Ep12 - Presentation Skills - 4 Ps (Communication Skills Lessons by Parveen Sharma - Learning Radio Podcast)

Welcome back to Learning Radio. This is Praveen Sharma. I am a faculty at Amit Uunasati in Tashkhand, Uzbekistan. This is the series, Communication Skills for Students. Anyone who is interested in learning about communication skills, concepts and various aspects of communication skills, professional communication, business communication or even corporate communication. We welcome you and when we are making explanations about different aspects, different features, different types of communication and related verticals, related domains, we wish to share that all these topics are also part of communication skills syllabus of Amit Uunasati, which is in India as well as around the world. Now when we have been talking about different modules which are part of the syllabus, concept of communication, nonverbal communication, listening, cross cultural communication, we also talked about effective speaking. In the last 11 episodes, we have talked about all these things. Taking ahead, this journey is going to reach presentation skills which is module number 6, but we are jumping from module number 4 to module number 6 for a reason. The reason is that, speaking skills which is completely public speaking related when we were talking about and we also consider speaking as public speaking that directly takes us to organized presentation which becomes presentation skills or we can call it professional presentations just to introduce you to the purpose of communication. We communicate or we present anything be it personal, casual, formal or professional, be it a business talk or you are giving a talk which is just for the entertainment of any audience in any language. You speak to inform, you speak to persuade and you speak to entertain. When you are going to entertain them does not mean that you are just going to make them laugh or something. No, you may make them laugh of course, humor is required, but entertainment means when you engage their attention not just in communication of entertainment only entertainment. Actually, when we are talking about all this which is presentation skills, the best thing that we do actually these days in presentations is to persuade when you try to convince them. However, in academic presentations which are about lessons which are also about news, we inform them. So there are three purposes, there are three things that we do with communication and presentation to inform, we inform them to persuade, we try to convince them. Sometimes we try to make them accept our opinion and third thing is to entertain them where we just engage their attention and make them feel good. So these are three things that we do with communication and presentation also. Let us understand the meaning of presentation. A presentation is an organized representation or an organized sharing of your thoughts, ideas, information, opinion with a known audience. You know the audience because you have been given this responsibility. So a responsible public speaking where you are officially, formally, invited or you know your task, we can say that task oriented public speaking where a result is required, where an analysis will be done, where the audience is sometimes known to you or it is assigned to you so that you can inform them, you can persuade them or even entertain them. So when we are giving an organized representation of our thoughts and ideas or a topic, we call it presentation. Our presentation can become public speaking when we are just giving them something what they want. I mean, you have got a wide audience in a TED talk and you're giving a talk in which you are talking about something being it complicated, but you try to make it simple. And you also try to entertain them in public speaking, but coming to business presentation, the aim of the speakers in business presentation, the type of audience in business presentation or professional presentation, their expectations, their need and the amount of, for information will also be different. Your level of interaction in a presentation will always be different than public speaking. I would say in public speaking, you are just speaking and you want them to have general understanding of what you are talking about and maybe there will be no interaction, but in a presentation, of course, as a teacher, I can say, as a student, you know this as a CEO or maybe someone who has the responsibility of speaking to the press if you are working in a government office or you can be the prime minister, president or anyone who has this task of making a presentation, you know, the audience wants to talk to you and wants to understand the topic completely because presentation is something which is evaluation oriented which has an examination of your presentation skills as well. So you need to give them what they need, you need to match their expectations in a presentation and you also know that in a presentation, certain terms, certain amount of knowledge, beat academic knowledge, beat professional knowledge, everything has to be organized. So today we are going to talk about what presentation is, the topics of this module, presentation skills are planning, preparation, practice and performance. I mean four piece of presentation. We will talk about audience analysis. We shall also talk about audio visual aids, the things we use to empower our presentation. Analyzing the non-verbal communication, beat of the speaker or maybe of other participants in the presentation, we