IDL127 Season 3: The Confident Presenter with Andrea Pacini
Why is the presentation the make-or-break of great ideas? How can you present so that you always connect with your audience? Why do “designed conversations” yield better results in communication success than one-way discussions?
Hey, I’m so glad you’re back with us! Today’s guest is Andrea Pacini, the head of Ideas on Stage UK and the author of the upcoming Confident Presenter. Our conversation is both fun and pertinent because it’s all about presentation. Leaders everywhere have to present; it’s an integral part of what we do, which is why it’s so important to think about how you communicate.
Meet Andrea Pacini
Andrea Pacini is a presentation coach and Head of Ideas on Stage UK.
He specialises in working with business owners, leaders and their teams who want to become more confident presenters.
Since 2010 Ideas on Stage has worked with thousands of clients around the world, including companies like Microsoft, Lacoste, The World Bank and over 500 TEDx speakers.
Andrea is on a mission to stop great ideas from failing just because of the way they are presented. His vision is to help hundreds of thousands of business leaders share their message so they can grow their business, increase their influence and make a positive impact in the world.
Visit Ideas on Stage and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Sign up to be the first to know when Andrea Pacini’s book ‘Confident Presenter’ is available
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
An idea either sinks or swims by the presentation - 03:35
Get this right first - 05:44
One of the biggest obstacles to communication - 12:05
Successful communication is a two-way street - 17:35
Make your audience the hero of the story - 27:05
An idea either sinks or swims by the presentation
“There are so many great ideas that fail not because of the ideas themselves but just because of the way we present them. ”
The greatness of your idea does not make it impervious to failure, because even the best ideas can be lost and misunderstood when they are not presented correctly, accurately, passionately, or truthfully.
It is therefore important to work on how you present your ideas so that you can give them the best shot at succeeding and being heard, and understood, by the people who you are speaking to.
“That’s why my mission is to stop great ideas from failing just because of the way we present them.”
Get this right first
Remember that it’s also about the audience: it is always the audience’s presentation.
As a leader, you are not doing this work for yourself. If you want to be a successful, empathetic, and community-driven leader, you care for your audience and you want to serve them.
“Think of the presentation as a present. If I want to give you a present, it’s your present, not mine, and so I need to make sure that I know you so that I can buy something that you like. A presentation is very similar. ”
Make sure that you know your audience before you even launch into the presentation.
- Think about your message: this also depends on your audience. Why are you saying what you want to say? Why are you telling your audience about this thing? Why is it relevant and important to them?
Andrea recommends the ABC for the preparation of any presentation that you want to give:
A – Audience
B – Burning needs
C – Context
One of the biggest obstacles to communication
One of the most common and impactful mistakes that leaders or presenters make is assuming that their audience knows as much – or as in detail – about the topic as the speaker does.
You need to meet your audience at their level of understanding of the topic, otherwise, all your words and ideas will be lost to them. Your audience cannot agree with you, or even accept your idea as being good if they do not understand what you are saying.
“If you want to improve your communication skills, the first step is [to] be aware of what’s going on ... once we are aware, it’s just a matter of continuing the journey [and] practicing … but if you practice while you are aware of what needs changing or improving, then it makes a big difference. ”
Successful communication is a two-way street
Most presentations are often one-way communications, like lectures or speeches where the leader or presenter is talking at their audience, instead of with them.
Additionally, the audience’s attention span is limited. If you are going to use your time to talk to them and not allow them a space to be involved – in some way – in the conversation, you will lose them.
“It’s up to you as the presenter to work hard to gain their attention and to keep it high and the best way to do that is to go from one-way communication to a designed conversation.”
You can ask the audience a question, you can invite them to consider something that you have just said and share their thoughts with the person sitting next to them, or even invite them to type something in a chat if it’s virtual.
There are different little tools that you can use to create and maintain designed conversations to maintain attention.
Make your audience the hero of the story
“Our role is the role of the guide that gives the hero a plan, an idea, whatever it is that helps them achieve success. ”
The way that you act as the guide for the audience – the hero – to follow your steps to achieve their success is in these four steps:
1 – Setting
2 – Complication
3 – Turning point
4 – Resolution
This is a proven story framework, a narrative, and everyone knows how successful stories are at capturing an audience, explaining a concept, and helping them to absorb the meaning.
Use analogies especially, as they are powerful and can help an audience to understand complex ideas in simple terms that they may already be familiar with.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Andrea Pacini – Confident Presenter: Inspire your audience. Increase your influence. Make an impact.
BOOK | Chip and Dan Heath – Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
BOOK | John Pollack – Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas
BOOK | Donald Miller – Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life
Visit Ideas on Stage and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Sign up to be the first to know when Andrea Pacini’s book ‘Confident Presenter’ is available
Take the Confident Presenter Scorecard to assess your presentation skills in less than 3 minutes, for free
Attend the next Ideas on Stage web class
Level Up Your Leadership with the free 4 Days To Maximum Impact Course!
Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com
Check out the Practice Of the Practice
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
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There are so many great ideas that fail not because of the ideas themselves but just because of the way we present them.
Andrea Pacini
Podcast Transcription
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:00:08) - Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast as your host, Tyler Dicker. I'm so excited that you're joining in today, tuning in that you downloaded or you went to YouTube to watch the live video, and there's always a little bit more. There's the facial expression, there's the demonstration that comes today. We're going to talk a little bit about that. My guest, Andrea Pacini, is the current head of Idea Stage UK. He is the author of an upcoming book. It will be released in just a couple of weeks on July 18th. Called The Confident Presenter. When I learned about Andrea and we connected and I knew that man, this would be a fun conversation. Fun conversation to have for leaders about leaders and encouraging leaders. Because leaders are presenters all day, every day. You don't have to be a speaker. You don't have to be a sales person. To be a presenter. I'm presenting to you right now. Whenever you lead and you're interacting with your team or anyone else in your organization, inside or outside, you're presenting and how do you do it? Well, that's what Andre and I are going to discuss today, what we're going to share with you, what we're going to go through.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:01:22) - And I hope that you take some really key nuggets away from this conversation. I'm going to give you a couple brief highlights right now, and I want to start with this one. It's always the audience's presentation. All right I'll catch you back at the end of this conversation. And we'll wrap it up and put a little bow on it. Send you out the door.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:01:52) - Andrea, thank you so much for joining me, man. I'm excited for this conversation. Excited that we're connected, that you have a book coming out, which we're going to be talking about. But before all of that, I want to talk about yourself. And, you know, for me, purpose in alignment and understanding how we got to where we're at. The origin story, per se is so important for our message. So I'd love to hear from you. Kind of this Italian national who's living in the UK, but has this desire to help people, help leaders communicate better. I want to find out where that came from.
Andrea Pacini (00:02:29) - Thank you Tyler. Great to be here. And sure, so the the reason why I do what I do as a presentation coach, the reason why I'm so passionate about public speaking is because when I was a little kid growing up in Italy, I grew up in a family of very small business owners. My parents have always been running their own very small business together. They still do. And so as a kid, I saw the challenges because raising four kids while trying to run a business is not easy. But I also saw that spark, the entrepreneur mindset, that proactive approach to life. And so that's why Tyler, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, to run my own thing. Now, I don't know about you, but for me, in reality, there remained a dream for a long time because before doing what I do now, I tried many things. I started many projects. All of them failed. But it was useful because in that process, what I realized was that there are so many great ideas that fail.
Andrea Pacini (00:03:39) - Not because of the ideas themselves. But just because of the way we present them. And that's why then to cut it short, eventually I became a presentation coach. That's why my mission is to stop great ideas from failing just because of the way we present them. My mission, Tyler, is to help hundreds of thousands of. Impact driven leaders, as you call them, share their message so they can grow their business, increase the influence or reputation, advance their careers, make a bigger impact depending on what their objective is.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:04:19) - So the initial thought that hits me, as you say that and this idea that this thought, the great ideas do not live on, do not grow, do not develop because we don't do a good job presenting them, sharing them, describing them. And yet then we can stop and look at there's a lot of really, really, really bad ideas that grow and blossom and become major movements because people are so masterful at presenting them. And I think this, this again, thought that it isn't the idea that moves people, it's the ability to connect and communicate in simplistically deliberate to where people take action.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:05:01) - And you talk a lot about that in your book, the, you know, the confident presenter. And one thing that really stuck out to me, and I believe this, and probably the avenue I want to go down first is understanding it's not about you. We talked about that earlier, but as a presenter I see many business leaders. Leaders do this themselves. They think I hold all the information. It is my job to hold that and then go dump it on people instead of sharing it, or understanding where the audience is and being able to take them on the journey with them. So as a leader listening in, and maybe they're in that position where they're trying to gain followers, they're trying to help people in their organization flow with them. What's the first thing that you really share with them to say, hey, get this right first.
Andrea Pacini (00:05:52) - Here is the first thing there are. There are a couple of things we need to think about. But the first one is this. When you communicate your ideas, when you speak in public, when you give a presentation.
Andrea Pacini (00:06:05) - We need to understand that it's not your presentation, it's always the audience's presentation. Before we we went live, you told me, Tyler, leadership is not about you, it's about them. The same is true when it comes to communicating your ideas. It's their presentation, not yours. It's always the audience's presentation. Think of a presentation as a present. If I want to give you a present. It's your present, not mine. And so I need to make sure that I know you so that I can buy something that you like. A presentation is very similar. When you give people a presentation, it's their presentation, not yours. And so you need to make sure that you know your audience. Definitely before you open a PowerPoint or any other presentation tool, it doesn't make any difference. But also before you start thinking about your message, your idea, what you want to communicate, that depends on the audience. Now, I'll give you and our listeners a very practical way to do that. You have a presentation coming up.
