English language is a brilliant tool for anyone who wants to spend a lot of time saying nothing.

I was reminded of this recently while listening to a NSW Government minister speak about intergenerational challenges. What struck me wasn’t the topic – it was the number of times they talked about what “we need to” do.

It wasn’t a long speech, but the phrase surfaced at least half a dozen times. Each instance framed a challenge, followed by the comforting assertion that we “need to” act.

What was missing was everything that actually matters:

Not what we ‘have done’.

Not what we are ‘going to’ do.

Just what we ‘need to’ do.

Saying we ‘need to’ do something is one of the most efficient ways to sound concerned without committing to anything at all.

Just think about the number of times you will hear people say:

“We need to meet the challenge of climate change.”

“We need to fix Australia’s innovation system.”

“We need to stop violence against women.”

“We need to ensure the safety of citizens.”

“We need to close the gap for Indigenous Australians.”

Lots of empathy. Zero obligation. And absolutely no action.

Acknowledging a problem is a good first step in resolving a problem – but not if it is the only step.

Next time you prepare a presentation, look carefully at your “we need to” statements. Consider replacing them with what you are going to do. It signals ownership, intent, and commitment – all far more powerful than vague expressions of support.

If you want to influence people, don’t tell them what needs to be done. Tell them what you’re doing next. It might just raise their level of respect for you, and perhaps even encourage them to do the same.

Why do so many presenters assume their audience has an unlimited memory?

Unfortunately, human minds have limitations, and one of those is the number of things we can remember (aside from a few remarkable outliers, at least).

This idea tends to go out the window in a lot of presentations – and especially when someone is pitching credentials.

And there is one word to blame here – which happens to be ‘and’.

 Does the following presentation flow sound like something you’ve heard before?

• We can do ‘thing’.
• And we can do ‘next thing’.
• And we can also do ‘next next thing’.
• And if ‘next next next thing’ is important to you, we can do that too
• And so on.
• And so on.
• And so on.
• And ‘thing’.

Who’s going to remember all the ‘ands’? And how will they know which ‘ands’ are worth remembering?

It’s a common failing, born out of the desire to present as many different service offerings as possible in the hope that one will prove appealing, rather than focusing in on the client’s need and just presenting those specific solutions.

It also crops in keynote presentations, where the speaker runs through example after example after example, rather than crafting a narrative that builds towards a compelling outcome.

One method for avoiding the ‘and’ trap is to think about how the different things can be used to build towards that outcome. A technique commonly used in fiction is to switch to ‘because’ rather than ‘and’.

For example:

• “Because we do ‘thing’, we can also do ‘next thing’, and that led us to build out a capability in ‘next next thing’.

There is clear linkage between the ‘things’. Which means there is greater storytelling goodness tying them together. Which is useful, because human beings are much better at remembering (and being influenced by) stories rather than things.

‘And’ has proven to be one of my biggest challenges as a trainer and coach. Training requires knowledge to be passed from one person to another. That can mean lots of ‘things’ – and therefor lots of ‘ands’. Trying to find compelling ways to convey many things without falling into the ‘and’ trap is a struggle I am still striving to master – but ‘because’ is proving useful for conveying knowledge in a way that can be better retained. Stay tuned for further developments on that front.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the more you say, the less they will remember. Next time you are putting together a presentation, count the number of ‘things’ you discuss, and the number of ‘ands’ that join them together (unless Steve Jobs. Steve was a master of ‘and’ – especially how he would end presentations with ‘just one more thing’ – the perfect blend of storytelling and stagecraft. But if you’re not Steve Jobs …).

I can guarantee that the fewer ‘ands’ you use, the happier the audience will be, and the more effective your presentation will become.

There is a reason why news stories have headlines. They are the advertising for the story that follows, saying just enough to catch your attention, provide a spark of relevance, and make you want to read on.

Then comes the sentence that follows — the lede (in old newsroom parlance — not lead, as it’s often misspelled today). The lede tells you everything essential in a single breath.

“A bus crash on the Monash Freeway this afternoon resulted in the deaths of four people”.