shall also talk about methods of delivery like impromptu delivery, extemporary delivery, memorization delivery of presentation, manuscript based delivery and outlining presentation as well. And I am speaking this, I can recall that in the previous episode, I mentioned these topics. I had introduced this module in the previous episode. When you will listen to all these episodes together, for your purpose of studies or maybe just for your skills and awareness, you shall realize, you will realize and you must see that there is a common connection. The common connection is about skill enhancement. The reason is, you can always do practical usage of something when we know the concept. If I know the concept, then I will be perfect in my practical of that particular theory. So these are these topics, these concepts which are being explained. If you know them, you can be a communication skills teacher as well, a trainer, maybe you can become a mentor to someone and you can train them, you can coach them on communication skills. The reason is, you know, the foundation. So today, the first topic is the four piece of presentation. I mean, four words, which are about presentation and all of them will start with the same letter P, the same letter which is the first letter in my name as well as Pervene. So now, the first one. And I am excited about it. The reason is, without this, I mean, no planning is a successful plan to fail. If you do not plan, then of course you may not be able to achieve what you exactly want. So first step in the presentation process, we can say is planning. What do you plan? Let me tell you what you plan. You plan your audience. I mean, you need to know them. You plan your resources. You also see what time has been given to you. I mean, not just that you are being asked to go in the morning or in the evening or maybe afternoon or at night, you will be speaking for the presentation, but how much time? So know your audience in the presentations planning part. You should also see what resources you have. You also see that you have got this much time. What is the fourth thing to see in your planning part of presentation? See yourself skills. I mean, a self assessment. You should also see what are your strengths and your weaknesses so that you can plan your presentation. So when you are doing planning, do keep it in mind that you need to plan not just collecting the material. You should also plan how you are going to put it together, but putting together is second step. First step is planning the presentation. The second step is preparation. Now preparation is about cooking the food. I mean, you get everything from the market. You put it on the shelf in the kitchen and then what you do, you start organizing them. So what you do is in the planning part, you decide how audience is there. I mean, you try to know them. Their needs, their expectations. You keep everything in mind. Then you go to resources, maybe books, maybe internet, you go to your teachers, you talk to your friends, you start reading your notes, you go to social media, you collect, you collect the material. You put everything together in a basket, in a bag, in a folder, in a word document, maybe in the notes file or you are sending messages to yourself. So after planning, we do preparation. In the preparation part, we do only two things. Number one, we collect the material and the second thing what we do, we organize the material. So planning goes to preparation where collection and organization of the material is being done. After planning and preparation, we go to the third P of presentation that is called practice. I can say that you can stand up on the stage in practice, you can sit in front of a microphone and practice, you can start the camera and then record and then self analyze yourself, do the practice. Practice is about implementing your skills. Practice is about checking whether you are planning and your preparation is on a correct track. I mean, it is not going to be important that you are going to get 100% of the material. 100 on 100 in the presentation assessment, but you need to practice. You need to time yourself. I mean, a good presenter should check whether if he has been given 15 minutes, can he finish in 13 minutes or 14 minutes so that he can be proud of himself. You know, we don't need to do a survey to find out that 100% people dislike a speaker who takes more time than given to him. I mean, you go over time and you are going to be disliked. Be assured about it. And getting attention of the people is equally important. Of course, with keeping their attention, I mean, you start very well, but how are you going to keep their attention? This is what you do in the practice part. I mean, in the practice part, you check your voice, in the practice part, you check your devices, gadgets, you try to see which way you will be walking, how you are going to come back. You try to see whether the presentation is working properly. The microphone is also being managed by you very well and all those audio visual aids be it some model that you are going to take with you, everything is working fine or not. Like it's a rehearsal. It is something which is a repeat you are doing before the main show, like be it a musical performance or a football match. All the players, all the artists, they sit together and they try to jam. So practice should be done in front of maybe your friends or anyone who can analyze you in a good way. That can be you. Only you as well. Like you can record your voice, you can check your voice