Andrea Pacini (00:07:11) - The very first thing you should do before you do anything else, before PowerPoint, before even thinking about your message. Start with what we call the ABC of preparation audience. Bernie needs context A, B, c, so you need to take some time, even if it's just a couple of minutes. But do take some time and ask yourself some questions about the audience. Who are they that Bernie needs? What do they really need? What do they expect from your presentation and also the context? For example, is it 1 to 1? Is it one to many? How many is in person? Is he online? That's the context. If we have time, tell because I don't want to go too long. But can I? Can I give you an example of something that happened to to one of our clients in the past that illustrates the importance of starting with the audience?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:08:04) - Absolutely.
Andrea Pacini (00:08:06) - All right. So I'm thinking of Marie, one of our clients, Marie, is an executive. She's an expert in leadership, and she was invited by an association in Finland to give a talk about leadership.
Andrea Pacini (00:08:19) - She's from France and she was super excited. It was one of the first international speaking opportunities. So she prepared really well. She knew her message. She told us that she prepared 50 beautiful slides and also she rehearsed. She practiced properly so she was ready to go. She flew to Finland the day before the conference, then arrived there on the day, half an hour before the audience, because she wanted to make sure that she had time to set things up. And when she was about to connect her laptop to the screen. She realized that there was no screen. So a little bit of panic. She went and asked the organisers, assuming that they would say oh sorry Maria, now we are going to find a screen for you. But what they did instead was they started laughing. They started laughing. And so she says, why are you laughing? And they say, look, Marie, you want to show 50 slides, but actually you've been invited to give a talk to the association in Finland of blind people.
Andrea Pacini (00:09:27) - Blind people. Now, I know Tyler. It's an extreme example. It sounds like a bad joke, but it happened for real. Now, the lesson for us is that Marie was very well prepared. Apart from one thing, she didn't know her audience. She didn't. She didn't even take the time to translate the name of the association from Finnish to French. And she would have realized that perhaps there was no need to have 50 beautiful slides. So for us, for those who want to, for leaders who want to make an impact, then the lesson is that if you want to make sure that your communication, your presentations are relevant to your audience, which is the most important principle of all, then before we do anything else, we need to remember that we need to start with them, with the audience. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:10:20) - Yeah. The image, the thought again, besides the fact that they can't see the slide right in so much of our audience, whoever we speak to, they can't see the slides that we have or, or the perception.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:10:33) - And so sometimes we have so much there that they're lost, whether they realize it or not. But the piece that I think of it from a leadership and I'm speaking a leader who is working within their organization, small team, big team, you're presenting to five, you're presenting to 500. To me, it's irrelevant. It does not matter. But how often leaders find themselves in that spot where they believe that the audience is with them. They believe that the audience just should know. The reality is, the audience has no idea all the other things the leader knows. And so if we make that mis assumption and again, metaphorically aligning this, the fact that leaders fall into the same spot as Marie every single day, I want to present all of this. Maybe it has so much context, but my audience is just worried about right now as we're going through the world. Hey, what's this summer going to be like? What's that going to do? Our business? We have economic things going all around and I, as a leader, am trying to talk about, you know, the next expansion in 2024.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:11:42) - And they're like, you're speaking French and I'm Finnish. It just does not match. And yet it's pretty, you know, laying that out as a is a grand metaphor. But yet that happens to leaders all the time. And with that, people just like, well, this isn't for me. I'm out. He's not speaking to me. It's not related to me.
Andrea Pacini (00:12:05) - So, so true. And Tyler, one of the main reasons why that happens, and this is the the number one problem or obstacle in communication. The reason why that happens is because often we are talking about people, business professionals, business leaders who are very good at what they do. They know the staff. They have experience. They have expertise. But they struggle to communicate, to present their ideas really effectively. And what happens is that often we know so much about our subject, and we're also so close to it that first of all, we think that everything is important. And so we think that we need to talk about everything.
Andrea Pacini (00:12:51) - We also think that what we are communicating is simple and clear and engaging for the audience. Often, whether we are aware we or not, the experience from their perspective is the opposite. It's confusing and in communication it's very simple. If you confuse you lose. You lose your audience, you lose their attention. You lose it not just during the presentation, but you lose it for good.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:13:15) - Yeah, well, my belief and I've learned this and I've experienced this. The most important thing for a leader to do, presenter to do is connect. And you can't spend too much time connecting with. That's an adage that many listeners have heard from me. And and again, I believe and if we're talking about communication and presenting and that's first and foremost, you talk about that with Maria needed to connect deeper with who the audience was, what they really wanted, and how it could be presented to them to actually lead them there. There's a point there that you made that was part of my notes is too often leaders are too close to be able to.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:13:56) - I would say you can write, I guess, objectively present. And so we think that, oh, everyone knows what we know or we're afraid that they need to know everything we know in order to grasp it. And the reality is, if there's trust and connection and credibility, people just need to know that you know and understand enough so they can go with you.
