Delivering A Polished Presentation

I had another amazing learning opportunity during my weekly Clubhouse conversation.  Joe Ferraro hosts a room every Saturday at 11a and it has been illuminating in so many ways.  This week his guest speaker Nick Winkelman, Craig Burgess and others discussed giving excellent presentations.  During the talk several people made comments on avoiding being too polished.  While I listened to these excellent communicators go back and forth their message was clear and concise, well thought out and delivered with the appropriate tone.  All of this led me to believe that they are all extremely polished.  While I understand what they were trying to say, I think I believe the opposite of them and want my presenter to be polished.  Let’s take a look at how this works toward making a strong and powerful presentation.

First, when I think of the word polished I think of a beautiful finished product.  We don’t polish a piece of art until it’s ready to be presented.  As a speaker, why then would we not want to be perceived as polished?  I think a lot of times people think polished and robotic or emotionless as the same.  I want to get away from this thought and look at polished as the ultimate goal, because once we shine we should be put on display in front of the world.  Until then, we’re a work-in-progress.  When you look up the word polished in the dictionary you will see a couple definitions.  The two I want to focus on are definition 3: refined, cultured, or elegant and definition 4: flawless, skillful, excellent.  Is polished really that bad?

Now, during the conversation there was definite concern about sounding too rehearsed, rigid, and inflexible.  On this I completely agree.  I think as a presenter if you are any of these things you come off as sounding insincere and disengaged.  This is a dangerous place to be as a presenter because you lose your ability to flow and adjust the presentation as needed to keep your audience engaged and your emotion of the subject matter genuine.  However, none of these has to do with being polished.  This is where I think we have given the word polished the wrong meaning and placed it in a context that makes it sound bad, instead of where it belongs.  I believe our greatest presenters are extremely polished.  They have mastered the ability to adjust to the crowd, deliver a powerful message, and are skilled in the art of speaking and connecting to the audience.

Take a minute and visualize the statue of David.  If you’ve never seen this incredible piece of art in person Google search it now (while it won’t have the same impact, you can at least see just how beautiful it is).  Now, type in the search bar “unfinished works of Michelangelo” and peruse the various works.  While you can see some mastery in them, you can see some beauty in them, something is definitely missing compared to the masterpiece that is David.  That’s what I think of being polished as a speaker means.  We should all be aiming to achieve a level of polished that makes us a finished product.  We have to smooth out the rough edges in our presentation skills, we have to refine our delivery and ability to pivot during a talk, and then once we become polished enough we can own the room.  Until then we’re just work-in-progress that has to learn from our unshaped edges and disproportionate limbs.

While we begin to refine our appearance on stage it’s important though not to become too rehearsed.  We must avoid sounding too robotic or refrain from emotionless content.  There must be a level of skill in our ability to be spontaneous and to pivot or deviate from our original path if necessary.  This can only happen when we fully master what we are speaking about.  This is the most important thing to develop when preparing for a presentation.  A complete understanding of your presentation material is what allows you flexibility in your stories, delivery, adjustments specific to each audience, and the ability to avoid reading your material to the audience.  When you have confidence in your understanding of the material, you can then deliver a presentation that sounds more like a natural conversation than a rehearsed lecture.  This is how you engage your audience and keep them with you.  Through conversation we make connections and this is where the magic happens.  Great presenters are polished, skilled, conversationalists.

I feel like this is a topic that could be talked about and written about forever and we’d still not hit all the various nuances about it.  However, I hope this little bit has made you think differently about becoming polished as a presenter and speaker.  The polish isn’t the problem.  The polish is what gives you the power to be confident in your ability to go off-script and deliver incredible content and still know you can find your way back.  The polish gives you skills to control the room and command attention on stage.  The polish make you shine under the bright lights that are designed to exposed all of your flaws and weaknesses.  Without being polished we are just another unfinished masterpiece.  So, develop mastery of your content, refine your stage presence, improve your ability to be authentic and communicate clearly with your audience.  We all have a story to tell, it’s up to us to deliver it the best we can and wow our listeners.