So, let’s examine 8 factors you might consider if you were faced with this situation.

1. The Elevation Advantage

Speaking from the lectern usually means you can be seen. Sometimes, the area around the lectern is raised higher than its surroundings. Sometimes, there is a step or two to ascend. The lectern itself is usually placed in a location with clear sight lines to most of the congregation.
Stepping away from the lectern may not provide the same elevation advantage. If it doesn’t, you become harder to see, particularly for people farther away.

2. Sound Amplification

There’s usually a microphone at the lectern that allows you to be heard without straining your voice. With an audience of 2,000 people, you definitely need help to reach people in the back of the church.
If you step away from the lectern, you may put yourself at a disadvantage:
If there is a portable microphone that can be worn or held, you can probably compensate.
If there is not, I would definitely advise staying at the lectern. Even with a very strong voice, it would be difficult for you to be heard, particularly if you speaking longer than a minute or two.

3. Symbolic “Weight” of the Lectern

There’s a reason that lecterns are used in many religious settings, as well as by CEOs and politicians. By its nature, a lectern carries significant weight (both real and metaphorical). When you speak from behind the lectern, your credibility can be heightened, provided your message and delivery is dignified and respectful.

In this particular context (asking for a donation), credibility is critical.

4. Your Height

The “weight” advantage afforded by the lectern is maximized by speakers who have the physical presence to match it.

Tall speakers have an advantage in this scenario. Shorter speakers, on the other hand, may find themselves overwhelmed by the size of the lectern. In a worst case scenario, a very short speaker may appear to only be peeking over the top of the lectern. It is definitely worth swallowing your pride and compensating with a step stool if necessary.

Of course, stepping out from behind the lectern eliminates this entirely.

5. Sensitivity of the Clergy

If the presiding clergy member would take offense to you stepping out from behind the lectern, then you would be ill-advised to do it. Remember that you are a guest in this setting, and it isn’t a good idea to offend your host.

The best (and only) way to assess their sensitivity is to ask them beforehand. (In general, you should always include questions like this as part of your audience analysis.) Explain where you’d like to stand, and why you’d like to avoid the lectern. I think this is a case where it is better to ask for permission rather than beg for forgiveness.

6. Expectations of the Audience

“Shocking the expectations of your audience may be to your advantage.”Depending on the culture and accepted practices within your congregation, you may be expected to speak from the lectern. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, some may take offense. Again, the only way to gauge this is to talk with members of the congregation ahead of time.

Having said that, shocking the expectations of your audience may be to your advantage. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, they will certainly notice if you do! For a bit of (appropriate) drama, you might consider starting at the lectern and then moving away during your delivery. Perhaps this “breaking of convention” ties into your core message? Maybe the visual shock of moving away from the lectern complements your desire to shock your audience to abandon their preconceived opinions about the cause to which you would like them to donate?
Whatever you choose, be respectful.

7. Visibility of Gestures

Provided there is no extreme elevation disadvantage in moving away from the lectern, there’s no question that you can employ a wider range of gestures if you free yourself.
Standing behind a lectern hides a significant fraction of your body. Depending on your height, the only gestures that are visible are likely those made at or above the level of your chest. Further, the “weight” of the lectern will tend to diminish any gesture you deliver.

On the other hand, being free from the lectern makes your entire body visible. (Again, this depends on sight lines.) You will have a wider range of gestures at your disposal, and they will appear larger and more effective.

8. Vulnerability and Audience Connection

“Eliminating barriers — physical or symbolic –  makes you more effective.”Stepping away from the lectern enhances your vulnerability. As mentioned by Nick Morgan, moving closer to your audience often aids your attempts to connect with them. In addition to moving physically closer, you will also be free of the symbolic barrier which the lectern creates between you and your audience. Eliminating barriers — physical or symbolic –  makes you more effective.

What Do You Think?

Do you have experience speaking in church? What did you do?
If you were in the congregation, would you encourage the speaker to step away from the lectern, or expect them to stay behind it?