whether it is breaking or if not breaking, then is it going low? Is it making people feel that you are exhausted at the end of the presentation? The reason is you start with the best of energy and you keep your best of energy till the last word that you speak. So going ahead with the four piece of presentation, we are done with planning, which is about knowing your audience, knowing your resources, knowing the time given to you and also doing a self-assessment. After planning, we move on to preparation which is about collecting the material and organizing it. Then we do practice. What do we next? There is only one thing left, which is just about shining on the stage and shining in that presentation task. We call it performance. Performance means like a dancer, like a musician, like an actor or like a football player, cricket player or any best person who is someone like we we like a lot. So performance is made of actual delivery of this presentation. When I am talking about presentation, please do not think of public speaking. The reason is public speaking is something in which you can break the sequence. Reason is like you are entertaining them. You need their attention till the last word, but presentation has a difference. People who have come to watch you, see you, listen to you, they have come there for a purpose. Their purpose can be that they need information, they need entertainment or they need persuasion. Public speaking is slightly different. The reason is, I mean you need to be a different person in it, where you have got a different role. We will talk about public speaking some other day, but here you need to know the cause and effect rule. The effect means the result. And what is the cause causes if you prepare well, you will be able to make them learn more. So presentations are more about making other people learn from you. And there is one small thing that I learned from a book. It talks about sound bite technique. What is sound bite technique? In a presentation, you know, when I am talking about the fourth one, which is about performance, which is about delivery of presentation, you have PowerPoint presentations, maybe you have Kenva or you have got some other graphics or videos or you have got some whiteboard on which you are going to write something. Always do a sound bite. Sound bite is, you know, in media, what they do is a news anchor will speak maybe one line or two lines about something and then suddenly something comes on the TV screen. That is a sound bite technique. Like you give a small sentence or a small statement to grab their attention and then the visual comes. So this is how you should be giving presentations. I shall be talking about the steps of performance also. But first, let's close this talk about the four piece of presentation. First P planning, second P preparation, third P practice and the fourth P performance. Now in the performance part, there are seven different steps that we have been talking about in our lessons also. These are seven steps that a good presenter should follow. And what exactly you do in these seven steps. Let's talk about them. Seven steps of presentation delivery. They are here for you. First one, open, second, explore, third, explain, fourth, invite, fifth, summarize, sixth, request reaction and seventh, I mean the last one is close. So we started with open and we go to close. So it is open, explore, explain, invite, summarize, request reaction and close. Do remember them in the same sequence and their explanation should also be given to you. So let me talk very briefly about it and you can go to the description to find out more about all these seven steps. The first step is open. A speaker should introduce himself or herself. A speaker should talk about what exactly is the purpose, the topic and from where the speaker is, I mean the basic introduction which should come on the first slide and in the first words also. And what do we do in second step then explore, drop them a question or maybe you tell them that you are one of them, you speak something which connects you with your audience, exploration is about asking them something or sharing something in which some people who are not listening to you can raise their chin and start looking at you or you try to check out what is the mood of your audience in exploration part. You also try to find out who are the people who know about this thing before you will be explaining and who are the people who are completely unaware of it. This is something like you are trying to do a scanning of your audience. So explanation will follow it. So open this with some introduction. They should know what you are talking about. After opening, you tell them your purpose and the significance of it. I mean the sub up, the reason, the purpose, the benefit they will be having after listening to you. So you give them in exploration part, what is going to be the utility of it, what exactly is the use, the benefit, the profit they can make after listening to you in exploration, you just tell them all these good things and that's how you try to know them and then comes the most terrible. I mean I can fumble on it. The reason is explain. Open, explore, explain. You know this explanation part is the one in which you become a devil, a demon. Someone who is not liked by them because you speak so much. You have got images, graphs, you show them all the details, you keep on explaining all these things. Maybe the most boring part is explanation sometime, be it mathematics or English or sciences or any other