In that one line, you know what happened, when and where it happened, and its tragic outcome. You’re also probably hooked – curious to find out why and how it happened.

This form of newswriting is called the ‘inverted pyramid’. All the value sits at the top, tapering off as you move down. The style emerged in the print era, when writers never knew how much space their story would get. Subeditors would trim from the bottom, and a good reporter made sure that nothing important was lost in the process.

It’s also incredibly effective at holding attention – and that’s something every presenter should aspire to.

When you’re building a presentation, especially for an audience that’s tired, busy, or distracted, start with the value. Tell people what matters most first, when they’re most alert and receptive. Hook them early, and they’ll stay with you for what follows – just like a strong news story.

The difference is that unlike a news article, your presentation needs to finish strong. That’s easy – just circle back to where you began. Remind your audience of the promise you made at the start and show how you’ve delivered on it.

The key difference with a presentation however is that you also want to finish strong. That’s easy – just go back to the start.

A good presentation doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be profound. But it does have to be engaging.

Borrowing from journalism might seem reductive, but after a couple of hundred years of refinement, it’s proven to work.

The human brain is an extraordinary piece of technology, but it comes with limitations. One of the most important is memory.

I’m reminded of this every time I walk out of a presentation thinking, “Wow, that was a lot” – only to realise ten minutes later I can’t recall a single point.

This isn’t just anecdotal. It’s measurable. Ask someone to remember three items – say, three animals – and they’ll recall them easily. Increase the list to ten, and recall drops sharply. Memory retention falls from near 100% to something far less.

Now apply this to professional communication. If your goal is to influence, overwhelming your audience with every last thing you can think of is not going to help you acheive your aim. You can’t persuade someone who can’t remember what you said – or worse, who only remembers the wrong bits.

The more points you cram in – especially irrelevant ones – the more you dilute the ideas that matter most. Every extra detail competes for mental space, reducing the odds your audience retains the core message.

That’s why the best communicators practice ruthless focus. They know influence depends not on how much you say, but on what sticks.

When presenting to influence, always:

• Focus on the essentials. Know the one or two things your audience must remember.
• Reinforce them. Repeat the key ideas in different ways that useful, relateable, and engaging, so they lodge in memory.
• Cut the rest. Jettison everything else.

It’s tempting to tell your audience everything about you, your product, or your idea. But the danger is simple: the more you say, the less they’ll remember.

Because it’s hard to influence someone if they can’t remember you.

Every story has a hero – or at the very least, a protagonist who drives it forward.

So when you are using storytelling to persuade, one of the most important questions you can ask is: who is the hero here?

Take a standard sales presentation, like a customer case study. There are three possible answers.

The first is you.

If you’re telling the story of how you helped someone overcome a challenge or achieve an extraordinary result, it’s natural to see yourself as the protagonist. You’re the one driving the action.

The second is the customer.

To avoid looking like you’re seeking the spotlight, you can shift the focus to them. After all, they took the leap of faith. They listened to your idea, convinced their colleagues, found the money, and had the courage to follow through. You may have done the work, but they made it happen.

Both perspectives work. Both can lead to strong stories.

But if your goal is persuasion, there’s a third option, and it’s the most powerful.

The hero is the audience.

Great persuasive storytelling helps your listener see themselves in the hero’s role. You want them thinking: “That could work for us. We could do that.” The ultimate aim is to have them carry your idea back to their workplace, where they can apply it, solve a pressing problem, or seize a new opportunity — and in doing so, elevate their own standing.

In other words, you want them to imagine themselves as the hero of the sequel to your story.

To make this work, you need to shape your story with the audience in mind:

• Relevance: Will they recognise the problem or challenge you’re describing?
• Practicality: Is your solution something they could realistically implement?
• Value: Does the benefit clearly outweigh the effort, risk, or cost?

These are simple idea, but too often they’re lost in the noise of a presentation.

Films such as Star Wars worked because kids could imagine themselves as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Princess Leia.

Your challenge is the same: can your audience imagine themselves as the hero of the story you’re telling?

