Last night I had the opportunity to join the one year MBAs, as they delivered their final presentations of the Delta project. After three (long…in a good way) semesters working with professors Noonan and Smith It was fascinating to sit on the other side of the table, and put a critical eye on the work of others. Let me start by saying that all five of the teams that I had the opportunity to watch did a great job, and clearly put time and energy into this project.

While I watched these presentations, what fascinated me most, was how far I feel that we, 2016 EvMBA’s have come since our first semester of MP. I went back and looked at slides from our Carlos Museum project and compared them to slides I saw in both our Delta and our personal reflection projects. I think it is fair to say that we all have come a long way in our story craft, our slide building capabilities, and our delivery techniques.

As I sat in room 234 writing notes and thinking of tough questions that could poke holes in the teams logic, I had to remind myself that they have not had the same opportunity to practice and refine these skills with previous semesters. This highlighted to me that practice really does help to improve these skills, and that I am a far better problem solver today than I was a year ago. I took this thinking one step further and wanted to equate this to my biggest take away from MP.

My key take away from the past three semesters was actually summed up best by Fawad in his final presentation last Thursday evening. As most of you recall, Fawad told a story about his home renovation; a project that revolved heavily around knocking down walls. His key theme, however, was not about the actual act of demolition, or the renovation project itself, but rather around a problem solving technique. As his exact quote escapes me, I will paraphrase a point that Fawad was able to articulate so well. “If you break down large complex problems into identifiable and manageable tasks, you can begin to see how a seemingly daunting task is actually rather simple if approached it the correct way.”

Since last Thursday, I can already recount three instances where I used this piece of advice not only in daily thinking, but also in a presentation to my company. I now view problems and structure solutions in a way that I had never thought about one short year ago.

Read an interesting article the other day when putting together my MP presentation: Check it out.

It brings up some very interesting points about what makes a good power point presentation – specifically good slide craft.   By focusing on several key cognitive principles (having to do with mental processes and how we intake and process information), the article  reduces concept to execution by outlining several ways to obey the principles when creating slides.

My personal favorites have to do with using visual queues to trigger the brain to ingest information in specific ways.  When discussing ranked information, by maintaining color schemes and orderings across slides, it is possible to increase memory retention in the audience.  Or by making important information visible different from the other contents of the slide, it signals the brain that the visually different information is potentially more important that the rest on the slide.

I highly recommend that you run through the first 6 pages at least and compare the cognitive corollaries listed with slides you’ve done or seen in the past.

Ever feel like you totally bombed a presentation? Here are a few things to consider because odds are it didn’t go as bad as you think.

And the most important piece of advice I can offer: don’t get distracted during a presentation because you think it isn’t going the way you hoped. “Reading” your audience is important, but don’t “over-read” a situation. Stick to the basic game plan and you will execute just fine.

Olivia Mitchell shares a few words of wisdom:

1. You can’t tell how a presentation went just by looking at people

Emma didn’t get much positive nonverbal feedback from her audience. She felt like they were just starting at her blankly and she was like a deer caught in the headlights. And she made the worst possible assumptions about what the audience were thinking. Like:

“…maybe people hated the presentation.”

“…she was boring.”

Here’s the thing: you can’t tell what an audience member is thinking by the way that they look. A person can look totally blank and yet be intensely interested in what you’re saying. If you went to the front of a movie theater and looked back at the audience you’d probably be looking out on a sea of slack-jawed blank faces.

I’ve been constantly surprised by people in my audience who looked totally bored and disinterested or even cynical and then I’ve talked to them later and found that they enjoyed it and found it interesting and valuable.

When I see a person who looks bored I still have a little voice in my head that pipes up  “Oh you’re bombing, they’re bored.” I fight back against that voice by saying “No, that’s not true. You don’t know that they’re bored. Plenty of times people look bored but are in fact getting lots of value.”  The voice shuts up. That allows me to just get on with delivering my presentation and engaging with people.

2. All audiences are different

Emma is assuming that because her audience looked blank they didn’t like the presentation. But the way an audience reacts to a presentation is often more about the audience than about the presentation. Audiences can react to the same presentation in many different ways. Because I deliver roughly the same material all the time I’m reminded of this constantly. I’ll deliver the same material and get different reactions. Some of the factors that influence their reaction are:

Confidence: an audience full of confident people will generally give you lots of nonverbal feedback – nodding, smiling etc. If they’re not confident they may not even make eye contact with you. For example, in our Introduction to Presenting course which is tailored for nervous beginners I know that some participants are unlikely to make eye contact with me during the first hour. I’m now prepared for this.

How well they know each other: an audience of friends will be very different to an audience of strangers. An audience of friends who trust each other are likely to laugh more, banter with you etc. I experience this when we run an inhouse course for a tightly-knit team compared to a public course where no-one knows each other to begin with.

My partner, Tony, does some amateur acting. The cast deliver exactly the same play night after night. But the audience reaction can be different every night.

What’s the point of this? When you’re in front of people speaking you feel vulnerable and you’re primed to take it personally. But, the audience reaction (or lack of it) is not necessarily about you.

3. Your perceptions can be very faulty

Emma felt flustered and felt that she was bombing. Just because she felt that way doesn’t mean it was true.

I have a good friend who presents regularly all over the world. One particular presentation, things went wrong for her at the start, she got rattled and she thought the whole presentation was an absolute unmitigated disaster. Luckily, on that trip she’d taken her 23 year old daughter with her. Her daughter was able to set her straight and tell her that the presentation was fine. Maybe not her best performance ever – but fine.

In a recent article over at copyblogger.com by Sean D’Souza he takes us through the three critical components of great stories by telling drawing a parallel to a Disney classic.  In my rendition I’ll convert his story of Cinderalla to the Lion King…because that is my favorite, and this is my post.

1.  The Sequence:

We’ve got Simba who’s the heir of to the throne at Pride Rock that runs into trouble when he faces his Uncle Scar’s quest to make the throne his own.  Simba is manipulated by Scar into thinking he is responsible for the tragic death of his Father and King, Mufasa.

There’s a sequence of events that are critical to building the drama needed in a good story.

2. The Suspense:

Simba runs away to avoid facing his Father’s untimely death.  He learns a new way of life and makes some entertaining friends along the way.  Meanwhile things take a turn for the worse when Scar unleashes his accomplices – the hyena’s on the fertile grounds surrounding Pride Rock.

Will Simba ever head back to face his past?  Who is this Nala character and why do I like her so much?  Does Simba get the girl?  All suspense.

3.  The roller coaster:

Highs and lows allow you to show the contrast and let the audience dig into the fact that this story really is worthwhile.  It keeps them on the edge of their seats waiting for the resolution.

So why is this kind of story telling critical?  Two reasons:

1. Most writers are unable to capture the elements of the story.

According to D’Souza, “Even if they get the sequence right, they rarely build in the suspense or the roller coaster.  That’s because they aren’t aware of these elements, or just don’t know how to go about it.”

2.  Most articles are almost always how-to or reporter like.

Stories are just more interesting and will naturally pique the reader’s interest more than reports.

The classic stories, Disney or otherwise, constantly bring people back time and time again when they already know the ending.  Now you know why.  With a little bit of practice you can implement this three step approach.  Or at a minimum give some thought to why you love your favorite Disney cartoon so much.