Thank you for your attention!

People in your audience will feel that you have genuinely connected with them and that you care about their reaction.

Because you’re talking to people as if you were in a one-on-one conversation, you’ll come across as conversational. That makes you easy to listen to and engaging.

Here are my tips on how to make eye connection:

1. See people
A lot of people we work with confess that they don’t really see individual people in their audience. They’re just aware of a blur of faces. If you can relate to this, next time you present, experiment with seeing people. Look at their facial expressions, look for their reactions to what you’re saying. We call this ‘listening to your audience.”

2. Shrink the room
Imagine that the person you’re looking at is the only person in the room. For those few seconds you’re having a one-on-one conversation with just that person. This has two benefits. You’re likely to talk in a more conversational style because you’re drawing on the conversational skills you already have. It may also reduce your nervousness because you’ll no longer feel like you’re talking to this big audience – but just to one person.

3. Find out how long it takes to make genuine eye connection
It can be difficult to judge how much time is enough to make eye connection. And you may be concerned that if you spend too much time with one person they’ll start to feel uncomfortable. To find out how long it takes, gather together a few friends and deliver your presentation. Ask each person to rest their elbow on the table and raise their hand (resting the elbow is so that their arm doesn’t get too tired). Ask them to drop their hand when they feel you’ve made eye connection with them. You’re likely to find that the length of time needed to make that eye connection is longer than you think.

4. Move to another person at an appropriate time
If you carried out the experiment above, you probably found that your friends dropped their hands at the end of your sentences. That’s also an appropriate time to move onto another person. By doing this you’re adding “formatting”. In a written document there’s punctuation, paragraphs, and headings to guide the reader. In a presentation, the presenter adds the formatting by the way they deliver. The movement of your eyes is one way to add verbal formatting.
Note: If you tend to talk in long sentences, you may find that making eye connection with one person for a whole sentence is too long. If that’s the case, move to another person at the end of a phrase. (And work on making your sentences shorter – that will make it easier for your audience to digest what you’re saying.)

5. Look for the reaction
After important points look for the person’s reaction to what you’ve just said. If the person feels like you’ve been talking to them, they’ll nod. People nod when they’ve processed what you’ve just said. “Waiting for the nod” is an effective way of pacing your delivery to the rate at which your audience can take it in.

6. Keep your eyes up at the end
The most powerful time to have your eyes up is at the end of a sentence. Unfortunately, it’s also the time when you’ll be most tempted to drop your eyes so that you can look at your notes. Discipline yourself to keep your eyes up till you’ve finished your sentence, then look down. Look at your notes in silence. When you’re ready to continue, look up, find someone to talk to and then start talking.

7. Don’t be a lighthouse or a tennis umpire
A lighthouse presenter goes systematically around the room. A tennis umpire presenters looks first to the left, then to the right. Mix it up – be random!

8. Respect people who are uncomfortable
Some people in your audience may show that they’re uncomfortable with eye connection by looking away. Different cultures have different norms regarding eye connection. Respect that by spending less eye connection time with them – but don’t ignore them!

Thank you for your attention!

We have people emailing us for information and requesting action, we have phone calls and visitors and a long to-do list and a million chores and errands to run and all of the slings and arrows of our daily reality … and yet, what is important?

Ask yourself this: if you suddenly found out you only had 6 months to live (for whatever reason), would the thing in front of you matter to you?

Would those 20 emails waiting for a response matter? Would the paperwork waiting to be processed matter? Would the work you're doing matter? Would the meetings you're supposed to have matter? Would a big car and nice house and high-paying job and cool computer and mobile device and nice shoes and clothes matter?

I'm not saying they wouldn’t matter … but it's important to ask yourself if they would.

What would matter to you?

