Presenting yourself: how to build your confidence and skill in public speaking and develop your toolbox of influencing techniques

Practical Law UK Articles w-041-9352 (Approx. 9 pages)

Presenting yourself: how to build your confidence and skill in public speaking and develop your toolbox of influencing techniques

by Practical Law In-house

Formal presentations: preparing your material, and yourself, for success

Bridget Clapham (an executive coach and personal effectiveness, leadership and wellbeing specialist) has written extensively for Practical Law on topics including coaching and mentoring, career and professional development for lawyers, emotional intelligence – and presenting (see this article's related content for links to some of her materials).

At the Future Forum meeting, she focused on techniques for making sure that your presentation's content is as effective as it can be, before turning to how to reduce presentation anxiety by retraining your brain to embrace the challenge.

Preparing your material: focus on your audience, not yourself

Many people have a fear of getting their talk "wrong". They spend most of their preparation time working on their content in the belief that this will help them overcome their fear and build confidence. It is certainly part of the success formula, and your materials should of course be accurate. It also goes without saying that you should be familiar with your slides and speaker notes before you present.

However, presenters sometimes forget that one aspect of making sure their content is "right" is ensuring that it is right for the audience at hand. Bridget posed three questions to ask yourself to make sure that your presentation is appropriately tailored to your audience. Speaking to your audience's needs will make your presentation as effective as possible, boosting your confidence when delivering it.

1. What do the audience need to know and understand more about by the end of my presentation?

This is different to the question that is often asked when choosing content: "What do I want to tell them about and get across?" Remember that you are close to the topic and deep into the detail; your audience are starting from a different place. Put yourself into their map of the world and consider the topic from there:

What do they already know?
How can you build on this?
How will this land in their map?
How can you help them to see the relevance within their map?
What impact might your content have on them and their work?
What benefits can they gain from listening to your content?

2. How do I want the audience to feel during and after my presentation?

Our emotional state is hugely relevant, and drives our behaviour. How audience members feel will impact their engagement and their responses when they sign out or leave the room. They will be consciously or unconsciously aware of, and influenced by, the energy of the speaker. What you say and how you say it matter hugely. Think about your:

Tonality.
Intonation.
Pace and pitch.
Body language: eye contact, posture, stance and gestures.

For more detail on these points and the rationale behind them, see Practice note, Delivering presentations with confidence: presenting your ideas and engaging your audience.

For more on posture and developing your "power pose", see Exercise 2: Develop your power pose and become a movie star.

3. What do I want the audience to do as a result of listening to my presentation?

Ask yourself:

Is there a call to action?
Is it clear and is there a shared understanding of it by the end of your meeting?
Do the audience understand the relevance of their action to the progress of your topic or the project?
How will you follow up and support them in taking action?

Remember that how the audience feel will significantly impact the likelihood of them acting.

Preparing your brain for confident presenting: you can Scooby Doo it!

We do not always realise that it is crucial to spend time preparing ourselves, as well as our materials, to deliver a presentation effectively. Mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) techniques can help you train your brain to generate a positive response to public speaking, become increasingly confident in your own abilities, and enjoy sharing thoughts and ideas with others in this way.

Building confidence and skills in public speaking

What is it that makes some people (if only 14% of attendees at our recent meeting) love presenting and feel confident and excited about doing it, while the majority of us respond more negatively – and how can we develop that enthusiasm?

Bridget explained that a panicked reaction to a public speaking request is driven by an evolutionary "fight or flight" response to life-threatening situations that results in adrenaline overload. However, public speaking is not dangerous; an anxious response is driven by our brain mislabelling the nature of the threat.

Training your brain not to perceive public speaking as a serious threat, and reducing adrenaline to a useful level, requires understanding three key components of your emotional state and how each can be modified to overcome anxiety. The first two elements are to do with psychology and the words and pictures running through your mind. The third – posture – is related to physiology.

Ask yourself:

Words. What is my internal dialogue like when I think about presenting? What thoughts come into my brain?
Everyone has an internal dialogue or narrative. A negative internal dialogue – especially one on a loop – will "code" whatever you are worrying about as a threat, increasing your anxiety. Conversely, a positive and supportive internal dialogue will bolster your confidence.
Pictures. What does my inner movie streaming service show me? Is it generating threats for me to react to?
All top performers visualise their performance as part of their preparation for an event. Those who are nervous may re-run past events that did not go well, or visualise horror movies about future ones, making it more likely that the next will go poorly. Like your internal narrative, your inner movie reel drives your state and affects your behaviour – for better or worse.
Physiology. Does my posture make me feel secure and grounded?

Exercises to retrain your brain

The brain can be taught to perceive things differently, thanks to our innate neuroplasticity. Both of the following exercises are helping you to build new neural pathways and programme your mind for success. Repeating and practising the exercises is important and will help you to train your brain to work for you rather than against you.

