Presentation Lessons from Michelangelo

There is an old story of someone asking Michelangelo how he carved his “David.”  His answer was, “I just got rid of everything that wasn’t David.”

When it comes to a different art form,  i.e., giving a presentation, I think we can all learn something from Michelangelo.  Perhaps the best way to give a good presentation is to simply get rid of everything that isn’t a good presentation.

To borrow a technique from Toyota lean management, let’s begin by asking a series of “why’s”.  In this case, if a presentation is lousy, why is that?  I think I have an answer.

In my opinion, most presentations are lousy because people make them lousy.  In a nutshell, we are taught to give lousy presentations every day we go to a standard school.  So rather than trying to add something in, you might want to start to think in terms of “what do I need to NOT do in order to be a better presenter?”  A few things to consider eliminating:

In a standard school, when you get up to present, you’re expected to demonstrate greater knowledge of the material than the audience.  If you have not managed to convince yourself that you are smarter than the audience, you will get nervous.  If you HAVE convinced yourself of this, you become obnoxious.  That’s a no-win situation.  That expectation should be got rid of immediately.  

In a standard school, when you get up to present, you are terribly conscious of the process being about your being judged by an authority figure, rather than simply “connecting” to the audience.  That “grade” becomes the goal, not your audience’s experience.  It easy to start to think that everyone is grading you.  Might be good to stop doing that.  

In a standard school, when you get up to present, you learn to actively protect your own vulnerability by not letting your true self be exposed.  Might be good to chisel that off too.   

In a standard school, order and discipline is highly prized, and “loss of control” is frowned upon.  Too much audience excitement is seen to be a bad thing, therefore it must be suppressed.  (Instead, if the audience is screaming and yelling out ideas and generally communicating with you and amongst themselves, remove resistance and see this as a good thing.)  

Anyway . . . Just my opinion, but 87% of a good presentation involves getting rid of these bad habits.  As long as these bad habits exist, there is no amount of good habit that will cover them up.  

Of course, this is easier said than done.  The emotional trauma you may have experienced in a school environment was not accidental.  The more traumatized and fearful people are, the easier it is to maintain order and control.  The trick now is to not act as you were acted upon. 

The one big thing I can share it is, if you start to work past your individual fear and trauma, and dare to “sass” authority and openly state what you believe to be true, you will instantly discover that you are not alone.  You will discover other people who are thinking the exact same way, but they couldn’t tell you until they saw you overcoming your own fear of hearing the truth. 

© Justin Locke     
PS new I’ll be on WGCU.org (Fort Myers Public Radio) tomorrow (nov 9 '10) Tuesday at Noon est for a 30 min interview about “Peter VS the Wolf” in Punta Gorda!