For many of us, it's the loved ones in our lives. If we don't have loved ones … maybe it's time we started figuring out why, and addressing that. Maybe we haven't made time for others, for getting out and meeting others and helping others and being compassionate and passionate about others. Maybe we have shut ourselves in somehow. Or maybe we do have loved ones in our lives, but we don’t seem to have the time we want to spend with them.

When was the last time you told your loved ones you loved them? Spent good quality time with them, being in the moment?

For many of us, doing work that matters … would matter. That might mean helping others, or making a vital contribution to society, or creating something brilliant and inspiring, or expressing ourselves somehow. It’s not the money that matters, but the impact of the work. Are you doing work that matters?

For many of us, experiencing life would matter — really being in the moment, finding passion in our lives, seeing the world and traveling, or just seeing the world that’s around us right now, being with great people, doing amazing things, eating amazing food, playing.

These are just a few ideas … but what would matter to you?

I highly recommend that you spend at least a little time now, and regularly, thinking about this question … figuring out what really matters … and living a life that shows this.

How do you live a life that puts a great emphasis on what matters? Start by figuring out what matters, and what doesn't. Then eliminate as much as you can of the stuff that doesn't matter, or at least minimize it to the extent possible. Make room for what does matter.

Make the time for what does matter … today. Put it on your schedule, and don't miss that appointment. Make those tough decisions — because choosing to live a life that is filled with the important stuff means making choices, and they’re not always easy choices. But it matters.

Spend time with your significant other, show them how important they are. Take the time to cuddle with your child, to read with her, to play with her, to have good conversations with her, to take walks with her. Take time to be in nature, to appreciate the beauty of the world around us. Take time to savor the little pleasures in life.

Because while you might not have only 6 months to live, I'm here to break the news to you: you really do only have a short time to live. Whether that's 6 months, 6 years or 60 … it's but the blink of an eye.

The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now

Thank you for your attention!

1. Plan your presentation on paper first.

Keep away from the computer. Garr Reynolds from PresentationZen calls this going analog.

 Instead focus on your audience and what you want them to take away from the presentation. What do you want them to do? How do you want them to think differently? What do you want them to remember? This will become your Key Message. See this post for more guidance A Simple and Concrete Key Message.

Then structure the flow of your presentation around what your audience will want to know – see Answer your audience’s questions.

The Lifehack post recommends writing a script. I don’t recommend this. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re a skilled dialogue-writer you’ll find it difficult to write your script in conversational language. And conversational language is what works best in a presentation.
• Once you’ve written a script, you may find it hard to keep from reading it. Reading to your audience is an effective way to put them to sleep.
• You may think that you can memorise it – what that means is that you’ll end up “reading” from the script in your head. You’ll still sound artificial and stilted. And you’ll be focusing on remembering what comes next rather than focusing on getting your ideas across to your audience.

Presenting is about communicating ideas – not exact words and sentences. So instead of a script create a set of notes for yourself. Your notes don’t say what you want to say – they remind you of what you want to say. For more guidance on creating notes, see this post The lost art of notes. Then you can focus on connecting with your audience.

Once you’ve created the structure and flow of your presentation, you can start creating slides. There are many different creative ways of creating slides. In this post, I’ll take you through a quick and easy way to use when you’re short of time.

2. Put one statement on each slide

Take each main point of your presentation and express it as a short and succinct statement. Put each statement on one slide.

That’s the only text you put on the slide. The Lifehack post says ‘No paragraphs’! I go further and say ‘No bullets’! Here’s why:

• Bullets are the speaker’s notes in disguise. Take them off the screen and put them in your hand or on the table/lectern in front of you.
• Having bullets on your slide and talking at the same time harms the ability of your audience to take in your message. See The problem with traditional bullet-point slides and New scientific evidence for banning bullets from your PowerPoint slides.
• Bullet-points are outdated. See 5 ways bullet-point slides damage your brand.

If you run out of time, these simple one-statement slides will work fine. If you’ve got time, go onto the next step.

