Alexei Kapterev's "Presentation Secrets": Chapter 10, Unity in Delivery

"Unity in Delivery" is the last main chapter in Kapterev's Presentation Secrets. He has discussed focus--eye contact, voice, confidence; and contrast--confrontation, offense, humor, and copying others. Now it's time to move into improvisation and authenticity.

Notice here that Kapterev isn't content to just give a list of do's and don't's. He actually wants to provide all of the tools to allow us to become better presenters. But it's extremely difficult to teach improvisation and authenticity, and it's nearly as hard to summarize a chapter on the subject.

But these are two of the most important aspects of good presentation skills, so we have to grapple with them.

According to Kapterev, authenticity is there at the intersection of honesty and improvisation. You have to be honest, but you have to give up a little control in order to really come across as authentic. We want honesty, make no mistake, and we want leaders who can admit their faults, who seem like real people.

Censoring yourself

Part of the problem here is that we're taught to censor ourselves, to cut out all language that is inappropriate. And that's amplified when we're presenting because we go into the gobbledygook mode Kapterev discussed earlier.

And it makes it look like we're lying.

Or we lose our creativity through our desire to control.

Or we focus on our interior censor rather than on the audience.

So we have to give up control. It's better to give up that control and speak freely than to come across as lying. We really do have to learn to let our unconscious minds flow more freely. In other words, say what you mean the way you really think it. Then watch the audience's reaction and adjust your delivery.

Rehearsal

Improvisation doesn't mean you don't rehearse, though. According to Kapterev, rehearsal is the key to improvisation. It leads to so much confidence in the subject that you can ditch the exact words at the last minute, and everything will be alright.

And you should actually say the words, the presentation, aloud to your imaginary audience. Try saying things differently the second time you go through it. Record it. Try something different again. Watch yourself. Try it again. You will realize that the most interesting parts are the ones where you struggled to say something and did it anyway. You let go.

Mistakes

They're difficult to overcome, of course, and we all make them. But what do we do about it? Kapterev recommends we exaggerate them. In other words, if we need to pause, pause. If we find that we cross our arms, we say something about crossing our arms. Or we cross them tighter in exaggerated fashion. In other words, we make it purposeful. We make fun of ourselves.

And audiences respond to those bits of improvisation as authentic and honest. And they will be more willing to listen to us.