Andrea Pacini (00:14:22) - This is when you say that you've emphasized the fact that we are so close that we find it hard to imagine what it means not knowing what we know. That's the number one problem in communication. It's called the curse of knowledge. The Heath brothers talk about in their very famous amazing book made to stick to to, to make your ideas stick. Yeah. Fantastic book. They talk about the curse of knowledge, which is our inability to imagine what it means, not knowing what we know. It's an inability to put ourselves in the audience's shoes. And it's very easy to fall into this trap, the trap of the curse of knowledge.
Andrea Pacini (00:15:03) - Unless we find a way to get access to some sort of an external perspective. Now, that external perspective could be if you really want to get it right, work with a presentation coach. It could be that you prepare a presentation and that you practice it. You deliver in front of friends and colleagues. You get the feedback. It could be that you just delivery on zoom and then you watch the recording, which may feel uncomfortable, but that will give you the external perspective for you to be aware. And awareness is key if you want to improve your communication skills. The first step is we need to be aware of what's going on, of certain dynamics where we may need to improve on, and then once we are aware, it's just a matter of continuing the journey, practicing, practicing, practicing. But if you practice while you are aware of what needs changing or improving, that makes a big difference.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:16:02) - One, you kind of taking that and saddling it with this idea of presentations often end up being a speaker talking at people.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:16:13) - I believe this a you know, if the speaking that I get to I'm not a speaker, I'm not this like grand like performer. I don't want to be that, you know, I want to be a conversationalist. This is exciting to me. The the guest, the conversation, the podcast that I have. It's just a conversation, right? It's it's I have notes. Yeah, I'm prepared, but don't know what you're going to say and what I'm going to say. But we lead this conversation and I believe the most powerful presentations are very prepared. But. Connected conversations, being able to say, you know, I've seen people do this like, oh, you know, 15 minutes through a presentation, realize the audience is not where you want to go. And just whatever slides I had throughout the window. But I'm confident enough. I'm comfortable enough knowing that everything I need to know that if they're not going with me, whatever I have next does not matter. And I need to just get down to I need to be on their level, not get down to their level, but I need to be on the same level I'm communicating with.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:17:23) - And I think that's really hard for a lot of leaders, because either their own confidence or this idea that, well, leadership means that I'm a step above someone. I can't be with them.
Andrea Pacini (00:17:36) - Dyer the key word you use is conversation. I agree with you 100%. We can talk about you. Also mention something at the beginning of your question, which I would love to perhaps later explore because it's one of the most important principles you said often speakers talk at their audiences. Yeah, whereas we need to do something else. We can talk about it later, but for now, conversation now. A very common mistake I see is exactly what you've described, that most presentations are one way lectures, one way communication. So we think that our job as leaders, as presenters is to we've got an hour and a half an hour. Okay. For half an hour I speak, you listen. No, a presentation should be a designed conversation. And the key word is yes, conversation, but also designed, which means that you want to design the conversational elements of the presentation, right.
Andrea Pacini (00:18:37) - You want to do it in advance. So for the audience it has to feel any will feel like a, like a spontaneous conversation, which is great. But you as the presenter, you've designed those moments of conversation or interaction in advance. And the reason why that's important is because if you don't do that, you will lose your audience's attention. This is demonstrated by a number of studies. If you, for example, if you are presenting in person, then it doesn't matter how good you are as a presenter, it doesn't matter how interesting or relevant your your topic is. Your audience's attention will tend to drop after about ten minutes. If we are presenting or communicating online, it's even less than that. So the audience is. Attention is a bit like the sand in an hourglass. If you think about an hourglass with a sand, the sand in an hourglass runs out after after about a few minutes, but it's very easy to just flip you over and start again. The same is true when you are presenting.
Andrea Pacini (00:19:40) - Which means that it's not up to the audience to work hard to pay attention. It's up to you as the presenter, to work hard to gain their attention and to keep it high. And the best way to do that is to go from one way communication to a design conversation. So you've got your topic, you know what you want to talk about. A very practical thing you can do is go back to your storyline, to your presentation structure, to your content, and ask yourself, okay, this is what I want to talk about from time to time. What could I say, what could I ask? And there are many possibilities there in such a way that can involve the audience into the conversation. It could be as simple as asking a question, inviting them to think about something you've just said, and share their thoughts with the person sitting next to them. It could be inviting them to type something in the chat. If it's a zoom webinar, for example, it could be assigning some breakout rooms or in-person small groups to work on on an exercise, but it's key that we need to move away from one way lectures, and we need to create designed conversations.
