1 key to more effective English presentations with global teams, clients, and stakeholders:
Focus less on the English you use and focus more on your audience.
I know far too many managers who speak excellent English, have a strong grasp of grammar, and have solid pronunciation,
But they don’t connect at all with their audience and only leave them confused, lost, and frustrated after meetings and presentations.
Conversely, I know many managers who speak OK English, make numerous grammatical mistakes while speaking, and should even polish up their pronunciation,
But they connect far more effectively with their teams, deliver their information more successfully, and drive more results from meetings.
(This also inevitably leads to more promotions, job offers, and career opportunities for them)
Why does this happen?
Because they don’t simply focus on using “advanced” expressions, fancy vocabulary, and complex language.
None of those things matter that much if you compromise all the other aspects of your presentations, they often can confuse your audience more, and this often suggests you’re focusing too much on the individual words you’re using rather than whether your presentation content is actually based on solid substance that will make a difference for your audience.
Instead, for the managers whom I help and know, if they want to get results from the presentations they give at work, they focus on these things, and these are things I highly encourage you to ensure you’re doing during your next presentation:
– Have a clear structure: Intro, body, and conclusion:
Always ensure your presentation has a clear, simple, and easy-to-follow structure.
Many managers complicate their speeches, try to use too much fancy vocabulary instead of ensuring the content is relevant, and add a lot of irrelevant data and information with no clear direction.
You can mitigate all of this by creating a clear, simple structure.
– Be results-oriented and have clear objectives for your presentations:
If you can’t clearly and simply answer what the exact goal is of your speech, even if it’s simply to raise awareness, then this means you probably don’t have clear enough objectives and outcomes for your speech.
This is one of the biggest reasons so many people feel that meetings and meeting presentations are a waste of time, because hours are spent talking, no decisions are made, and the team doesn’t actually get closer to achieving their goals.
You can solve this problem by creating clear outcomes.
– Don’t make your presentation longer than necessary = Less is more.
This one is straightforward. Nobody wants to spend more time than necessary.
If you can achieve the same results from a 30-minute presentation and meeting that you could from a 2-hour meeting, why would you want to speak for 2 hours?
Keep it short, your team will be more likely to respect and appreciate you more and be more willing to work harder for you if you take the lead by respecting their time and energy first.
– CREATE opportunity for Q&A, don’t assume your audience 100% understands:
One of the biggest mistakes my clients make is just assuming that their audience completely understands them.
However, when they start doing Q&A discussions, they discover there are many things that their teams didn’t actually understand.
Thus, by creating Q&A opportunities, you can build understanding, trust, team chemistry, and respect within your team.
Additionally, you can use your teams’ feedback to adjust and improve your own presentations to make them clearer and easier to understand and implement.
– If you make a mistake, it’s NOT the end of the world, just keep sharing your message, take courage, and develop conviction in yourself:
Additionally, record yourself, observe where you communicated well, and where you did not communicate clearly.
Give yourself some honest feedback, then make the adjustments accordingly.
This is how you can improve your presentation skills more quickly and effectively.
There you go, life science managers.
Make sure you’re applying these tips to the next English presentation you have at work.
If your goal is to become a more clear, confident, capable, and effective presenter,
Don’t just focus on your English.
Develop your overall Business Communication Skills in English.
Carlos
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