How to "Be Yourself" in Technical Presentations

The problem

I often get asked a question that goes something like this:

"I'm kind of afraid of showing my personality when I'm presenting. How can I be myself?"

This raises the question of why you would want to be anyone other than yourself. More often than not, it's due to a desire to conform.

Conformity has good and bad sides. On the one hand, it's a kind of social glue. Doing as others do can aid collaboration, acts of kindness, and other great things.

Conformity matters in technical professions because it's essential to be clear and precise, and to refer to common standards. Conformity is also driven by regulation: in regulated technical industries, such as finance, there are rules governing what you can say, and how.

But conformity can also lead to blind repetition of others' poor performance, hindering innovation, perpetuating bad practice, and, in extreme cases, it may even lead to atrocities- such as mass murder by Powerpoint.

Conformity can also lead to dilution of your personality, charm, humour, unique experience, and other forms of flair, which can mean your message lands flat.

In other industries, such as the creative industry, things are more fuzzy- creativity requires individuality and departure from norms.

The path through a technical education and into a technical career also does not (typically) require or reward individual expression or originality, so it isn't incentivised* as much.

If you ever want to expand the reach and influence of your ideas, you have to be memorable.

So in an ocean of conformity, how do you stand out as "yourself"?  

*(Note: I'm not saying that technical professions aren't creative, just that there are forces inhibiting individual, creative expression).

The solution

Rather than prioritising conformity, practice being yourself without making it about you.

What does that mean? 

Let's take a look at a case study, which brings some key principles to life.

Case Study: Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work focused on quantum mechanics- one of the most difficult subjects to comprehend and explain.

In spite of this, Feynman became world-famous, thanks to his extraordinary communication skills. He brought physics to a far bigger audience.

Here you can get a taste of his abilities:

Bill Gates pays tribute to Richard Feynman in this short video

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Feynman answers some questions on the capabilities of artificial intelligence

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Feynman was an outlier, and not everyone can reach his level. But if we reverse-engineer his communication style, some general principles emerge, which anyone can emulate:

• Using examples everyone can relate to
• Using humour to lighten the mood and engage the audience
• Addressing the audience in a relaxed and casual, conversational manner
• Listening intently to the audience and asking them questions to engage them
• Bringing points to life with body language
• Never coming across as superior or patronising
• Feynman never used technical language unless he had to, and when he did, he explained it in simple terms. He was known for simplifying language to an extent that sometimes upset conventional thinkers- according to his highly entertaining memoirs, when learning feline anatomy, he asked for a "map of the cat" (an anatomical chart).
• Maintaining a child-like sense of fun and playfulness throughout life, and in communication. Playfulness is naturally appealing to children and adults alike.
• Showing vulnerability. I will write separately on this, as it's such an important topic in itself. In Feynman's case, he wasn't afraid to say he didn't know something, or couldn't explain it. And he wasn't afraid of appearing silly.

Note, however, that he didn't "popularise" ideas to the point of trivialisation. See this great example of how he answered a very difficult question by first clarifying what the interviewer wanted to know, and then restricting the scope of the question so he could give a meaningful, relevant and comprehensible answer to a non-expert:

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The key general point here is that all of the great ways that Feynman showed his individuality were laser-focused on serving his audience.

The act of serving your audience should always come first.

Don't get it back to front

By focusing on the surface-level aspects of “being yourself”- for example, your use of language, your sense of humour, or a flashy animated deck- you have got things back to front.

Here's an example of back-to-frontness in a startup pitch, which distracts from their message rather than enhancing it.

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Why the tux?

The problem with this move is that it's deeply incongruous: it's a pitch about 3D printing, and a tux has no visible connection to the purpose of the presentation. So it ends up looking like a cry for attention. In other words, the speaker is making it about himself, rather than serving the audience. It's back to front.

Add value

If integrity and service are the foundations of your presentation, then humour, personality, personal experience, entertainment value, flair, and so on are where you add unique value.

So rather than thinking too much about how other people see you, stay laser focused on serving their needs and solving their problems by presenting ideas you truly believe and practice, and colouring them with your storytelling, creativity, experience, unique examples, and so on. In other words:

Be yourself without making it about you!

Some further principles

Being yourself also means “walking the talk”- your actions reflect your words, as well as your inner state (the things you really believe and feel). It's one thing to talk about something, but it's not convincing unless you practice it.

Now to selling and pitching. Selling or pitching without making it about you means focusing on solving your audience's problems with your offer. Find out who they are and what their needs are and then bring everything you have available to serve those needs.

All too often I see people trying to sell, or pitch their business, without giving the slightest attention to, or even bothering to find out, what the audience is actually interested in. Don't be that person.

Tailoring

It is very important to tailor or "moderate" your performance to suit the audience or context you're presenting to.

I gave a speech at my sister's wedding. We have a lot of in-jokes and a very rich back catalogue to draw upon for comedic effect, so of course, I cracked some jokes, but I cut some of the edgier material I initially scripted because I also had to think of the dozens of guests I didn't know. And, of course, the speech wasn't about me- it was about, and for, the bride and groom.

Here's a great example of tailoring an idea to different levels of difficulty for different audiences:

Throughout, Professor Riehl uses clear examples to bring counterintuitive ideas to life.

If you work for an organisation, you may also need to tailor your style and content for internal, brand, regulatory or even political/office-political reasons. We'll cover those topics in more detail in future posts.

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