Andrea Pacini (00:20:53) - That's how you keep your audience's attention throughout.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:20:57) - Well, I think that dovetails perfectly to what you mentioned. When you're talking at people, you don't want them to be involved. It's like, I'm here, I'm going to do my thing. You're going to listen, and then we're going to get done. And it's there's an element where I see this happening in for many presenters that they're like, well, I have a 30 minute slot and I'm going to pack in as much information that 30 minute slot as I can. And if I go 35, well, okay. And we've all been to those conferences, we've all been to those events in rarely is it the, you know, presentation that, you know, you give them 30 minutes and they're done after 25, but yet they use that time to engage and interact and actually make it way more enjoyable. There's not many speakers presenters think about that, but the ones that do do exactly what you did, they said, oh, I have 20 minutes of content.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:21:48) - Okay, I can use stories to guide people along. I can make sure I have plenty of analogies. I can make sure that the audience is involved in that 30 minutes is going to go by like that, but they're going to be left with something very connected and very actionable, instead of just a bunch of information that I tried to cram into 30 minutes.
Andrea Pacini (00:22:09) - True. And first of all, as a presenter, you never want to go long. So if they give you 30 minutes, you should finish within 30 minutes. And actually you should plan for maximum 90% of the time you have available. So they give you 30 minutes. You have to finish within 2020 five minutes. Absolutely. Never go long. And then now that's not what people do. No no no most people Tyler most, most presentations suck. That's that's the reality.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:22:40) - Now the let's be honest here. Okay.
Andrea Pacini (00:22:45) - The other thing is. Okay. Let's talk about speaking at people at the audience. Now a lot of people, that's what they do.
Andrea Pacini (00:22:55) - They talk at that, they speak at them. In reality, the secret to great presenting is to always talk to your audience about them. Even when you're talking about you, your idea, your project, your product, your service, whatever it is. So rather than talking at them about you, you always want to talk to them about them. Even when you're talking about you, this is something that also Maledon talks about in a book, the presentation book, which I've interviewed for the for our podcast, The Ideas on Stage podcast. Now I'll give you an example. What does that mean? If I tell you we have 158 offices all over the world. Great. I'm talking at you about me. If I tell you we have 158 offices all over the world so that you can get access to a customer support team wherever you are. I told you the same thing. But I talked to you about you. Even if I'm talking about me. So that's that's the difference. And that's the key to great communication.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:24:17) - Yeah. Love it. All right. In the middle of this conversation, I just want to take a moment to invite you. If you're not a subscriber to the Impact Driven Leader newsletter, to go to the impact Driven leader backslash free course, you're going to get the four days to Maximum Impact video series as well. Submit you into my email smear where you can learn more about the impact Driven leader community. So now back to the rest of the episode. It again. It it invites that person to be the hero. We talked about this earlier that influences in our life that have, you know, Donald Miller, who's done such a good job. There's there's others, too, that say, don't make yourself the hero. And, you know, I mentioned this earlier that when we were chatting is that so often I see leaders that use the example you just used. I want to show you, hey, we have 158 officers. I'm the hero because that's what I've done. That's what I've done for you.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:25:22) - But I'm the hero because I've risen from that instead of converting it like you did. And all of a sudden you're not the hero, you're the guide. Because I've already done that. But I've done that for you. So that way you can get whatever we deliver, or you can have the opportunity to solve your problems. And it's as simple, I think you're how the words that you used is really great for someone to understand. Hey, switch from being the hero. Switch from your the top of the mountain instead of like no, I'm just someone to help guide you up Everest. I'm with you to just help you through that foggy little pathway. And when we do that together, man, we're all better off. We're all going to go somewhere different. But it's not about me getting there, and you end up wherever you end up.
Andrea Pacini (00:26:10) - This is so crucial. We are not the hero of our story, the the audience or depending on what your context is, your client, your listeners are the hero of of the story.
Andrea Pacini (00:26:24) - Now, in practice, how can we do that? So I'll give you a give a listen as a practical approach. So say for example, that you wanted to. In a presentation you wanted to share a case study or a success story from. Say, for example, that one of your previous clients. So you you don't have to be an entrepreneur. You work with you are a leader within an organization. Maybe you have a client and you want to use that case study or their client success story when presenting to a new potential client. Now, rather than talking about how great you are, a great way to make the to make the client, your client, the hero of the story, not you, you said Tyler. As Donna miller explains, we are role is the role of a guide that gives the hero a plan, an idea, whatever it is that helps them achieve success. The way to do that is you want to follow a four step framework setting, complication turning point resolution.