Exercise 1: Reframe your inner narrative

Stage One. Imagine that you have been asked to give a formal presentation and are feeling very nervous about it. Tune into your thoughts and pick out the worst thing that you say to yourself in this situation. Thank your brain for trying to be helpful and resolve to do something different. You could, for example, imagine that the voice is coming from a radio – a station that you are not enjoying. Turn off the radio so that there is silence in your head. Or you could change the voice you hear to a cartoon character's (Scooby Doo is one that people often choose). The criticism may not be so impactful; it may even make you smile, changing your neurochemistry.

Stage Two. Imagine that you have your own internal confidence coach. It could be a friend, a family member, a celebrity or a wise teacher. That person is kind, supportive, encouraging and positive. Imagine what your confidence coach would be saying to you to help you access feelings of confidence and calm about presenting. Listen to that voice and notice how you feel.

Exercise 2: Develop your power pose and become a movie star

Stage One. Sit or stand with your feet flat on the floor. If standing, put your feet hip-width apart. Notice your posture. Now, sit or stand in your most confident posture. Notice the differences: how are your spine, your chest, your shoulders, your facial expression when you are feeling confident? What would your posture be like if you were twice as confident? Feel the ground solid beneath your feet; be aware of gravity holding you safe and steady. Close your eyes or lower your eyelids, to reduce inputs to your brain. Notice your breathing and track the sensations of your next breath in and out. Notice how it feels to sit or stand strongly in this way. Think of this as your "power pose": grounded, steady and confident. You can use it at any point before and during the presentation, to boost your confidence.

Stage Two. In your mind's eye, run a movie of you presenting superbly. You are the star, entering the room or sitting at your screen and confidently handling the presentation just as you would dream of doing. It is important to visualise the situation as you would see it in reality and in real time, through your own eyes and ears, not as if watching yourself from the audience. Have it go brilliantly and notice how you handle challenges that arise. When you have finished your run-through, open your eyes and come back to the present.

For more on Bridget's methods and the science behind them, and more detailed exercises to work through, see Practice note, Delivering presentations with confidence: the importance of preparation in reducing anxiety.

Influencing and effective communication: why should anyone listen to you?

Being an excellent public speaker is helpful in projecting a professional persona, but if it is undermined by poor communication in other scenarios you may not be as effective (or "competent") a lawyer, or as good a candidate for promotion, as you would wish.

At our meeting, Daniel Wain (learning & development consultant, trainer, coach, writer and theatre practitioner) addressed the broad question "Why should anyone listen to me?" and set out some useful tools and techniques for navigating, and getting your message across in, different situations.

Daniel emphasised that, just as with formal presentations, understanding your audience and their concerns is at the heart of effective communication and influencing. You are not trying to control or manipulate the person you are communicating with, or misrepresent facts or situations – all of which is likely to be unethical at best. Instead, you are trying to effect some kind of change and leave people in a different, better, place after you have spoken to them. To do so, you need to make them understand the importance of what you are saying, so that they choose to read or listen to your message among the hundreds of others they may receive or hear that day (see Why influence? for questions to use to sense-check whether you should be communicating at all).

While you are not trying to control your audience, you can control yourself and your responses to situations. How you choose to impart a message should be determined by the circumstances; there is no "one size fits all" way of doing so. However, it is helpful to bear some key principles in mind and be aware of a range of approaches that you can practise and choose from when trying to get your message across in a given situation (see Why should anyone be influenced by me? and Which technique should I use?). You may use some of them without realising already, but recognising them, practising them and expanding your toolbox of techniques will boost your confidence that you can handle any situation more confidently and effectively.

Why influence?

There is no point communicating with or trying to influence someone for no reason, and sending lots of unnecessary communications is unlikely to lead to effective influencing. Be clear about what your message is and its purpose.

To check whether it meets the threshold for crafting a communication and choosing your approach, consider the following points, which mirror some of those required to put together an effective formal presentation:

Why do I want to influence this person?
- What do I want them to do or learn as a result of my message?
- How do I want them to think or feel as a result of my message?
Reflect on previous situations that you approached the same way.
- Was your earlier approach effective? Did the recipient do, learn or feel what or how you wanted them to?
- If you do not know the result of your earlier communication, is there a way of measuring the result this time? If the results are not obvious, does that indicate that your effort spent in crafting your message or approach was not well spent?

Why should anyone be influenced by me?

This is a question many ask themselves but junior professionals in particular may feel that they are likely to be ignored or overlooked, or their communication not given the weight it deserves, because of their relative status in a relationship. However, Daniel reminded the audience that effective influencing can be done from any position in an organisation's hierarchy, just as anybody whom people follow is a leader – regardless of job title or role.

When thinking about how you can make your communications effective, ask yourself what it is you bring that makes people want to be influenced by you? It may be helpful to use the following structures to arrive at an answer.