3. Add a relevant visual to each slide

Now look at how you can add a visual element to each slide which helps back-up the point of the slide. There are four main types of visual:

1. An image or photograph which directly represents or is a metaphor for what you’re talking about.
2. A diagram which helps your audience understand the concept you’re describing.
3. A graph which shows the meaning of your data.
4. A flowchart that demonstrates the process you’re explaining.

For more description of each of these see this post on The application of visual thinking to presentations.

I agree with the Lifehack post that irrelevant, distracting images and cliched clipart shouldn’t be used. Watch out also for cliched images – the Slide:ology blog has lots of examples of these.

4. Pay attention to design

The Lifehacker post says:

Avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics.

I agree. The key design principles are:

• Use a simple background – decorative templates add clutter.
• Use a sans serif font such as arial or helvetica.
• Use text which contrasts well with the background.
• If you’re using photos have them fill the whole screen and put your text on top of them. If necessary use a semi-transparent rectangle – a mask – behind the text to ensure that it is readable.

These two posts expand on these points:

• Powerpoint slide design – the basics
• PowerPoint slide design – adding elegance

The Lifehacker post says avoid dark backgrounds if you can to help with readability. This used to be true with older dimmer datashow projectors, but now with brighter projectors it’s not an issue unless you’re in a very light room like a conservatory or direct sunlight is hitting the screen.

5. Dance with your slides

 You know not to read from your slides. But don’t go the other extreme of ignoring your slides like a wallflower at a dance. Dance with them. They are your partner in the presentation – sometimes you lead, sometimes the slide will lead. For more ideas on how to do this see my post Are you missing out on half the power of your PowerPoint slides?

Thank you for your attention!

Most speakers begin their careers gratefully clutching the sides of a lectern, happy to hide behind it for that little extra bit of security in a tense situation. But, by now you know that you should not stay behind the lectern. But why?

And as you get more advanced in your speaking, and comfortable with the stage, how should you move in relation to the audience?

Is it a good idea to move deep into the audience or not? What about those situations where it seems awkward to get to the audience at all, either because of the logistics of the room or the positioning of your listeners?

Human Interaction Zones

In establishing a few rules for the effective choreography of a speech, several key insights from research on non-verbal communications will help. The first comes from Edward T. Hall and his classic work The Silent Language. He described 4 zones of space between people:

1. Twelve feet or more is public space.
2. Twelve feet to 4 feet is social space.
3. Four feet to a foot and a half is personal space.
4. And a foot and a half to zero is intimate space.

The exact dimensions of these zones vary a little from one culture to another, but all cultures have them.

Audience Personal Space is the Key To Connecting

Sharing public space is quite low-key for us – we’re not very interested in people in that space simply because they’re too far away to be important. Social space is a little warmer, but it’s not until someone moves into our personal space that we really begin to pay attention. And of course, when someone is in our intimate space he or she has all our focus.

The bottom line is that nothing significant happens between people except in personal and intimate space. Since public speakers can’t get into intimate space — it violates something quite profound — that leaves personal space.

Here’s the way to think about it: you can’t make a real impact on people unless you can get into their personal space.

By now, you’re thinking that this zone research creates a real problem for public speakers. You obviously can’t get into the personal space of everyone in the audience; you’d be running around like a mad person. Won’t the majority of the audience feel left out?

Your Audience Shares Emotions

I’ll get to the logistics in a minute, but first there’s a nice bit of recent brain research that sheds more light on the subject. An Italian group of brain researchers have studied mirror neurons (See: Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience). It turns out that when someone near us experiences an emotion, a special kind of neuron – a mirror neuron – fires in our head giving us the same emotion. It’s how we’re able to be empathetic as a species, how we can feel other people’s pain and joy, how we can care for others, and so on.

In this case, it means that if a speaker focuses his or her attention on an audience member, all the people sitting near that lucky individual will experience the same thrill of attention. The effect diminishes over space, but it’s quite powerful and it means that to give attention to a great majority of the audience, you don’t have to run around the room.

