Presentation styles

As a presenter, I have noticed the audience often spends more time paying attention to the presenters’ mannerisms rather than the topic of the speech. Mind you that I don’t do any of these personally…

Among them are:

• Patty Cake-- this person uses her hands to pat or even slap her thighs repeatedly during the presentation. I want to ask her to bake me a cake as fast as she can.
• The Pacer-- he likes to move when he talks--back and forth, back and forth, wearing down an area on the carpet.
• The (Hand) Wringer-- consistently squeezes his hands together as if he was attempting to create a diamond between his palms.
• (Hair) Flipper-- Reminiscent of Cher in her super-long hair days. I got you babe.
• The Choker- this gent spends as much of his time clearing his craw as he does communicating.
• The Rocking Horse-- she sways and teeters rather precariously.
• The Jingler-- this guy has change in his pocket going jing-aling-a-lang. Isn’t that a song? In any case, it is darn distracting.
• Napoleon--This gent has to have one hand buried deep within his jacket. Usually the shorter men have this affectation.
• The Angry Presenter (aka the arm crosser)—this person keeps his arms crossed tightly against his chest conveying a distaste for his audience.

Do any of these sound familiar?

There are no stupid questions

Teaching an introductory class in Microsoft Word has reminded me of several important parts of being a good teacher:

• Practice unending, Zen-like patience. There should never come a moment when you show exasperation or frustration to a participant. The learning process for them will come to a screeching halt. Often your participant will become defensive and close themselves off to the rest of the training.
• Remember there are no stupid questions. Frequently one participant’s question is one several participants want to ask but may not have the nerve to. A question can open the door to other possibilities as well. Questions cause a pause for deeper discussion of what may have been only glancing information. It also stretches my reach as an instructor.
• Relate to participants on a personal level. I regularly share my own related foibles to put them at ease and take me off the teacher pedestal. I remind them we all had to learn to walk before we could run. I have been where they are now.
• Don’t just give the answers; guide your participants to them. They will enjoy the fruits of their discovery and retain the information well after the session is over.

Second wind

One of the greatest motivators an instructor is bestowed is when a participant (or two or three) tell you that you've done a good job, that they learned something they can use. I have been fortunate to be on the receiving end several times this week. It is such a blessing to have the opportunity to share my knowledge and see the changes that come about when a participant gets the A-HA look.

This week I have been shuttling back and forth between teaching two classes (one of them a 40 mile drive), going to my regular job, and coaching the Dale Carnegie class, I have been pushing my 40-something body well past its usual limits. It just amazes me how I can get a second or third wind because I love teaching so much. It truly puts the wind under my wings. YES, I'm tired but it's a good kind of tired.

The Unknown

When I conduct trainings at a new venue, there are sometimes unknown variables involved such as projection equipment (or lack thereof) or computer setups. Occasionally, these minor impediments cause problems.

Today was one with impediments. I went to conduct an Outlook training session for some county employees. The room we used is not where they usually work and all were supposed to have existing Outlook accounts accessible from the computers in this room. I also requested a trainer email account so I could email back and forth with the participants.

As I got settled in before the training, we realized several of the participants would have to have accounts set up on these computers. Also my email account was not quite functional so when we finally settled down to start sending some emails, my new email message had no send button!

I was a tad flummoxed, thinking how in world can you NOT have a SEND button? From my perch in the center of the room, I tried not to look panicked but inside my head all the alarms were going off. It turns out since my email account was not yet functional, the send feature was disabled by the system. Kudos to one of the savvy participants who kindly pointed this out.

We got a at least a couple of good hours out of the session but I had to pull a bunch tricks out of my ways-to-teach-when-things- go-awry arsenal.

Tomorrow should be much easier...