Five steps to brilliance

I’ve created these five levels because to improve you have to know where you start. 

Imagine life without examinations, acareer without promotion and a progression up the hierarchy, imagine a world where everything was the same–forever. 

So be aware of where you start.

Step one: novice presenter 新手型演讲者

能在自己擅长的领域对一小撮人进行演讲，是同龄人里的话痨，喜欢小规模非正式的群体交流。

Surprisingly few people make it beyond this point. 

I call them ‘weekend presenters’ –people who do the odd presentation and can cope perfectly competently with small groups. 

They aregood at their job, be it junior brand manager, personnel executive or management accountant. 

Presentations are neither very important to them nor are they especially nervous at the prospect of addressing a breakout group.

It’s important to recognise that these people are probably pretty good communicators with their peers. 

But they’d much rather communicate with them in small and relatively informal groups–sitting down rather than standing up.

There are things they can think about if they are goingto improve:

brilliant tips

As a novice, focus onde-cluttering（清理）slides（幻灯片）so they are clearer andsimpler for the audience to interact with.

Discard slides if the presentation is to a small group.

Give the presentationa splash of colour（增添一抹色彩）.

Think about what exactly it is they want to achieve–outcomesnot just inputs.

Think about the audience.

What level-one presenters should do now (you may be beginningto feel that you fall into this category by now) is review their last three presentations to see if they made sense, whether they could have been better, how they’d do them differently/better, and how they would cope if they were now asked to do a big presentation to senior management at a conference. 

They may survive perfectly well as a novice but stepping up（加快、增加、加强）to the next level won’t harm their career prospects.

Step two: apprentice presenter学徒型演讲者

知道怎样把还说得过去的幻灯片和论证充分的故事结合起来，遭受演讲焦虑但依然能够控制住自己。

Apprentice presenters are competent. They know how to put together half-decent（过得去的像样的）slides and a well-argued（论证充分的）story. 

They suffer from nerves but remain in control.

They’ve probably done about ten presentations, of which about half have been atall-singing, all-dancing（华而不实的，花哨的）sales events and audiences have been generous in their praise.

Level-two presenters are ambitious and realise that their prospects can be enhanced by being a bit more adept（n.内行；能手adj.熟练的；擅长…的）.

There are several things they need to think about.

brilliant tips

An apprentice should spend a lot more time on preparation.

Script themselves more tightly, especially as they move to more staged events.

Work on the beginning, the end and the killer central slide if they are to graduate to the next level.

Probablylighten up（放松）a little.

Step three: craftsman presenter工匠型演讲者

演讲技能会影响职业发展。会精心准备演讲，有自己的素材库。是某一行业里的专家。

At this level, presentation skills will affect their career progress. 

They will be asked to give speeches at events, and others will be glad to know that such a craftsman is speaking at a conference.

It is widely recognised that they are confident and competent, and that they are completely reliable. 

They are courteous to technicians and they deliver stylish,well-thought out（精心拟定的，考虑周全的）presentations which reflect how much time, effort and creativity has been spent. 

In fact, they now spend a huge amount of time preparing–probably an increasing amount for each presentation they do. 

They keep a‘presentation box’at home into which interesting cuttings, pictures or cartoons go. 

They have a book of great quotations.

They have become a management bookjunkie（瘾君子）. 

Doing presentations has now become a hobby.

Craftsmen presenters promote themselves as industry experts with a view to being candidates for invitations to international events–What’s New 2002? in Las Vegas, a think-in for senior managers; The Innovation Forum in St Lucia 2004; New Wave Thinking in the NewWorld in Shanghai 2006; Why Dubai? 2007; AfterTom Peters . . . Reframing the Work of a Player in Buenos Aires 2008; New Frontiers, New Thinking Ladders in Sydney 2009.

Their speeches have been assembled in a short book by Prentice Hall entitled The Craft of Originality so these craftsmen’s reputations are made.

But they are still only level-three craftsmen. They’re very good but they aren’t great.

They too have several things they could address to reach the next level.

brilliant tips

A craftsman should carry on presenting–they like doing it and the audience seems to like them.

Ask themselves a searching question–what are they achieving?

Reflect on whether or not their company–which is subsidising their activities–deserves a bigger shout in the messages being put out. Are they selling the company hard enough? Or are they selling themselves?

Try to be more exciting, frightening, dramatic–anything to get themselves out of the safety box they are in.

Work with others to raise their game–if they were golfers we’d be wanting to get them down to low single figures.

Try to do one controversial and challenging presentation that puts them under a bit of pressure.

Step four: star presenter明星型演讲者

演讲的专业人士，人际关系上的白痴。有天赋，但容易走极端，在极好和极坏两个极端中徘徊，注意力短暂，情绪不稳定。

This is the most dangerous level of all. 

At their very best they are Oscar winners and incomparably talented–at their worst they are just dreadful（糟透的）. 

They suffer agonies as though their stomachs were being eaten alive by ferrets（雪貂）before any performance.

They are horrible to everyone around them before they perform–technicians, friends, colleagues, lovers, wives–everyone. 

They want to change everything at the last minute–always.

Star presenters are supremely confident or utterly devoid of confidence. 

They are a mess of extremes–happy, sad, energetic, inert, loving, vindictive, inclusive, divisive.

They are very focused on what they want. 

They have a very short attention span. 

They have blasts of huge creativity and then get stuck for days. 

They cry in private and sometimes in public too. 

They consistently feel sorry for themselves. 

Their emotional age is seven. 

They are often chief executives.

Level-four presenters work with the best slide artists–those who can make a dull graph jive, who can animate the description of an operational process to make people’s mouths fall open in comprehension, who make audiences want to look at that screen just to enjoy the spectacle of vivid logic unfolding before them.

Level-four presenters are presentational professionals and human relations amateurs–brilliant but impossible.

The reason they don’t quite make level five is their selfishness and erratic（不稳定的；古怪的）behaviour. 

If you see yourself in this characterisation I have two things to say–congratulations, you clearly have huge talent

Now do the following if you want to become truly and consistently brilliant.

brilliant tips

Not much you can say to a star except calm down.

Learn the tone of voice and look that you want to project and take it from there

Learn consistency–it will give you a longer life and earn you more friends.

Use the most important words in management,‘thank you’and‘well done’, more often.  Think more about your audience than you currently do.

Stop showing off so much.

Control your nerves–you might only be brilliant now by the skin of your teeth and that sounds like fragile success.

Step five: brilliant presenter杰出型演讲者

比尔克林顿似的演说家。

Congratulations! Join a cadre of the elite–Bill Clinton, Tim Bell, Tony O’Reilly, Alan Parker, Tom Peters, Richard Eyres, Tony Blair, Charles Handy, Michael Portillo–and, currently, a few others.

The idea, of course, is that books like this which are dedicated to the improvement of presentation skills, will make ‘brilliance’ a less unattainable peak. 

In 1953 Everest was scaled for the first time–in May 2006 nearly 200 people climbed it.

Like flu, brilliance iscatching（传染性的）.

This is what brilliance is I define brilliance in presentation as comprising:

A deep,transcendental（超凡的，超越的）knowledge.

Anall-consuming（全身心投入的）passion for the subject.

The ability to tell a story in simple language.

The ability to make a story seem fresh and full of a sense of discovery.

A sense of pace and control–a busy person bestowing their time on you.