Trust (and Connection) Increases as Distance Decreases

We can then add to these research insights with a third phenomenon: our trust of people increases when they move closer to us, and decreases as they move away from us.

By now a picture should be emerging of why it’s so important to move into an audience to connect with them – and why you shouldn’t believe that old misconception that other audience members will feel left out if you focus on several people in the room. Moving into the audience, and getting into the personal space of selected audience members, is the only effective way to move beyond bland and make a world-changing impression on people. And the only reason to give a speech is to change the world, right?

Okay, But How Do You Move Closer to the Audience?

Okay, you say, but we’re still left with the logistics.

• What if I’m speaking in a ballroom with all those round tables and people facing every which way – how do I negotiate that space?
• What if I’m up on a stage and jumping down is hazardous to my health?
• What about those times I’m on a camera for the people in the back – the AV people tell me not to go off the stage because they can’t follow me. What do I do then?

In over 20 years of work as a speaker and as a coach of speakers, I have seen virtually every imaginable room configuration. Many of them make it extremely difficult for speakers to move successfully into the audience. In those cases, you just have to do the best you can. And the best may only be moving to the edge of the stage. But even that will increase the audience’s trust in you, and their sense of connection, because humans are very quick to notice when someone is moving toward or away from them, even in small amounts.

Understanding how mirror neurons work lets you know why working the audience is effective even if you only get close to a few people. Nonetheless, you don’t want to spend a lot of time deep in an audience so that your back is turned away from a significant percentage of your listeners. Turning your back on people sends out a powerful message of lack of interest or disengagement.

This is especially true in a room filled with those round tables, where it seems like you’re always turning away from someone. With that kind of configuration, your should spend most of your time at the front of the room, approaching the tables you can easily get to. Try to get to each side of the room. The audience will appreciate both that you’ve attempted to reach them and that you haven’t spent a lot of time lost deep in the thicket of tables.

You also don’t want to spend too much time on one particular audience member. The exact timing depends on the nature of your speech, and the kinds of interactions you have, but as a rule of thumb, think in terms of 30 seconds to a minute, not much more. Audience members will feel left out if you allow one person to monopolize your attention for too long.

It’s a matter of (1) tact and (2) quick thinking on your feet. You need to size up the room, figure out how you’re going to move in it, and plan how much you can work the audience.

The goal should always be to move toward your audience, even if it’s only a few feet, on points in your talk that you want to emphasize, or when you want to interact with audience members. Moving toward the audience – closing the distance – says, “this is important.” Moving away says the opposite. So use your body like a punctuation mark to add clarity and impact to your speaking. The choreography should be in service to the message. Always.

What Do You Think?

As a speaker, has moving toward the audience been a rewarding or frustrating experience?

As an audience member, what do you like or dislike when the speaker steps into the audience?

Thank you for your attention!

Thank you for your attention! 

Save Your Fonts with Your Presentation

If you're preparing a presentation that you plan to distribute to others, be sure that you check this option by clicking on the Tools button in the File/Save As dialog box.  This will work for most TrueType fonts on the Windows platform.

Saving Your Toolbar Configurations

If you like to customize your UI, move toolbars around, configure toolbars, etc, then you'll want to know that all this information is stored in c:\windows\application data\microsoft\powerpoint\ppt.pcb

By copying this file, you can move your customizations to other machines. 

Displaying Keyboard Shortcuts in Tool Tips

If you'd like to see the available keyboard shortcuts for menus, commands, and toolbar buttons, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and click on "show shortcut keys in screen tips". 

Getting Rid of Short Menus

Forgetting user reaction to this feature when it was introduced in Word years ago, the Office team decided to try it again.  Unfortunately, it's still annoying.  To see all of your options when you click on menus, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and uncheck "menus show recently used commands".

Preview Fonts in the Toolbar

If you'd like to see previews of the actual fonts in the font selection of the formatting toolbar, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and click "List font names in their font", click Close.