When it comes to persuasion, a little knowledge can be dangerous. Too much can be downright counterproductive.

One pattern I see again and again in my work as a communications coach is how domain experts struggle to explain their ideas to people outside their field. We all recognise that knowing something and explaining something are two different skills – but there are subtler ways expertise can undermine communication which often go unnoticed.

A recent client session brought this home. He was leading a major technology-driven transformation program and needed to secure the backing of senior leaders. As a technologist, his instinct was to explain how the program would work and what others would need to do.

But when we reviewed his presentation, one glaring omission stood out: the why.

To him, the benefits were obvious – so obvious that he jumped straight to implementation. But for his audience, the absence of a compelling why meant they heard only disruption, extra work, and unfamiliar processes. With no reason to believe in the change, there was no reason to buy in.

Balancing the what, why, and how is the cornerstone of effective change communication. Without the why, the audience has no stake in the outcome – only a sense that something is being imposed on them. In my experience, at least half of failed change programs can be traced back to this very oversight: failing to win support by clearly articulating the reasons for change.

For leaders driving transformation, the sequence should be simple:

• Start with the what. Define the change quickly and clearly. This usually requires the least time.
• Expand on the why. Connect the rationale to outcomes that matter for your audience: better customer experiences; a stronger organisational future; or improvements in their own work. Don’t be afraid to tap into the “what’s in it for me?” factor.
• Save the how for later. Early on, avoid drowning people in complexity. If the how is simple, explain it simply. If it’s complex, offer just enough detail to reassure them that a plan exists, that support will be provided, and that specifics will follow at the right time.

Getting this sequence right shifts communication from a technical explanation to a persuasive story – one that makes people not only understand the change, but believe in it.

Photo credit: Morgane Le Breton

As a communications trainer, there is one piece of advice that I find myself offering up more than any other. It’s also a piece of advice that I find the hardest to implement.

Slow down.

Rapid-fire delivery is one of the most common crimes committed by speakers, be it on stage, in interviews, or in general conversations. It is also one of the most likely reasons why your communication efforts may not be having the desired impact.

Just because you can speak quickly, that doesn’t mean your audience can listen quickly. And there is no chance they will retain or be influenced by what you’re saying if they can’t keep up with you.

I know this from the repeated experience of being on the receiving end of fast talkers. As a journalist who sometimes records interviews, I’ve heard things in the recordings that I never heard the during the interview. I’ve even asked questions that had been already answered earlier.

When you speak quickly, your listener will hear a few components of what you have to say, but they are unlikely to retain much of value. Like a stone skipping across a pond, you offer no chance for your words to sink in.

Listening is not a passive process (Oscar Trimboli can tell you a lot more about that).

When a person is listening, they are also often learning something new, and trying to assimilate that knowledge with what they already know. By speaking too quickly, you fail to give your audience time to absorb what you are saying, which can lead to them falling behind and quickly losing interest.

Fast speakers have offered me plenty of excuses for their rapid-fire delivery. For some, it is a habit they developed early in life that they have found hard to break. For others, fast speaking arises from nervousness, and the feeling they need to say everything they need to say before they forget it. And for some, it comes about simply because they are excited and have a lot to say and are trying to cram in as much information in as possible (which is the excuse I most often give myself).

None of these excuses alleviate the suffering of the audience, and no matter what the reason, fast speaking will always mean you are less likely to influence your audience in the way you wanted to.

Unfortunately, there is no fast remedy for fast speaking, other than enforcing a stricter discipline over your delivery speed. Trust me, I’ve looked.

There are however some techniques you can use to make things easier for yourself and your audience.

The first is to pause every now and again. This works especially well on stage by providing a moment for your audience to catch up.

The second is to repeat the things you most want your audience to hear. This tends to also work best in presentations, but can also be used to great effect in interviews or even conversations – just don’t overdo it. You might also want to come back to key ideas several times in different ways (for instance, placing them in context using examples) to ensure they sink in.

Neither strategy is as good as simply slowing down though, and that means being conscious of your speed of delivery and taking the steps needed to moderate your flow.

