before- but really it's for the person that’s booked me to speak. Last week I presented to my team of thirty about reward and recognition; that wasn’t about the leadership, that was so I could land the message with the most junior person in the meeting. The balance of message and impressive needs to be considered in light of the real audience, not just the people that are there.

I think in terms of getting the balance right- my biggest tip is to copy. Think about the people you think get this exactly right- next time you’re in a meeting take note of those that land, and those that don’t; what is it that you pick up on that you think you’ll be able to take for yourself? What can you avoid?

Just as a final note, ask for feedback. Every single time you present, ask at least one person “how was that?, what could I have done better?”. You’ll be amazed how quickly soliciting this can help you improve.

Really tough. Realistically, we can pretend that the workplace is home to all skills and you don’t need to be an extrovert to be successful, it is nonetheless a fact that it makes it a heck of a lot easier to present if you find it easy to stand in front of a room of people.

Assuming you can’t put her in a back office job and just forget about it forever, here are my breakdown of steps:

1) Practice makes perfect. Keep getting opportunities to practice no matter how small. More importantly, give feedback EVERY SINGLE TIME. Don’t avoid the issue. Tell her seriously that you have concerns that her presentation style is going to hold her back- and that you’re here to help, but she has to engage with it as a problem to solve.

2) Ask others to give feedback, too. Don’t let it all be on you.

3) Honestly, this might not be the best management tip, but it is one that will help. Do not force her to do it at all costs. Sometimes, we just have to accept that people aren’t up to the task we need them to do; and you might need to just do it yourself. The key is how you manage this conversation with her: “I’m sorry, I know you wanted to present your work at X, but I need to be confident that we land the message in a way that benefits the whole team. I am conscious you’ve done all the work to get us to this point, so this is going to feel really disappointing to you, but I assure you that I would much rather this not be the case. Let's talk about how we can ensure you get the appropriate credit without taking the speaking slot.”