Making Auto-Fit Text Stop Auto-Fitting

Turn this feature off by going to Tools/Options, click on the Edit tab, and uncheck "autofit text to text placeholder", click OK.

Getting Rid of Tri-Pane View

Unfortunately there is no way to permanently avoid this improvement, but you can quickly get rid of it by holding down the CTRL key when you click on the Slide View button.

Using Ctrl-Drag to Copy

You can quickly make a copy of any object by holding down the CTRL key while you drag on the object.  You will then "drag off" a new copy.

Making Slides Print Correctly

PowerPoint has certain defaults to determine how it prints each object on the page.  You can see over-ride these defaults.  Go to View/Black and White; this will show you a gray-scale preview of how your slide will print.  To change the print settings for any given object, right-click on it, then click "Black and White", and then choose the appropriate print option for that object.  Master objects can be selected by going to the Master page View.

Preview Slide Show Effects

While editing a presentation, hold down the CTRL key while clicking the slide show view button; this will open a tiny preview window showing that slide in slide show mode.

Setting the Default Text Style

 If you want to change the style of the text that appears when you type things that aren't the title or the slide body, do the following:
Make sure no objects are selected.
From the Format menu, select Font. Make all the changes that you want there, and click OK.
From that point on, new text will be created in that style.

To Set the formatting for the title or slide body objects, go to the Slide Master and format these objects on the master.

Using Different Backgrounds within one Presentation

 Users of PowerPoint 2000 and lower will only have two background designs automatically supplied with the Masters (counting both the Slide Master and the Title Master).  However, you can have any design you want on any slide. From the Format menu, select Background. Check the box that says "omit background items" and this will make the slide ignore the Slide Master's design. You are now free to add whatever design you want to this slide. If you want to do this to many slides at once, go to the Slide Sorter, select the slides, and then use the Format menu command. Remember though that if you choose to do something like put a photographic background on many of your slides instead of doing it once on the Master, that your file size may increase dramatically.

PowerPoint 2002 supports multiple background masters.

Using More than One Guide

 If you like using guides, but wish there were more, you can create additional Guides by simply holding down the CTRL key while dragging on an existing Guide. This will create a new guide. To get rid of guides, just drag them off the edge of the slide.

Using Guides to Measure

Make the Guides visible by using View/Guides.  Then, hold down the SHIFT key while you click-and-hold a guide; the tooltip for the guide will display 0:00.  As you move the guide, the distance the guide covers from the beginning of the drag will be displayed in the units of your ruler.  In this way you can measure distances between objects, place guides at specific places, etc.

Creating Pages with Slides and Descriptive Text

If you want to create printable pages that have notes or descriptive text associated with each slide, PowerPoint has a feature designed to do just this called Notes Pages, or Speaker's Notes (depending on which version you're using). To view the Notes page for any slide, go to the View menu and select Notes Pages. You will see an image of your slide there, and a placeholder for adding your script, notes, or any other text you wish. You can cut-and-paste text from Word here if you like. To print these pages, bring up the Print dialog, and at the bottom of the dialog where it says "Print What:", select Notes Pages. These pages were originally designed to be used as audience hand outs (with space for the audience to take notes) but were also used by many as speaker's notes: the text block would have the script of the presentation, to be used by the speaker, or for sales binders to educated sales people.

Thank you for your attention! 

By that, I mean, how much time and energy are you spending in (or with) your team and how much time out in the wider organisation? It might seem like a simple question, but executives rarely take the time to think about it. It's important to do though, because this single question could answer many other questions that you — or your boss — have about your style and effectiveness.

Executives usually have a preference for one arena, which can be reinforced by their role, their personality, or even the corporate culture. A quality control manager, for example, would naturally be more inwardly focused while a communications director would roam across the business. Both roles would attract different personalities. Similarly, some organisations are structured as, or have developed into, silos due to the nature of their business or markets. Examples might include law firms, where separate practices evolve to serve clients in specific areas.