The great thing is, slowing down not only helps you’re audience, but it also gives you greater control over what you are saying. Slowing down enables you to think further ahead, as your brain is able to catch up to (or get ahead of) the words coming out of your mouth. This means you can start to guide the discussion, and you can also buy yourself the cognitive capacity to pay more attention to your audience and their non-verbal responses.

And you also are likely to become more economical with your use of words. Faster speakers tend to use more words than they need, as they are using ‘verbal polystyrene’ to pad out what they are saying and buy time to think about what they really want to say.

Slowing down gives you more time to think about what you are saying, which can see you using less words to say exactly what you need to say in the same time it would take if you were talking quickly.

Most importantly, slowing down creates a better experience for the audience – and that is crucial if you truly want your words to have any chance of changing the way they think, feel, or behave.

I’m pleased to announce that my virtual presentation training session is now available (for virtual delivery). Running for 90 minutes, the virtual course is based on my own experiences in presentation delivery and training (both physical and virtual), along with extensive research into the fundamentals of good online delivery.

More information can be found here.

Why are you here?

When it comes to public communication, it’s one of the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves. And I don’t mean in the biological or spiritual sense. I mean, why have you shown up in the first place?

It’s a question your audience is probably asking itself as well – why have you shown up? And why should they listen?

But it’s a question that seems to get forgotten in the rush to talk about the ‘what’ and ‘who’. Knowing why you have shown up is the central thread that sews everything else together – it is the landmark you use to navigate through your communication. When you offer up something that doesn’t help you achieve your goal, you risk wasting time – yours and the audiences. Hence always knowing why you are there becomes critical.

There is another ‘why’ that should take primacy however in all communication – and that is the ‘why’ that the audience is asking. Why should they give up their time to listen to you in the first place?

Quite often, your ‘why’ and their ‘why’ won’t immediately match up. I see this frequently in the technology sector, where the ‘why’ of the communicator might be to sell more products, but there is a good chance that the audience doesn’t want more products – they have plenty already.

They might want is a solution to a problem. Or an insight into a desirable future outcome. Or something else that that will make their lives better.

The gaps between ‘what’ and ‘why’ can be summed up in the difference between two words – ‘want’ and ‘need’. Because there are a lot of things in this world that are needed rather than wanted.

Take accounting for example. It’s quite likely that there aren’t that many business owners who really ‘want’ an accountant. What they want is to stay compliant with tax law, or to better manage their cashflow, or to invest wisely for the future. But in most instances, they need assistance with that, and hence an accountant is ‘needed’.

The same thinking applies in the technology sector. When a technology provider focuses on what they do, rather than why anyone would want it, a disconnect opens up.

Take cloud computing for instance. It is likely that there aren’t that many business owners who really want cloud computing (it’s equally likely that many of them also don’t want to be running computers on-premises). What they want is a powerful, reliable and flexible computing environment that enables them to better perform that tasks that are essential for running their business. They want a means of ensuring their technology does not prevent them from responding swiftly to changing market conditions or hold them back from new opportunities.

The ‘why’ – business flexibility – is much more meaningful than the ‘what’ that delivers it.

Hence when someone commences communicating by only considering their ‘why’ – to sell more of something – they immediately disconnect from the audience. But when they take into account the needs of the audience, magical things happen.

By articulating that you understand the problems, challenges and concerns of those listening to you, you immediately build rapport. You demonstrate concern and understanding and cease to be someone who is selling down to them, but rather appear as someone who stands alongside them and knows their pain.

It is a fairly basic concept, but one that is frequently forgotten in the rush to talk about the latest new thing (the ‘what’) and the organisation or person that will make it possible (the ‘who’). What you are offering and who you are should always be secondary to the ‘why’ of the audience.

Considering the ‘why’ of the audience and what they really want earns permission to talk about the ‘what’ and ‘who’. It also creates a means of aligning your ‘why’ (build brand awareness, change behaviour, sell more stuff, etc) and placing it into a context that the audience will respond to.