Using Improv to Improv(e) Presentation Skills in Business

1. Using Improv to Improve Presentation Skills in Business: Hi. I'm Jill freakin with the engaging educator. And welcome to using improv to improve your presentation skills in business. When I say presentation skills, what do I mean? Well, yes, big presentations where you have your power points in your podium in a room full of 50 people, 100 people, 500 people. But we also use presentation skills every day. When we present ourselves to the world, especially professionally, we use them in a big meeting where we want to make our voice heard and presents our idea and the best way possible. We use the one on one in a job interview when you're presenting yourself as a candidate for higher. We use our presentation skills in networking events when we're meeting people socially that we'd like to have a connection with. So in this class, we're going to go through lots of tricks and tips in order to find are most authentic Selves, and we're going to use improv to do it 2. Why Improv ?: why improv? If that word is striking deep fear in your heart right now, Don't worry. Improv isn't always about being funny. Improv is about good communication. What do I mean by that? Think of that moment when you're presenting or even in everyday conversation, or in a meeting when all of a sudden you freeze during the headlights and you don't know what to say. And you fumbled a word and you're sweating and your hands are doing these weird things and you are frozen. We use improv to target that moment, that moment of being on the spots and play games and exercises toe. Exercise our brains into getting used to that moments. Because, let's face it, life is improv. We're not walking around with the script all the time. We are thinking and responding on our feet and truly at its heart. That's what in province people think that improv, it's always about comedy. And, yes, improv comedy is hilarious. You can go see it. It's amazing. It's all those games and funny things you see in the clubs downtown or on TV, but in profits truly just about being in the moment, thinking on your feets I always say, Think about it this way. Did you ever have an idea of something that was gonna be so hilarious? Like you thought of the funny thing in your brain and decided this hilarious thing to say And then you got in the situation and you're like, Yeah, I'm going to say the funny thing now and you say the funny thing and it's not funny at all versus that time when you were not trying to be funny or clever, you just opened your mouth, were in the moment and honestly responded and out, Cade, something that probably shouldn't have even been funny. But was the funniest thing ever. That's the real funny. That's the improv funny that comes from being in the moments. And that's not always about being funny. And certainly the goal is never to be funny. It's to be presence we all need to improve our communication skills, no matter what profession you're in. Every business is about relationships, about connecting with people, about buying and selling and educating and organizing. And whatever it is you do, you want to connect with other human beings. So we use improv. We like to think of it as going to the gym for your brain as exercises in mental and physical and vocal agility, so that we get used to responding on the spot. Think of it this way. If we play games and exercises where we target that deer in the headlights moment, it's got to benefits. The first is that we're just putting ourself in that position. So the more often were in that offered position, the quicker our reaction time is gonna be. We're naturally just going to get better at it because we're more used to it. The second benefit, which I personally love the most, is that by targeting those uncomfortable moments putting ourselves in those uncomfortable moments, they start to become less uncomfortable. We've been there before, the anxiety off that deer in the headlights when you're sweating and maybe your handshake or some of us blush a lot or our voice trembles or we start doing things that really don't feel like ourselves. If we put ourselves in that moment over and over again, we're going to lower our anxiety. We're going to get used to being in the hot seat, and we're going to start to develop ways to deal with it. 3. Four Pillars: Here are my four pillars of good communication. Four pillars of good improv. Same thing. The 1st 1 listening like really listening, like honestly, being in the moment and listening toe what somebody else has to say, not just sitting there and waiting for your turn to talk while that other person is moving their mouth listening. The second responding, honestly, responding in the moment. Not with what you had planned to say yesterday or your idea from last week responding to something somebody else has said in the moment, which you can only do if you were actually listening in the first place. Number three. Specificity. Being specific in your communication. If you are giving instructions on how to carry something out, you need to be specific when you communicate them to other people so that they can actually do the thing you're asking them to. Dio being specific with details. If you're describing something using sensory details so that your audience, your listeners, your co workers, your team, your people in the audience of your presentation can see in their heads exactly what you want them to see, being specific takes time and planning. You can't just wing it and the fourth commitments being committed to your communication, which has a lot to do with confidence, saying your idea clearly being committed to it. No question marks at the end of sentences that aren't actually questions, so it's really simple. As long as you are listening, responding, being specific and committed, you're doing it right as far as I'm concerned. 