by Laura Camacho
My favorite way to teach communication skills to my client companies is through a series of 2 to 3-hour workshops over many months. It’s hard to sit still all day and science shows that people have a really hard time paying attention after 90 minutes of teaching. Furthermore, it’s great when learners can build their body of knowledge on a topic over time.
What surprises me is how few people can answer basic questions on the content they were taught in a live workshop two or three months ago. And yet, I don’t even know the phone numbers of any of my children. Top U.S. presenters Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos and Tony Robbins do not use slides. PowerPoint presentations are not even permitted at Amazon. I’m going to follow their example, but using baby steps. It feels risky but research and my experience are compelling me to take this route.
It’s one thing to teach for 45 minutes without slides. It’s another to teach three or four hours without slides. Successful selling of many services today requires educating the market. Teaching is merging with selling. To retain the valuable information you are sharing, the audience needs to take notes. Encourage them to do so, as they may be out of practice. They need to ask questions and discuss the material. Simply going from slide to slide can put people in a trance, a trance of not learning very much.
No matter whether you’re teaching a business skill or presenting financial metrics, give your message using fewer slides, or try using none at all. To replace your slides, use handouts with questions for them to answer, or even fill in the blank statements. Try using physical props and white boards. Ask audience members to teach something that you’ve covered.
There was life before PowerPoint and we may do better even after chucking our slides. I bet audience engagement skyrockets as a result.
Laura Camacho, MBA, PhD, PMP, is an executive coach, trainer and speaker who opened Mixonian Institute in 2009 to rid the world of boring business communication. She has created innovative training programs for local and international companies, related to leadership effectiveness, excellent feedback, growth mindset and emotional intelligence. Multilingual, Dr. Camacho’s career highlights include facilitating The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in Spanish,) being editor of the leading management newsletter in Venezuela. For 10 years she taught communication classes at ECU and College of Charleston. www.mixonian.com
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