Andrea Pacini (00:27:34) - That's a proven story framework. It's a narrative. So that's by by itself that has value because it's engaging. It's a narrative setting which could be as simple as time and place. Now, for example, if we go back to my story before I started by saying, for example, three years ago we worked with a client in in Paris in France. Her name is Marie. So if you start with a bit of a setting time and place, three years ago, Paris, that's it. That the audience knows that you are about to tell them a story. It could be as simple as that. Then the crucial thing is that you want to. Talk about the complication, the problem, but not your complication. It's the complication from the perspective of your client. Your client is the hero of the story. What was the problem, the challenge that your client was experiencing? After that turning point. And in the turning point, that's where you come along. But you come along as you said, Tyler, not as the hero.
Andrea Pacini (00:28:42) - You come along as the guide that gives the hero a plan, an idea, a product, a product, a service, whatever it is that you give them that helps them solve that complication and achieve success. And in the resolution, that's another key bit in the resolution of your case study or your client success story. You don't talk about how great you are. You talk about how great your client is. You want to put a spotlight on the success of your client. Now, of course, if you do that indirectly, what the audience is getting is that if your client has experienced that kind of resolution or success, of course it's because of what they've done with you. But you don't have to. You don't have to talk about that. That's, that's that happens indirectly. And you can by doing that, you can communicate your ideas, your work, your values in a much more effective and elegant way.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:29:42) - Think about conversations. Enjoyable conversations have that. Unenjoyable conversations is when people are boasting and they're talking about how great they are and what they've done and what they've accomplished.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:29:55) - People don't care, right? I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. I want to hear either. How does it impact me? How can I grow from that? Or what can I learn about the journey? Right. And that's part of, I think, storytelling is this right setting to complication and turning point to resolution. That's all a journey. And we all learn through journeys in whether it's a leader of a fortune 50 company that's sitting in front of people that over the last two years many people have said, I want to know you're real, and don't tell me that you didn't have to deal with adversity in the last few years, but tell me the journey with it and what decisions you had to make. And I will absolutely link arms with you. And we see that in our world today. The leaders that have done that and done that so well, they have people that are lining up to work their businesses and the ones that have said, we have all the answers.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:30:51) - We will, you know, we it's all about we it's, you know, about AI instead of, you know, it's the leadership as we people are like, I don't care about you. You don't care about me. I don't care about you. I'm out. I'll go find somewhere else. And we're in that midst. And I think that's where this presentation, ideology and framework and belief is so powerful because we have so many employees that are working, and they're asking for leaders to lead them and not point at them, lead them and say, hey, join us, come with this guy. Let me guide you. And whether solution for our customers or the solution, what we provide to you as a workplace or a place to live out your purpose. Right. So it's we're living it right now.
Andrea Pacini (00:31:45) - Yeah. And if your leadership presentation or communication fails to inspire your your team, your colleagues, your your partners, then they won't be motivated to follow you and deliver on your strategy. And you talked about journey, taking the audience on a journey.
Andrea Pacini (00:32:03) - And the best way to do that is as you've anticipated. Storytelling. Storytelling is one of the most, maybe probably the the most powerful thing we can do in communication and historical. Yeah, exactly. And. Even in especially in a business context, then we need to tell stories. We need to include stories in our communication, in our presentations. This is not just for Ted talks or for big talks at conferences. As you said, Tyler, you are speaking in front of five colleagues. Storytelling. Now, when when we say storytelling, we are not talking about telling a once upon a time type of story. We are not talking about including an emotional. So it could be, by the way, depending on what the context is. But it doesn't have to be an emotional story. A story could be an example. It could be a case study. It could be something that happened to you, your personal story. If it's connected to the point you want to get across. Because by the way, that's that's the point of using storytelling.
Andrea Pacini (00:33:12) - Storytelling is not about telling a story for the sake of it. It's about telling a story because we want to make a point, because that story is is there to illustrate a particular point. And when we do that, the audience will remember the story and what that means. So it could be a personal story. It could be stories about other people, stories about a colleague of yours. It could be stories about brain success. Again, if you have a client that has already successfully implemented the idea of the recommendation there, or maybe another department within your organization that has already successfully implemented the recommendation that you have for another department, that's a story. If we think about it, there's always a story to tell. The problem with most business presentations is that they are 99% facts, facts and figures. And then if we are lucky, if we are lucky, 1% is story. It's a bit unbalanced. We should turn this around. So if we tell more stories, that's the most powerful thing we can do to make our presentations, our communication, more original, enjoyable and memorable.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:34:29) - So I want to kind of, I guess, land the plane or end or cap it with this. You shared that. I believe that I think if we look back thousands of years, millennia, stories of move people, not facts. Why do leaders presenters that are so heavy on facts when you work with them? Why do they shy away from stories? Instead, rely on facts. Why do you see that is the the what do you see the main rationale or reason why they go there? And then how do you help them see a different pathway?
Andrea Pacini (00:35:12) - The the right couple of reasons. One reason is there is the usual thing of. We've done this thing this way for so long and we've always done it this way. So we've always approached presentations with just facts and figures. Just put opening up PowerPoint, putting together some slides without thinking about taking the audience on on a journey from A to B. So without thinking about these things, including storytelling. So we've always done it this way and, and that's and that's one principle.