4. Embrace Failure!: we embrace failure, we embrace failure. We look at it as an opportunity for growth. Let's put it this way. We're back in our presentation mode and we're in our during the headlights moment where we frozen. We don't remember the next thing to say. We messed up. The word in the last sentence were frozen, were sweating, were blushing. Our hands are shaking. We're thinking this is going very badly. Everyone hates me. No one will hire me. I'll never get asked to present again. Everything is horrible. What do I do is we can go back and avoid getting caught in that negative death spiral over there. We make our mistake. We phrase for a second. We embrace it and let it go. Because guess what? We're human. We all make mistakes. One flubbed word does not ruin a presentation. What ruins it is getting caught in that negativity and thinking about ourselves and ruminating it over and over and freezing and getting stuck in that moment, blaming ourselves. If we could have that quote unquote failure, embrace it and let it go, we can get back to whatever it was we were doing in the first place. every time we present, we have an objective, and we're going to get to that a little later on. But when we freeze and we get caught in that negative death trade were getting really, really far away from what are actual objective Waas. Instead, we can make a mistake, embrace it, let it go and get back on track to being productive in accomplishing our goals. What does embracing failure look like? I mean, yeah, you can literally hug yourself. Sometimes you can make it into a joke. Everything is going to be a different depending on the scenario. And you know what's appropriate in a given scenario? Honestly, embracing failure can be a simple as pausing for a second and choosing not to make fun of yourself or call attention to your mistake or apologize or freeze further and get caught in your head. It really could just be a second, and then you get yourself back on track. And, honestly, your audience just sees you as a human being, and they see how quickly you got back on track. And that's what they remember. Not that you ever flubbed a word or froze for a second in the first place it can help us achieve, because I truly believe that we're really learning when we experienced small discomfort like not giant amounts of pain. I'm not talking about that, but small discomforts weaken. Target that moment and see what we can get out of it. We can be reflective notice next time you are presenting or maybe learning a new program, learning a new skill. Notice your habits when something gets hard. What do you do when you messed it up? Do you call attention to it? Do you kind of laugh? Unfold over? Do you lean far away from what's actually going on because you're trying to escape the situation, or are you able to just let it go? 5. YES, AND!: Yes, And maybe you've heard this before in reference to improv. Yes, and is a major tenant of improv. You might have heard it described as one character's air in a scene. They have to say yes and to each other. So the scene keeps going and it's very entertaining and funny, and something happens and sure that's true. But we're gonna use this improv tenant of yes and and translated to everyday life in business in presentation skills. So it's just these two words, yes, and which are both simple and also really deep. Here's how I personally like to translate it. Yes, I heard what you had to say, and I have something to offer to the conversation based on what I heard. Remember our four pillars listening, responding, being specific and committed, yes, and is really just listening and responding. Yeah, I heard you. And also this thing. Look at it this way in terms of visuals. Let's say we're in a situation where we want to be productive. We are creatively brainstorming a new idea. We are collaboratively problem solving in our team meeting. We want to be productive. We want to build something. So look at it This way. Let's build it using Yes ands. Hey, this is my idea. Oh, yes, that and also this. Yes, I heard that. And that makes me think of this. Yes and yes and yes, and we've built something. We've listened to each other's ideas and added something to them. It is, by its very nature, collaborative. Because when your guest standing people, you're listening to what they have to say and adding something based on what you heard. So the idea is that you're coming up with our brand new because they're based on other people and their based on true listening. Yes and yes and yes and yes. And we've built it versus Hey, here's my idea. Yeah, but yes, I heard what you said. But now I'm going to say the thing that I want to say. That has nothing to do with what you said it all. Yes, but yes. But we're not getting anywhere Where? One story high here. It's really truly the same as here's my idea. No, also not that useful. Here's my idea. Yes, yes, yes, we're flatlining here. We're not building anything. We're not listening and responding. Yes, and is not about being nice and it's not about being positive. I think being positive and being no sir, very nice days. However, they're not always productive. And we're going for being productive here. Yes, and is not always about being positive. But it is about listening. Yes, I heard what you had to say and it makes me think of this, or even when you disagree with someone. Because let's face it, realistically, we're not always going to agree in our brainstorming meeting. Yes, I heard your idea. And it makes me think of this other option that might be useful in this way. When we, yes, ands people were elevating their ideas and affirming that what they have to say is important. We don't always have to agree with it or take their ideas and run with um however, when we are really listening to people and we're saying yes and instead of yes. But people hear us in a different way. When people feel heard, they're much more likely to respond positively to you. They're much more likely to listen to your idea when