Pain/gain. Think about what the value or benefit of listening to you is for the person you are trying to influence. Conversely, what negative consequences could there be if they do not? Is there a time- or financial saving that could be made if they follow your recommendation, or a risk that could crystallise or an opportunity that could be missed if they do not?
Pull/push. There are two fundamental ways to influence: pulling someone along, so that they willingly listen and do as you recommend, or pushing someone along, which may make them feel coerced or bullied. Pulling someone along with you is far more effective in the longer term, and more sustainable over time.
Power. Perhaps people will listen to you because of who you are. You may have "reward power" because your role comes with opportunities to give people benefits. Lawyers particularly may have "expert power" due to their subject matter expertise or experience. However, power does not simply come from a job title or position. As an individual, you may have "personal power" because you have previously demonstrated skill or trustworthiness, for example by having helped avoid a risk or spot an opportunity in the past. Personal power may even stem simply from your own personality: your charisma, gravitas or sense of humour may help you influence effectively even without a pre-existing relationship.

Remember, if it is clear that you are seeking to influence someone solely for your own benefit rather than the other person's (sometimes termed "self-orientation"), this will undermine the effectiveness of your communications and ability to influence – and potentially land you in murky ethical waters.

Which technique should I use?

The technique you use should be tailored to the circumstances and centred on the person you are trying to influence. Not only will your own position, in terms of power, vary depending on the situation (for example, your expert power may be diminished in a room full of more senior lawyers), but the more you know about that other person, the easier it is to frame an effective message by determining which methods are most likely to help your message land. Again, you are not seeking to manipulate or misrepresent; you are working out how to prioritise elements of a complex situation swiftly, accurately and compellingly, but always with your duties as a lawyer in mind.

Ask yourself:

What do I know about this person's priorities? Do I know what gets this person out of bed in the morning, or keeps them awake at night? Referring to this point early on will help you secure their attention.
What language do they respond to? For example, should I emphasise the resources saved or benefits gained?
Will their initial response be driven by their head or their heart? Should I go methodically through the details or start with the big picture? Should I be reasoning with them or trying to inspire? Your approach here will also be driven by the content of your message: is it legal advice, for example, or a request for additional training budget for the legal team?

Remember, this is not about finding "your" or "the best" approach, that you then apply in every situation. Doing the same thing repeatedly with the same person may be less effective over time: asking for too many favours of one person may turn that option into a "push" rather than a "pull" with them. Try different techniques to work out which is most effective, or which combination has the desired result; balance being creative with pragmatism. Develop and add to your toolbox over time.

Audience questions

1. What advice do you have for communicating with senior leaders - both by email and in online meetings? How can you best prepare advice to stakeholders concisely, without listing all risks and your email being seen as long-winded?

Daniel: In our age of "infobesity", a senior leader may have hundreds of emails to deal with during the day. Apply the principle I discussed earlier of distilling the benefit for them of listening to you and ask yourself "Why should they read my email?". Then use that to guide your drafting, to make sure they read, understand, remember and act on your email. There are various options open to you to help get your message across. You could use a combination of the following techniques:

Use the subject line to summarise the content and the importance of reading your message (or risk of ignoring it) and make clear whether action is required by the recipient.
Tell them at the top of the email why they should read it. Is action required or is the content just helpful information that they will benefit from knowing? Use the structures described above (pain/gain and so on) to frame the message.
Use bullet points rather than long blocks of text.
Layer the message: include a summary of all key points at the top of the email then go into the detail underneath. A detailed subject line is part of this layering.
Keep it short. You could limit the email's content to a summary of the key points but add links to where the detail can be found.

2. How do you control nerves in your voice?

Bridget: A lot of this can be done through your preparation of yourself before the presentation (see Preparing your brain for confident presenting: you can Scooby Doo it!). If you focus on cultivating a positive inner narrative and inner streaming service, and strong posture in advance of the event itself so that you feel confident, your voice will be confident. Don't forget to tailor your materials to your audience (see Preparing your material: focus on your audience, not yourself) and be aware of their need. This will help you in building a rapport with them, which will make the whole experience less anxiety-inducing.

3. Do you have any tips for handling the unexpected?

Bridget: There are various things you can do. Make sure you rehearse your presentation ahead of time. You do not need to anticipate everything that may happen, but if you have practised dealing with something unexpected beforehand, your brain will have been trained to handle unexpected events confidently. You can rehearse something you can say to give yourself time, such as "That's an interesting question I had not anticipated". You may even be prepared to say, "I'll come back to you later on that one." In the moment, allow yourself a slight wobble, rebalance yourself (feel your feet and ensure you feel grounded), then respond confidently.

4. How can you adapt your style to maintain audience interest (in what may be a dry topic)?

Daniel: Remember that your audience will pick up on how you feel about your topic, so you have to go in thinking that it's interesting, or find an interesting story about it (maybe the interesting thing is how boring it is…). You need to make your presentation engaging to the audience. If you think you will lose their interest quickly, no matter how engaging you are, review your materials to make sure that they focus only on what your audience needs to know, rather than including everything you know about that topic (see 1. What do the audience need to know and understand more about by the end of my presentation?).

Presenting yourself: how to build your confidence and skill in public speaking and develop your toolbox of influencing techniques | Practical Law