Andrea Pacini (00:35:49) - Now the the other thing to consider is that we think wrongly, but we think that if we want to convince somebody of something, influence them, persuade them. We think that the best way to do that is with facts and figures. But it's not. Because if you think about it, if I share, if I want Tyler, if I want to convince you, say that we have different opinions on something like, for example, before before we got started, we were talking about soccer, the Champions League final. You think maybe about one team, I think about another. If I want to convince you that I'm right and that you are wrong, if I share with you a fact for sure, you will find if you do your research, you will find your own fact, your own data that contradicts what I said. We see everywhere in the world in many different areas, including health and science. Yeah, I share a fact you will find your own fact that support your thinking. Whereas if we think about it, if I share a story that illustrates a particular point, then you can't argue with the story.
Andrea Pacini (00:37:07) - It's impossible to argue with a story. It's a story. It's something that happened. A story, an analogy, a metaphor. So that's another thing. And that's why this is so much more powerful. And by the way, it's not about using stories and not using facts and figures. Good communication is where you touch both areas of people's brain. We we all have at different levels, but we all have. If we want to simplify the logical side in our brain and you address, you touch the logical side with facts and figures with data. Super important. But you if you only do that, you are missing one side of people's brain. You also want to touch the emotional side and you do that with stories, examples, anecdotes, analogies, and what we need to try and do in our communication. We need to have the right mix of logic and emotion. It's a bit like a seesaw. If you think about a seesaw. When two kids, a seesaw is parallel to the ground only when nobody is using it as soon as two kids start playing with it, it goes up and down.
Andrea Pacini (00:38:18) - Now a seesaw which is parallel to the ground, is like a presentation which has an equal mix of logic and emotion. Now, it doesn't have to be like that. It could be 5050, or it could be that if you are giving a very technical presentation to a very technical audience, maybe you could go like 80% or even 90% facts and figures, but you do want to include 10% of emotional things. Storytelling. What you never want to do is 100% facts and figures and nothing from an emotional perspective.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:38:53) - So I want to take that that little analogy, a great presentation does what kids do on a seesaw. It goes up and down and up and down. A presentation that's not going to really impact people is stuck. It's, you know, it's one, one kid's heavier than the other, and he's not pushing. Sorry. You're not going anywhere. You're stuck up in the air. And I'm like, how can I get down from here? I'm. But to me, that's the image that comes to me is like good presentations.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:39:23) - You know, you're going through that seesaw which you mentioned earlier in regards to speaking with the audience, having that conversation, that's that seesaw going back and forth, back and forth. That's what's enjoyable. That's why you get on a seesaw.
Andrea Pacini (00:39:38) - You picked up these this analogy and and it's not a coincidence because in addition to stories, analogies are also super powerful in communication. If we pay attention, great communicators use analogies all the time. Again, for for the Ideas on Stage podcast some time ago, I interviewed John Pollack in the US. John is the author of a great book, shortcut is is an expert on analogies. He says that an analogy is a shortcut from a communication perspective. He was one of the presidential speechwriters for Bill Clinton, and he told me that the best way to explain something new, which could be your idea of whatever it is that you want to get across, is to attach it, to connect it to something that the audience already knows and understand. When you make that connection, that's where learning happens.
Andrea Pacini (00:40:37) - So I would always encourage, especially those who need to communicate complex ideas. Technical ideas is to think about, okay, can I use an analogy to make it easier for the audience to understand it? I'll give you an example. Tyler. Some time ago I was watching a a video on YouTube when you may not in the US, but he's famous worldwide. Neil deGrasse Tyson the the astrophysicist. Yeah. So he's he talks about science, which can be very complex and technical and he was answering some questions. I was taking some questions from the audience. And one question was, Mr. Tyson, what do you think about life in the universe beyond planet Earth? And he believes that the chances that there is life in the universe beyond us is very high. But instead of using technical language, complex ideas which would have not worked for that particular audience, we go back to making it relevant to the audience. He used an analogy and I still remember the analogy. Because that's what happens in our brain. We remember the analogy of the story and what that means.
Andrea Pacini (00:41:48) - And he said, imagine that you are in a boat. It's just you are in a boat in a very small boat. It's just you on the ocean, and you have a glass with you and with your glass. You take some water from the ocean and you look at your glass and you say. Okay. There are no whales in this glass. Therefore, we can assume that there are no whales in the entire ocean. If you assume that there is no life in the universe, it's like making this assumption here that just because there are no whales here, we can't see any whales. Then there are no whales in the entire ocean and we all get it right. We can all relate to the idea of being on a small boat in the ocean, and we get it. So when you connect something that the audience is not yet familiar with your idea, or it could be something that they don't understand yet some don't believe in yet. When you connect that with something that they already know, understand, accept.