you've listened to theirs. Let's put it back in this improv scene context OK, just so I can show you an example of how we might use Yes, and in an improv scene. Now, if we're going to go back to this word objective in this scene, my objectivist, I want the scene to go somewhere. I wanted to be active and not get stuck. I want people to be listening and responding to each other. So say I'm in an improv scene and it's me and my sister and we're camping in the woods. And all of a sudden I say, There's a bear he's about Teoh us. And my sister says her Oh, run is a yes aunt. Why? Because when she said, Uh, that was her? Yes, she was responding to what I said. Oh, there's a bear. Yeah, she heard me, and that's what she's saying to let me know that she heard me when I told her there was gonna be a bear. Her run is her ends because she's now adding something to the situation. She's suggesting an idea for something that we should do versus me, saying to my sister, Ah, there's a bear behind us and her saying I'm sick of camping because if she had said, I'm sick of camping. She's not really responding to what I said to her. She's trying to drive it to be what she wants it to be. If we flip back to the business equivalents, it is that person in a meeting that comes into a collaborative meeting where people are sharing ideas, brainstorming, problem solving, presenting new ways of buying, selling, educating, organizing. They come in with their idea, and they say the thing that they want to say, that they plan to say and then they shut off. They're not listening to other people's ideas and they're not, yes and ing. And as far as I'm concerned, that didn't need to be a meeting. That could be an email with an idea. We use presentation skills when we present ourselves in person, toe other people to make that human connection. And if we're not present listening and responding yes and ing, it might as well just being email or a memo when we're in the moment together as human beings, we want to communicate as much as possible in order to be as productive as possible, yes, and isn't about being nice or likable. It's actually about being productive 6. Nerves and Confidence: everyone gets nervous, everyone gets nervous. I do not have a magic trick or a pill or something like Incredible that will magically erase every nerve that you ever had. Everyone gets nervous when they have to speak in front of people. It's like one of the biggest fears today. Some of us I know my knee starts to shake. Sometimes I definitely have had clients whose handshake or people who blush or their voice shakes or they start sweating or speaking in a tone that does not sound like themselves. We all get nervous. That might sound obvious, but I don't think it is. Really. We need to know that it's a human thing and that getting nervous is actually part of embracing that failure that we talked about earlier. We can't get stuck in those nerves. It is that negative death spiral. Oh, no. Why am I sweating? Why am I shaking? I'm getting nervous. The nervous thing is happening again. It's almost like those nights where you can't sleep. Right. And if you lay in bed going Oh, no. Am I gonna be able to sleep with my gonna be able to sleep? You will never sleep if we could relax into it and work through those nerves again, we're getting back on track back on track to achieving our objective, whatever it ISS that we set out to do in the first place. Little story about a client with nerves. So I was coaching a woman who was fabulously polished, so smart, incredibly well spoken. She very clearly knew what she was talking about and talking one on one. To me. She's incredibly polished, no nerves, no shaking. However, when she got in front of even a small group of people in a class of 10 her hand, which start to shake her hand, was shaking. Her hand would shake and she had to stop and say, This is what happens to me. This is why I'm here when I speak in front of people, my hands start to shake and I can't stop it. And I don't know what to do. I asked her to continue speaking. I said, Would you be OK to try it again? Get up in front of the class and start talking again and we all know right now that your hands are gonna shake, we just accept it. It's fine. We're in class. We're not even in front of the big audience that actually matters were in class learning. So we're gonna be in our bubble, embrace our failures. We all know your hand is gonna shake. You know, your hand is gonna shake. Can you just finish your five minutes of your speech while your hand is shaking? And she said, Yeah, I can try that. I'll try that. So she gets up, she goes to the podium, she starts her presentation and her hand starts to shake. And instead of getting stuck in it, she just gets back on track and she's still presenting. And she still prevents presenting and maybe flubbing a word like I just did. And she gets really connected to what she's talking about. And she's telling me about this example in this example on, then how this all came together here and how you can do this, too. And then all of the sudden, her hands weren't shaking anymore. She was in the moment she worked through it. No. Did her shand shake to begin with? Oh, yeah. Instead of letting that stop her, though, she just calmly embraced the failure and kept going with it and it shook a little and it shook a little and she got connected to her material and then it actually stopped. Is that gonna happen for everybody? I don't know. But it was a beautiful thing to watch her embrace that failure and roll with it instead of letting it define her or stop her from doing what she was doing. Our minds can really play tricks on us, and our nerves are a really good indicator of that again, if we can ground ourselves, go back to our objective and go through it knowing that were in perfect knowing that we're probably going to make a mistake but center ourselves on our objective and continue to presents were going to