"Your thinking is the problem"

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From the course by National Research Tomsk State University

Presentation skills: Speechwriting and Storytelling

87 ratings

National Research Tomsk State University

Presentation skills: Speechwriting and Storytelling

87 ratings

Course 1 of 4 in the Specialization Presentation Skills: Speechwriting, Slides and Delivery

“99% presentations suck!”, — said Apple former evangelist Guy Kawasaki in 2005. Up to now the situation hasn’t improved yet. Why? Most public speaking courses focus on “how” instead of “what & why”. How to stand, walk and talk during delivery with little attention paid to “what” — the quality of storytelling itself. Thereby a usual result is a looking slightly confident speaker with mesmerizing voice delivering an obscure mess of facts, figures and claims. In this course we take a more systematic approach, focusing on the content. How to structure your ideas, facts and data into a logical convincing story using a narrative structure. This course covers fundamentals of scriptwriting, packing, argumentation and language. This course is not about how to fabricate a catching tale, but rather how to structure your ideas, facts and data into an interesting story you are going to tell during your presentation.

From the lesson

Part 2: Sustaining interest

This week is about the storytelling and how to apply it to your presentation content. What a story is in a nutshell. Why stories are the best form of conveying information. How to create a conflict. How to sustain interest of the audience during your middle part of the presentation.

Sustaining interest. Stories.1:57

What's a story structure?6:56

How do we create conflict?4:32

"They are the problem"7:44

"We are the problem"2:57

"Your thinking is the problem"4:57

Sustaining interest4:40

What do you do once you found a conflict?7:13

Meet the Instructors

Alexei Kapterev
Lomonosov MSU BS

And finally, the fourth way to create conflict would be to say,

well, you are the problem,

the audience is the problem,

your thinking is the problem.

And, well, this is a presentation that we've seen before,

the SAS presentation and the only reason

to show this slide to the audience would be to say,

well, you see those guys are making money no matter how hard times are not.

You know why, because they're punctual and we are not.

Right. And further on,

we will have a slide that we need to become more punctual.

So, what we see here is competition shown in a favorable way.

But then, why is it here?

It is here to, in fact, well,

attack the audience to say, you see,

you are the problem or rather,

we as a company are a problem.

As a speaker I'm uniting myself with an audience.

I'm saying not you,

but brother, we are the problem,

we are not punctual and we need to be more

punctual and this is the ultimate goal of my presentation.

This is what I'm trying to accomplish.

I'm trying to influence the audience and I am providing a motivation for them.

I'm providing this favorable comparison to a competition saying,

you see, they are punctual; we are not.

Another example, this is a presentation from SlideShare and look at the numbers.

Three million views for the presentation which says 'You Suck At PowerPoint'.

Wow! Why do people watch a presentation that accuses them of,

you know, committing all the possible PowerPoint offenses?

Because it is there to help.

It's not just there to say that you suck but actually to teach you to,

for you to learn how to avoid some common mistakes with PowerPoint.

So, if this space of shared goals,

if you are in a way united with the audience,

if what you want is to improve presentations,

it is okay to attack the audience.

The people will say, well,

all right, maybe we are the problem.

Maybe it's true that we need to change here.

So to conclude, four things that you can do to create conflict in your presentation.

Thing number one, you can say there is a problem.

Well, there's some sort of an objective problem

like the global climate change or something like that.

Secondly you may say they are the problem.

What they are doing is ultimately wrong.

We have a much better solution.

Then, you might say, well,

we are the problem or we were the problem.

Our old product is the problem or maybe

our own alternative product would be the problem for you in this particular situation.

You shouldn't be buying our tablet computer.

No, you should be buying our laptop computer for your particular needs and purposes.

And finally, and this is the key thing,

you need to address some dysfunctional belief on the part of your audience.

What are you trying to change?

What are you trying to influence?

This is your ultimate goal as a presenter, to change,

to transform your audience,

to move them from one state to another.

And remember that a good problem,

that's something that makes you concerned as well as something that makes them concerned.

Oftentimes I've heard this,

a person speaking to a group and after that people in the audience are saying,

well, there was a problem with the presentation but you see,

it wasn't my problem.

I don't feel like I should be doing something about that.

And this, of course,

is a very common symptom.

People are adept in dodging the problems.

They are trying to, you know,

mind their own business and don't solve

too many problems because that makes life very hard.

And you, as a presenter,

should be coming to them and telling to them,

oh, no, no, no, this is your problem as well as mine.

We together should be doing something about this problem.

So, what's the problem that you are trying to solve as a presenter?

What's the problem of the audience?

What's their pain?

What are they concerned about?

What's wrong with the audience?

Maybe there's a dysfunctional belief that you can address in your presentation.

And finally, what is the question that might unite us together?

What is the question that we're all interested in answering and

that would be the problem in your presentation. Thank you.

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