Must It Be the Opposite of Usual? Effective Ways to Communicate | English Presentation Etiquette

When listening to English presentations,

I feel there is a pattern to the way people speak when I think,

“Oh, this person’s way of speaking is easy to understand,” so today I would like to explain that point.

Does speaking the same way as usual fail to get your point across in a presentation?

What does it mean to speak the same way as usual?

When we speak without thinking about it in particular, what we often do is,

start from the beginning,
↓
mention a few details along the way,
↓
reach the final goal,
↓
and then stop talking

isn't that the way we speak?

In a sense, it is natural, since you start from the beginning and end at the goal.

However, in a presentation, if you speak this way, the audience will find it difficult to maintain their attention.

Unlike having a leisurely cup of tea with a friend, in a business setting, everyone is busy with back-to-back meetings and piled-up emails, right?

In such a situation, since the other person has decided to listen to you,

wasting their valuable time

the moment they think that, you can assume their attention will drop.

So, how should you speak to ensure you are properly heard?

What is the main point?

Answering this question as quickly as possible is effective in English presentations, and especially in executive-level settings in general, I believe.

Let’s look at a concrete example.

For instance,

let’s consider a scenario where you have to explain the timeline of a certain project.

If you speak in your usual way, your explanation might sound something like this.

”First we will develop the overall strategy for this project, then we will break this down into a specific list of deliverables, after that we will start building each deliverable, some of which will have dependencies, and towards the end, we will do end-to-end testing, and also staff training, and then finally we will launch this on 1st September. We will have a X-week period of hypercare after launch to ensure we fix any issues in the initial period.”

In terms of content, there is nothing incorrect about what is being said, but the order in which the information is provided is not suitable for a business environment,

What is the main point?

I feel it does not align with that mindset.

Start with the most important information

What would happen if you reversed your way of speaking here and started with the most important information?

“We will launch this project on the 1st September in five countries. We will work towards launch in 4 key phases, strategy, refinement of scope, development and testing. Following the launch, we will address critical early stage issues in a X-week hypercare period with focused resources.”

As a way of speaking,

Conclusion/Main Point
(in this case, when and where the launch will happen)
↓
Approach to the conclusion/main point
(in this case, how many phases there are)
↓
Additional/Supplementary information
(in this case, post-launch care)

I feel that speaking in this flow makes it easier to build consensus, especially with leadership levels whose attention is easily scattered.

Convey the conclusion in the first 5 seconds

Let's look at another example on a completely different topic.

”Milk has a lot of calcium in it. Milk also helps us sleep. Also, milk is delicious. So we should all drink more milk.”

Rather than saying it like that,

“We recommend that we all drink more milk, for 3 key reasons. One - milk has a lot of calcium in it. Two - milk also helps us sleep. Three - milk is delicious. For these 3 key reasons, it makes sense for all of us to drink more milk”

If you speak like this,

First, the listener can grasp what you are proposing within the first 5 seconds,

Furthermore, by stating the main point (proposal) at both the beginning and the end, you can repeat the most important content.

What kind of工夫 (ingenuity/techniques) do you use to ensure your message reaches the other person as quickly as possible?

Next week, I will share my thoughts on English presentation etiquette from a different perspective.