How Good Are Your Presentation Skills?

Nearly a year ago a 12 year old boy from Kenya by the name of Richard Turere got the attention of the TED team who were scouting for stories near his home town. Richard grew up on a farm that raised cattle and protecting them from lions was a time consuming pastime. He told the TED team how lighting torches didn’t keep the lions away but if he walked the perimeter with a torch they stayed away. TED found his story so compelling that they invited him to talk about it at the noteworthy TED conference. There was only one problem – Richard had zero presentation skills or public speaking experience. With a little coaching from the folks at TED and a little practice, Richard took to the stage at Long Beach, California and gave his talk, being the shy yet charismatic boy that he was. When he finished, the crowd gave him a standing ovation!

What constitutes good presentation skills? If a 12 year old boy from a Kenyan village could give a TED worthy lecture, is it possible that we might be able to pull of a good one ourselves? There is often the misconception that presentations have to be full of flair, bravado and sophistication in order to keep the listeners’ attention. But this is far from the truth. Presentation skills are more than that; it is about speaking from the heart, being genuine, straddling the line of data and narrative with finesse and poise. Obviously in order to give a presentation one must first have something to present. But we must also keep in mind that human beings love stories. And a major part of giving a captivating presentation is to take the audience on a journey – a journey of experience mixed with information and emotion mixed with intellect. A successful presentation can be measured by how differently the audience might see the world when you are done. On short, a good presentation must begin with the subject, why you as the speaker care about it deeply and must end with why the audience must care about it just as much as you do.

 Presentation Skills Training is an important program that companies invest in heavily to equip their employees with the right tools and resources to be able to communicate ideas and agendas confidently and efficiently.

MMM Training Solutions conducts Soft Skills Training, corporate training, soft skills training, cross cultural training and leadership training programs for corporates in India and abroad.