Presentation Psychology Articles

NLP: Nothing Like Properscience!

About every other course somebody asks me about how Visual Cognitive Dissonance (VCD) sits with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). My tongue-in-cheek response is that VCD is based on science and, as far as I am aware, is consistent with all the major religions, and so almost certainly consistent with the minor ones such as NLP.

Why do I compare NLP to a religion? Looking at the research, it’s at best inconclusive and at worst labeled as pseudoscience. Linguistics isn’t my main calling, but I’m pretty convinced that the fundamental tenants of NLP may be suspect. In fact I love the following quote from the founders of NLP:

We have no idea about the “real” nature of things, and we’re not particularly interested in what’s “true”. The function of modelling is to arrive at descriptions which are useful

Bandler, R. and Grinder, J. (1979), Frogs into Princes: Neuro-linguistic Programming, Moab, Utah: Real People Press
I also love the publisher! Moab, Utah…makes me think of the brilliant musical for the non-pious, “The Book of Mormon” – also beautifully relevant for this observation.
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Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 43 years old today and for the first time in about 10 years I am away from home and working on my birthday. The kids all phoned me this morning with birthday wishes, but the best present came in the form of a conversation with a delegate on the course I am facilitating in London.

Let me give you some context. 18 months ago, I was asked to speak at a conference about a consistent Value Proposition. I was give a one-hour time slot and was told that the delegates would have been working on a case study and have their draft VP’s ready. My talk was supposed to set up a presentation exercise afterwards. I had agreed with the organiser that when I arrived they would give me the list of VP’s and I would use this as the basis of my presentation. When I arrived, they hadn’t got that far in the exercise and so with 5 minutes to go I had to change the presentation.
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Managing the Details Without Losing Your Key Messages

I recently delivered the Killer Presentations course to a group of financial service industry sales professionals in New York City. An important learning in this training is to trim the information in your presentation to include only the most relavent data you want your audience to remember. A few days later, I got the following question from an attendee about all the other information that needs to be delivered eventually:

If the sales presentation delivers 4 or 5 key points you want the audience to know, what’s the best way to communicate the much weightier technical detail that lies behind those key points?

The first question is do you really need to get into technical detail in the presentation? When I am teaching kids to sail, I need them to know that to turn the boat, they must move the tiller in the opposite direction.  Do they need to understand the mathematics of how the rudder creates turning momentum on the stern of the boat?  No.
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Humour and Presentations: Yes or No?

Sometimes, I feel like all of us professional presentation coaches are either a bit hypocritical or bit egotistical. We all collectively seem to have the opinion that humour is really beneficial if done well, but disastrous if not.

Since the telling of jokes is a black art that none of us understand, and in the absence of a set of codified rules about it, we usually resort to advice that says:

“Unless your really good at it (CAVEAT) don’t try, the risk is too great” and then we take to the stage ourselves and start off or end with a joke.

Well, I want a set of rules. When can I tell a joke? What can I tell a joke about? Enough of this avoiding the issue, lets given the clients the rules (even if complicated and needing practice) and then let them decide to try it or not.

I have some ideas, some great blogs and resources and a few good books and so far some pretty clear ideas on what may be a set of rules but what do you think? Where have you seen it work? Seen it fail?

In short, please respond, with a joke if possible? And maybe I can pull it all together into something better than “Be careful” cop out…

Presentation Iconography

If a picture paints a thousand words, why do we use thousands of words and one picture (pie chart!) in our presentations?

When, how and why should we use icons in a visual presentation?

Iconography is often associated with art or religion (Cross, Star of David, Ichthus  (little fish shape used by Christians during times of religious persecution now seen on the back of cars) but the idea of using a small image as a symbol has a long tradition.

Modern usage can be blamed on Apple, the mass of computer graphic interfaces needing icons for every application and function at your fingertips. But, in essence the benefit of using icons is that they bypass the language centers of the brain. They speed up information transmission and reduce the amount of cognitive load needed to assimilate information, and idea or concept. Think about using a computer that displays text in a foreign language—on the whole you’d still be able to do quite a bit because the program and function icons all transcend the language barrier. Continue reading →