Lean Speaking: How to Get Better Results with Less Effort
You have an important presentation coming up on Monday. But now it is Sunday and it is still not ready. From the beginning you had planned to work on it for weeks and make the best presentation of your life, but then came an unplanned project, a few days of flu, a snowstorm, a laptop issue and other surprises. Now you are surrounded with notes, old presentations and half-chewed drafts. But no presentation.
This is a surprisingly common scenario. But even more surprisingly there are ways to deal with this problem — to create a last-minute presentation that is not only good enough, but perhaps even better than the one you would have made if you had more time. To do this you need an entirely new approach, one that I call Lean Speaking.
I coach speakers, sometimes I write their speeches and advise them on influencing strategies. One thing I have noticed over the years is that people seem to spend too much time on things that are less important and too little on things that matter. If people could do only the right things, I reasoned, they could save time without compromising results. But most people learn how to do this when they are forced to try it.
When someone comes to me with a last-minute emergency, I apply my ssecret last-minute recovery method. There is no time to make anything beautiful so instead we make a minimal version that at least covers the most important points.
But later people always come back and tell me that this minimal, ultra-lean presentation was actually the most effective thing that they had ever done. Everyone was impressed, they said. And, more importantly, everyone could remember the message. I have had exactly the same experience myself so I am not surprised. Everyone says too much. This is not just a waste of time, it is ineffective. This is what I call the Pitchers Paradox. What might look like a carefully-crafted awesome presentation might actually be less effective than something leaner made in a hurry.
You don’t need to wait for an emergency to apply this lean speaking technique. You can use it as a core practice in your everyday work, though perhaps not so strictly. That’s exactly what I do.
How exactly do you apply this lean speaking method?
Start by throwing everything away. Really! Take all your old presentations and all your notes and throw them all away. You might think that they will be useful but they actually slow you down. Finding old material to recycle just wastes precious time and it distracts you from what you want to say towards things you just happen to have already.
Then, with a blank sheet or screen in front of you, start by defining your core message. What do you want people to think after your presentation? You need to have this. If you don’t know what you are saying nobody else will either. This is, in fact, the most important part of the presentation. Defining your core idea up front saves time because you don’t waste time preparing content you don’t need. It also makes your presentation much more compelling.
Once you have defined the core message write down the three main ideas that will support this message. For each point make a short bullet point list of what you will say for each. Use concrete stories, cases and examples to make it more vivid. Add a simple introduction and a conclusion. With this minimal sheet of notes, you are ready to start building and learning the content.
To expand this outline into a complete presentation some people write a script and then learn it. This is not the most effective way because written scripts sound “scripted” and by writing then learning you double the work, wasting time. Instead You can by adopt a speak-before-write technique to save time and improve the overall quality. Instead of writing something and then trying to say it, try saying something first, then, if it sounds good, write it down.
Practically I do this by looking at the next item in my outline and trying to say what I could say about it, preferably out loud and standing up. If it doesn’t sound quite right, I try another way of saying it. Repeat this until you find words that you like and capture them on paper, in your phone or a whiteboard (take a photo of the board to capture it). You don’t need to write out a complete script; it is enough to have clear enough notes for each point so that you can recreate them later. If the ideas are not coming try a change of scene. You might get better ideas walking in the forest, but remember to capture them with your phone.
Now start to practice your whole presentation “unplugged” — that is without slides. Memorize the main points and supporting facts and practice as many times as you can — delivering it without notes and without slides to minimize distraction. When time is short you cannot afford to spend a lot of time creating elegant slides, searching for images and so on. Focus on the content and the talk first.
When you already have a minimum viable unplugged version and you still have some time left you can create a simple presentation to support it. Don’t write everything on the slides, just the keywords. And don’t use stock images merely for decoration. If there are any images they have to add to the message, making it easier to understand. And when you are looking for images have a strict time limit; if you don’t find the image within that limit just drop it and move on. Never get stuck in a search that eats up your valuable minutes. Use bank robber time budgeting and allow yourself just a few minutes for finding slide content. After those minutes are passed just drop the search.
Finally, once you have a short, simple and clear presentation try to practice it as many times as you can before you have to speak. Keeping the presentation very short makes this much easier. Even if you have just half an hour you can practice a five-minute presentation four or five times. Use the little time you have to practice a few more times, out loud if possible but in your head if necessary.
Most people say too much and show too much in their presentations. This “noise” gets in the way of the message. At the same time, they waste far too much time working with PowerPoint, Keynote or whatever, adjusting animations and builds that nobody likes anyway.
Quite often the most effective presentations emerge accidentally from a last-minute panic. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use the lean speaking approach in all of your presentations, saving a massive amount of time, but at the same time, making your messaging more effective.
