Success At School

We just finished one of our presentation skills discussion groups at Hong Kong University, our topic for the day was dealing with nerves.

We talked about the usual exercises we can do to calm our nerves; preparing, practicing, breathing exercises, imagining the audience as harmless children etc. But the one thing that stuck with me was the concept of visualizing your presentation as a success.

Now I’m not going to get all “law of attraction” on you, I’ll leave that to Rhonda Byrne but I do want to talk about a technique that is used by most successful public speakers and the majority of professional athletes.

Before Tiger Woods even sets foot on the first tee of a golf course, you can be sure that he will have played at least 18 holes of golf perfectly, in his head! He will go through each stage of his game, imagining as if he is really playing. He chooses his club, walks over to the ball, makes his back swing and then whack, he hits it. All flawless yet imaginary. He will go through each hole making sure he plays the perfect round.

When it comes time for Tiger to walk to the first tee, he already knows what he is going to do, what club he will pick and where he is going to hit the ball. He knows this because he’s already done it many times in his head.

There is no doubt that Tiger is one of the best athletes in the world. And what I really believe gives him the cutting edge is not the time he spends on the course practicing (although that certainly helps.) It’s the mental state that he takes when he is playing. He has said many times before that each and every golf competition he enters, he does so believing that he will win.

The same applies for your presentation skills, sure you need to spend the time practicing and honing your delivery, I’m not discounting that. But what I think will give you the cutting edge is your presentation is to visualize it as a success. After you’ve practiced and rehearsed and made the necessary changes, take the time to prepare yourself mentally.

Begin to imagine that you are giving a flawless presentation. Imagine the whole process from being introduced through to the audience erupting in rapturous applause when you’ve finished.

When you get up to give your presentation, you won’t need to worry about what you are going to do because you will have done it many times before!

What other tips do you have for calming presentation nerves? Leave a comment and let us know.

In terms of experts on presentation design, they don’t come much better than Garr Reynolds. I have been reading Garr’s blog, Presentation Zen for a couple of months now and his posts constantly reveal new, exciting ideas we can add to our presentations.

This article takes a look at the decision we have to make between scope or depth in our presentations. Should we cover a wide variety of topics at a shallow level or should we cover a smaller number of topics but look at them in more detail?

My belief is that for the majority of class presentations the important thing is to concentrate on depth, rather than scope. Too often we feel we must prove to the class and the professor that we know a lot about a subject and so we begin to talk about everything that could possibly be related to it. What happens, when we do this, is that we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to show a real understanding of any one particular topic.

I think that during our presentations we should focus on two or three important ideas and go into a deeper analysis of these. Not only will this show our understanding of the topic but it will be a greater benefit to our classmates.

“Make a choice about what is important and let go of the rest.”

What do you think? Should we go wide or deep in our presentations? Leave a comment and let us know

I just finished reading Beyond Reason by Roger FIsher and Daniel Shapiro. The tag line of the book is “Using Emotions as You Negotiate.” Now you may be asking, why, Dave, would a college student need to read or know anything about negotiation.

Well unless you are planning to become chief negotiator for the UN Peacekeeping Force chances are you won’t make a living out of negotiating. But, the truth is, we negotiate every day. Every interaction we have with another human being has the potential to become a negotiation.

From where you and your friends want to go to dinner to talking finances with your parents, negotiation is a big part of our lives. And mastering the art of negotiation is another tool we need for success.

In Beyond Reason, Fisher and Shapiro state that it is impossible to remove emotions from negotiation. The important thing is to address the underlying concern not the emotions.

As human beings we each have a number of core concerns, remember Maslow? After our basic concerns (food, shelter, clothing) are taken care of we have a number of other concerns that need to be met:

Appreciation - the need to feel that our work is appreciated and valued
Affiliation - the need to feel like part of the team
Autonomy - the need to have freedom
Status - the need to have our status, whatever it is, recognized and respected
Role - the need to play a particular role in negotiations

When we are negotiating it is important to ensure that we meet the needs of those with whom we are engaging. If these needs are not met then the other person will have more reason not to bargain with us.

We need to show our appreciation of the other person and make them feel like a colleague or friend, rather than an adversary. We need to respect their autonomy and not impinge upon it whilst at the same time expanding our own. And, we need to affirm their status and role in the exchange. Doing this will provide a good platform to achieve what we desire in our negotiations.

A great book with a lot of useful examples. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to expand their negotiation skills.

What are your thoughts on negotiation. Leave a comment and let us know.