{"id":320,"date":"2021-06-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/?p=320"},"modified":"2021-06-29T14:21:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T14:21:10","slug":"messing-up-on-stage-3-lessons-from-a-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/28\/messing-up-on-stage-3-lessons-from-a-master\/","title":{"rendered":"Messing Up On Stage: 3 Lessons from a Master"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou didn\u2019t know your content well enough and I couldn\u2019t let you stand on stage in front of hundreds of people and waste their time,\u201d said my mentor, whom I\u2019ll call Olivia. I closed my eyes and pictured her shaking her head in disappointment, standing up, and quickly gesturing for me to take a seat off stage.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even though I was experienced at presenting to large audiences and rarely got nervous, this time was different. I had a physical looseleaf binder filled with material. I wrote meticulous notes and organized charts to show under a document camera. But I didn\u2019t plan the flow of the presentation, and I didn\u2019t think about how to connect with an audience. As a result, I was stopped cold in front of hundreds of teachers and ushered off stage halfway through my portion of the presentation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBe confident,\u201d Olivia added. \u201cPractice will help your confidence, not perfect notes,\u201d she continued as her voice began to change to the loving friend and mentor I appreciated. Confidence matters and we have the power to control it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Educators all over the country plan to attend professional development this summer, and many of you will be leading the presentations. Some will be in-person and some will be virtual. Whether you are walking across a stage with a microphone and clicker in your hand or talking to boxes on a Zoom screen, I recommend three steps to build your confidence as a presenter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Preparation does not mean more content. <\/strong>We often think of preparing for presentations as an opportunity to organize content. You might be a person who writes out your content or types notes or designs elaborate slide decks. If so, good for you, but keep something in mind. Organizing content this way is only one part of preparing and you need to consider others to ensure you present yourself to your audience in a confident way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Essential-Managers-Presenting-Aileen-Pincus\/dp\/0756637066\">Aileen Pincus,<\/a> author, recommends researching your audience in order to determine how to convey information to them. Some audiences might need persuading, while others might need motivating or even a mixture of styles. Learn as much as possible about the intended audience and the best way to engage with them. A little work ahead of your presentation will pay off in the long run because the audience will feel like you are speaking to their specific strengths and concerns.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Early in my career as a staff developer, I focused a lot on the content and I did not consider the audience and how they would or would not connect with the content. (Hence, my disastrous time on stage.) In years since, I\u2019ve come to discover preparing is a lot more intricate than typing a bunch of notes on note cards or designing a slide deck. Preparing is also about taking a step back from yourself and imagining the needs of the audience and the best way they learn.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Find mentors. Lots of them. <\/strong>Those of us who instruct writing often teach students to find mentor texts or models of published writing worth emulating. We encourage students to gather these texts and read them closely, each time naming what they see and what they might want to try on their own. It is equally powerful to find mentor presenters, whether they are teachers speaking at faculty conferences, administrators presenting to school board members or CEOs leading TedTalks on YouTube. Once you settle on a speaker to study, pay attention to the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Style<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>How does the presenter structure the presentation?<\/li><li>How are you drawn in and kept interested as a learner?<\/li><li>How does the speaker use visuals? How do the visuals enhance your experience as an audience member?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>How does the speaker convey complicated concepts?<\/li><li>How does the speaker react to difficult questions?<\/li><li>If there are activities as part of the presentation, how are they introduced and monitored for the audience?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider dividing your notes into two sections when studying a mentor: one dedicated to new learning and the other for notes to capture the style and tone of the presentation. Once you develop a habit of studying a mentor, don\u2019t stop. Find others! You might enjoy the style of one presenter, the tone of another and the humorous personality of someone else. You can take all their best qualities and use them to cultivate your own personal image.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Know Your ***. <\/strong>That\u2019s right. Once you learn about your audience\u2019s needs and develop your own image based on mentors who came before you, practice. You might practice in your head as you are driving home from work or in front of the mirror locked in your bedroom as your family knocks on the door wanting to know if you are in there. (It happens, possibly to me.) Words on a page sound very different when read aloud and you are bound to catch parts that don\u2019t flow or words that trip you up. You will only realize the quirks in your presentation when you carve out time to rehearse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/carminegallo?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5E\">Carmine Gallo<\/a>, author, columnist and keynote speaker, encourages people to rehearse a presentation until it feels effortless. If it feels effortless your anxiety will decrease and it will lead to greater confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My experience with Olivia was painful. Heck, it was grueling. But, I am grateful for the reflection I did to ensure my next presentation and the hundreds after that were more polished and portrayed a sense of confidence. I wish you confidence in your next presentation and may you never get ushered off a stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYou didn\u2019t know your content well enough and I couldn\u2019t let you stand on stage in front of hundreds of people and waste their time,\u201d said my mentor, whom I\u2019ll call Olivia. I closed my eyes and pictured her shaking her head in disappointment, standing up, and quickly gesturing for me to take a seat off stage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipnibble.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}