Andrea Pacini (00:42:50) - When what happens is in our brain, subconsciously the audience will think, okay, if this is true, then that must also be true. Then Tyler's idea must also be true. And that's the power of an analogy.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:43:05) - Yeah, yeah. Well, it's one of those things I find myself so often speaking analogies and think it's just an individual trait I have, but yet I believe it is masterfully powerful. It's just think is a unique gift that I don't think about it. It just happens. But I do know, as you've said, that when you can do that, man, it connects all the dots. I'd even go back to, you know, pondering. Say he did answer that. Neil did answer that in an audience that was astrophysicists that knew about it. How impactful to make it so simple if he still use that same analogy, because even the most educated astrophysicists, they would be challenged to say, huh, hadn't thought about it that way. That's an interesting take, because it completely removes them from going back to what we talked about earlier.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:43:59) - When you're so close and know so much about the information, it's, you know, having life by looking through a microscope that you need to look through the telescope to see a broader picture. I believe that's what analogies do for people. When it's done right, it can really help them see. Never saw it that way. It's kind of like we were talking about Inter Milan and Man City. You have to look at it. There's a possibility they have to play the game. Exactly. I hope it turns out in my favor. We'll know by the time this releases. But you know.
Andrea Pacini (00:44:36) - Exactly. And and going back to what you've just said, great communicators simplify. They simply using analogies is one way to do that. But in general, everything is in service of simplifying our ideas for the audience. That's what great communicators do. They use simple language, simple sentences, simple words, and what a lot of business leaders do instead is the opposite. They they use complex language acronyms, industry specific terms that they understand, not necessarily the audience.
Andrea Pacini (00:45:22) - And and that's what a lot of people do, especially business leaders, because they think that if they do that, then they sound smarter and more credible. The opposite is true. If you look at what Greg, if you look at people, leaders who you admire, who you consider smart and credible, what they do is the opposite. They replace complex language with simple language. And when I say that we need to speak simply, I'm not suggesting that we need to oversimplify our ideas, our topics. It's not about dumbing it down. It's about finding and using language that as many people as possible in our audience can understand.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:46:07) - Man. Andrea, thank you so much. This has been great, great information that I think is powerful for anyone. Wherever you're leading, especially in businesses, in front of people presenting, no way, shape or form is it not applying. And I think the the simple always moves people and it's when you can make great ideas, simple people will latch on and they become brilliant ideas.
Andrea Pacini (00:46:34) - Thank you. Thank you Tyler I really enjoy these this conversation and I hope that your your listeners have enjoyed it when and depending on when they watch it live or the recording where I hope that they, they enjoy as much as I did. And then the most important thing, I hope that your listeners have found a useful as well.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:46:58) - Awesome. Thank you so much, Andrea. One key piece of our conversation that we had was that. The audience is always in the driver's seat. It's not the presenter. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's what value can the audience gain? Where do they fit in the story? I'm a large proponent and fan of Donald Miller's work, whether it be hero on a mission. We've talked about that before. Building your story brand, that book that Andrea and I mentioned and refer to, and it's that. We're just the guide. Leaders are guides. The the person listening, engaging. They're really who the story is about. And if we focus on that man, that's when we really help people.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:47:58) - It's always the audience's presentation. Here's another point that I really took from our conversation I agree with totally. If you confuse, you lose the moment you confuse someone. If you're watching your audience, the moment you confuse them, all of a sudden they glaze over. They start fiddling around. I've heard this from other speakers. They start checking their phone. Right? You notice that? How do you get their attention? One other piece that Andrea mentioned that I think is so powerful it's the curse of knowledge. If we anticipate that everyone's going to know what we know in the circumstances and arrangement that we know. Poof. We've lost our ability to connect, guide and lead the audience. We really need to understand and and see. They don't know what we know. So how can we feed them spoonfuls? Not. Patronizing, but understanding how to get an elephant one bite at a time. How do we lead people? By using the analogies and metaphors and stories, parables that people for millennia have used.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:49:07) - To present and share information. So it's about the journey. It's about the process of helping people go from where they're at now to some other place. And just like Andrea mentioned about his client who showed up at the event totally unprepared. The biggest thing a leader presenter, a speaker can do is know their audience. I want to know you better. Thank you for being here. What I'd love if whatever feedback, whatever comments, read of reviews, share them. I'd love to get an email. Tyler. Tyler. Decker. Let me know what value you got from this episode. How did it enlighten something in your life and realize, man, as a leader, I'm really just as much a presenter as those people that stand up on stage all day long. Leaders are presenters and the more confident, the more sure and who we are. What message we have to present and the better package we put that in in order to guide. Give information, not overwhelm, but help people through the process to want to know more.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:50:18) - Man, that's when leaders really make an impact. Thanks for tuning in. Till next time, have a good one.
