One Minute Pause no 12

Just in case you’ve flown back from the Congo today after enjoying 3 months in a tent, here’s some news: there’s a national election going on in Britain at the moment.

(If you are sick of hearing about politics, skip down to The Human Factor subhead).

In the hallowed halls of Natural Training we always watch the performance of the leading candidates as they attempt to win favour by smiling their way across the nation.

Here’s a few observations:

1) Watching Tony Blair and Gordon Brown with a soft-serve ice-cream each yesterday was unacceptable.

Gordon in particular looked like Tony had just placed a small pink poodle in his hand. He didn’t have the first clue of how to look when holding an ice-cream. You could almost hear him say: Do I look serious and thoughtful, or do I just take a lick?

2) Watching Michael Howard’s hands shaking when being interviewed by Jeremy Paxton last week.

Michael needs more certainty about what he is saying. When someone isn’t certain, they show visible signs of nerves.

And when he reached into his pocket to pull out a piece of paper, which had a quote written on it, the paper was shaking so much that if it was an ice-cream he would have been wearing it.

Yesterday’s news also featured Howard running somewhere quite fast, as always wearing the big smile. You could see the PR person in the side of the shot encouraging him - this is sure to win votes! Not sure it worked though, as running in a pink shirt and trousers on a 25 degree day somehow didn’t look that dignified or natural at all.

3) Charles Kennedy with his posse.

There’s rarely been a shot of the lib dem leader without at least 15 nodding dogs (never quite sure who they are) in the background. Rather than giving the impression of strength, I think this somewhat undermines his power.

It looks a little like a promo shot for the Backstreet Boys. An equally powerful camera shot can have 1-2 people in the frame, with some strong words and policies being the hero instead of what appear to be his posse saying “yo” in the background.

The Human Factor
There’s one particular part of an election race that all leaders from all parties try and capture: the human factor.

We should all keep the human factor in mind when speaking in public next.

That’s not to say that we should give out ice creams, kiss babies, run around outside in our suits or have all our colleagues and friends crowd around behind us.

But it is a good idea to inject some small part of your “humanness” into the presentation.

People like to hear about other people.

If you’re standing up and you have something interesting to say, then it will be made all the more interesting by hearing a little bit of what makes you tick as a human.

Example: Recently I heard a lawyer speak at an HR conference about anti-discrimination policies.

Typically a rather dry subject.

But at the start he showed he was human by saying:

“Just before I start, I saw my 4 year-old son and 6 year-old daughter playing around with my laptop this morning, and I haven’t had time to check what they were up to. So my apologies in advance if any of my slides have the words ‘bottom’, Barbie or ‘nemo’ on them.”

It got a laugh and everyone warmed to him instantly because he was human.

Try a similar little story with your next presentation and you will probably get a similar result.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005 at 2:21 pm and is filed under One Minute Pause. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.