thing. Explanation is something for which you have gone there, but explanation is the part where you lose most of your audience, but still some people will stay with you and some people may go away for a while. They will miss some points also. What happens? I have learnt one thing that normal attention span of a good listener or a person in the audience is three minutes. The person can keep stretching and working good for you and take this attention for a presenter till seven minutes, but after seven minutes the person will lose the attention like completely. So three to seven minutes are very crucial. You can keep their attention or they may go away. But after doing this open, explore and explain, do not jump to summary or summarising the main points, first invite them and what do you do in invite stage which is fourth stage of presentation or fourth step of giving or delivering a presentation. You invite them to the good use of what you have said. You invite them to certain things which can be done by the knowledge that you are giving them. You invite them to the significance, the benefit, the profit, the uniqueness of what you have said. Invite them and they are again attentive and now they desire their wish. They request you and the demand as well that please summarise. Now you summarise without the jokes, without any humour, without any detailed examples also that you gave when you were explaining. You give them the main points again and again. They note it down, be it recording it, remembering it. So after open, explore, explain, you move on to invite and then you summarise. Request 3 is something which is the last step before you complete your speech. So your part is over, you raise your chin, be confident and look at them and then say, request reaction. I mean you don't say that request reaction but you request them for a reaction. I am not calling it question and answers. The reason is everyone in the audience is not willing to ask you a question. Now one can stand up and say teacher, professor, Mr. Praveen, Mr. Presenter, I liked your views, I did not like your views and I have got something to say. And you say no, no, no, this is Q&A question and answers round and they say, fine then I will sit down. That means you are killing your audience, you are making them go away. So this stage should be treated, called and we should also implement this request reaction. Be confident, be confident about your preparation and be confident about handling your audience also. If someone is going to speak against you, do not try to fight with them there and then you can win only with your words and you can never win over your audience. Don't go there like you are going in a battle and you are going to make them lose something. They are there, that is why you are being considered a presenter. So request reaction is question and answers, feedback, observations or discussions that are held. happening. After request reaction, what is left then? Close, but closer should not be dead request reaction is over and then it's okay fine everyone, give me the gift as a presenter or a certificate and I go no, you make a closure, appreciating what came to you in request reaction, adding it to your observations, your feedback as well and then speak something which makes them remember you as a good presenter. Who closes the circle, pleads the circle from where it started, sometimes I say in your PowerPoint presentations or graphics, do not write thank you, just say thank you and on the last slide let us bring the same topic that we brought on the first slide I mean at the end they should remember what topic you were talking about and who are you. In a PowerPoint presentations or graphics which are coming on the screen and when you are talking to people who are completely unknown to you, let us learn to bring a QR code, a QR is a quick response code, so this quick response code will make them click a picture of it or maybe they can scan and quickly go to your professional accounts maybe LinkedIn or an email can be embedded into the QR you can do something. So I have got this idea that the last slide can be not a thank you but putting your introduction and say that thank you from yourself, you know what happens, the thank you you want to tell them they read it as if they are saying thank you to you but being a presenter you should be thankful to them and then grab their attention I mean attention in their memories then open, okay what was the second one explore explain invite summarize request reaction and close these are seven steps of presentation we shall be talking about some other topics like audience analysis what is audience I shall give you an idea before I invite you to do the next episode in this episode this is enough today talking about the four piece and significance of presentation and the purpose of presentation just be ready aim and fire I mean just be the best presenter I wish and how you can be only by doing planning preparation practice and following the seven steps of performance also next time we shall meet and we shall talk about audience audio visual aids and something about non-verbal communication presentation and different methods of delivering the presentation today let's stop here and next time we meet and we talk about other topics and presentation skills thank you so much for listening this is Praveen Kumar Sharma from Amitai University in Tashkin signing out with a promise that we shall meet again and we shall keep on meeting and learning together communication skills thank you so much [Music]