My suggestion is that executives need to balance the time they spend in both the In and Out arenas if they are to be effective. They also need to find a third place — between the two arenas — where they can reflect on this. My post earlier this year about scheduling a regular meeting with yourself is one way to do this.

Let me outline some of the activities and tasks associated with each arena so you can assess for yourself where you are spending your time:

In Leaders:

• Focus on results and deliverables
• Coach and support their people
• Build team spirit
• Offer expert knowledge or share experience
• Monitor performance/quality control
• Are present and available
• Surface and deal with conflict

Out Leaders:

• Get involved in cross-organisational initiatives
• Build networks
• Delegate extensively
• Manage their profiles and visibility
• Engage with peers inside and outside their companies
• Look after their careers
• Engage in organisational politics
• Join committees
• Attend or speak at industry conferences

So why is balance so important? I have worked with many executives who exist only in the In space. They argue that they are doing "real" work: finishing projects, delivering results and building strong teams. They often distrust (or even despise) peers who focus on the Out space, branding them as attention seekers, political operators, or "committee people." Not surprisingly, the outwardly focused leaders describe their inward-facing peers as uncooperative, naïve, or poor corporate citizens.

Of course, I am describing extremes of behaviour here, but I hope you see my point. The best approach is to know your default setting and then to make sure that it is not turning into your comfort zone. All of the positive aspects of each point above can turn into negatives if they are overplayed. So focusing too much on results can mean you neglect strategy and vision, and always being on hand with an answer for your team can mean they become lazy or de-motivated. Equally, too many cross-organisational initiatives can detract from your real job, while looking after yourself and your career alone can mean you lose supporters.

One client I remember received some very clear feedback about where he should be focusing his energy. An individualistic and politically savvy North American executive, he had been posted to Switzerland, where his team were unimpressed by what they viewed as his selfish and pointless manoeuvrings across the organisation. "Come back into your team where you belong," they demanded. He recognised that Swiss culture is based on team work and the leader's role is more primus inter pares than boss. Fortunately he adapted his style and focused heavily inwards, spending time building relationships and supporting his team. Interestingly, when I caught up with him three years later, the feedback he was receiving was the opposite: "You are here too much," they said. "You have disappeared as a leader. We need you to go out and fight for us. Be our North star." Clearly, it was time for him to venture outwards again.

As always, I am eager to hear your thoughts and comments. Do you prefer one arena or the other? Have you been pushed outside your comfort zone or area of responsibility? Have you noticed any preferences among colleagues or bosses to be In or Out? What do you think is a good balance of activity?

Thank you for your attention! 

It’s not rocket science.

It turns out there’s a scientific explanation for why we don’t remember much from a bad PowerPoint presentation.

Scientists studying “cognitive load theory” at the University of New South Wales in Australia have published a report that has shaken up the way the world looks at presentations and learning.

Their research suggests the human brain is good at reading, good at listening, but not very good at doing both simultaneously.

Presenting someone with the same information verbally and visually (e.g. reading from a bad PowerPoint slide) makes absorbing the information much more difficult. Our brains can only take in and remember so much at once.

Professor Sweller, a researcher in the study, said, “The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster. It should be ditched. It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form.”

He has a good point. Public speakers have been putting audiences to sleep with PowerPoint for years, but that doesn’t mean we should ditch the application all together. After all, it isn’t fair to blame the tool for the craftsman’s mistakes.

Don’t make ‘em choose.

Effective presentations never make life harder on an audience.

Professor Sweller offers good advice when he recommends we speak to diagrams instead of bullet points, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Keep the text on your slides to a minimum, phrases that only take a few seconds to read. Instead of bullet points, use diagrams and images as the backdrop to your story. When you’re presenting a longer quote, don’t be afraid to stand silently while the audience reads the quote for themselves.

Ultimately, the key takeaway is this: Never force your audience to choose between listening to what you say or reading the text on your slides. You can’t expect them to do both, and you might not like what they choose.

Thank you for your attention!