achieve our objectives. And our nerve factor is gonna go way down. We'll get into this more later. But one factor of nerves is when you're really just thinking about you. Oh, my hand is shaking. Oh, everybody's gonna look at it and think I'm doing a bad job. Oh, it's all about me. And I'm just thinking about me. It is never about you. It's about your audience. It has to be about them for them, and the minute you place it on them, do something for them. Teach them something. Educate them on your amazing idea. Pitch this brilliant thing that you've got brewing inside your mind because they really, really could use this idea or this product. It's about them, not you. You will automatically be much less nervous. Rial confidence is generous. Riel Confidence is generous. Think about it this way. If I'm giving instructions to my team on how to execute a task, I need to give them confidently, specifically with commitments that is generous because now everybody, I'm giving my directions to knows exactly what to do, how to do it and when it needs to be done by. There's no confusion. People's anxiety is lessened when they know exactly what they should be doing. Confidence is generous. It's making other people not have to worry about you because you confidently have control of the situation. When you are speaking in front of an audience, they need to know when to start listening to you and want to start clapping. If you walk on stage confidently, they know you're about to begin, and when you end your presentation confidently, even just with a strong punctuation mark with the thank you or simply by confidently walking away. They know when to start clapping because they know that you're finished. Confidence is generous. There's nothing worse than being in the audience and not really knowing if they're done or when to clap or being really worried for that presenter. Let the presenter take care of the audience. That's your job. Confident body posture. This is a big one. I think the way we hold ourselves is everything. I think the way we hold ourselves is the first thing that people notice when we walk into a room before they can hear your brilliant presentation and all the incredibly intelligent things you have to say before they see your slamming outfit and how incredible you are. I think what people really see is the way we hold ourselves, and I think we can all agree professionally. We want to hold ourselves with confidence. Now we might not always feel confident on the inside. I don't all the time. And while I'm no advocate of being a phony, I do think that there are times especially professionally where we want to appear to be confident even when we are perhaps not feeling so confident. So we adjust our body posture to a confident body posture. Now I don't think there's just one confident body posture. I think it looks different on each and every human being. However, the way I like to think about it, for me that helps, is having an open chest, being open to the world and receiving of people's ideas in giving them mine. Being receptive and giving means being open. I like to think of it as having an open chest. Think about it like all of our internal organs are all in here. If I walk around like this, it just means I'm kind of like scared of the lions, tigers and bears. When I'm like this, I'm open. I'm ready. I'm confident I can take on the world. I like to think of it as having a string attached to my spine holding me up. I also have two feet rooted on the ground right now. This way, if you tried to push me over, I probably wouldn't fall. Right now, I'm rooted to the ground. I'm firm. I'm strong on confidence when I'm standing on one foot. You could kind of push me over pretty easily. I've got my hip cocked out. I'm kind of like whatever. I don't care what's going on when I have my confident body posture on. I'm pretty symmetrical. My heart is open, my chest is opened, My feet are on the ground. I'm ready to give. I'm ready to receive. I've got my confident body posture. Try this the next time you have to walk into a room, especially room where you don't know anyone. So you're walking into a new meeting of potential clients. The way you hold yourself and walk in that room is the first impression that you are going to give them. I also think that holding ourselves with confidence has two benefits. The first is easy, right? If we look confident, we're gonna look confident to other people on. That's wonderful because we want them to see us as confidence. That's great. But the second value, which I'm personally the most interested in ISS. I want us to feel authentically confidence on the inside. Now I could be feeling like, kind of like this on the inside, which honestly, I do a lot of the time, but I don't really want to walk in the room like this because I don't really think anyone's going take me seriously if I walk in the room like this. So even though I kind of feel like this, I'm gonna walk in like this, and then hopefully I stand the chance off my body, being able to trick my mind into actually feeling on the inside like this. Now, maybe it won't be 100%. Maybe don't just be a little bit, But again, I'm giving myself a chance. Because if I walk in like this, I'm probably only gonna stay here. I'm not giving myself any opportunity for growth and riel. Genuine confidence. I just I walk in like this. I say hi. Nice to meet you. And I start to actually feel like this on the inside. Confidence is generous. Adjust your confident body posture right now. 7. Using Your Full Voice : We've got our confident body posture. We're listening to our audience now. Let's think about our voices. We always want toe warm up before we have a presentation. Make sure that your presentation is not the first time you're speaking that morning. It can be, Ah, vocal warm up. Or it could be simply calling a friend to chat for 10 minutes just to get those vocal cords warm and lips When you're speaking, remember Cadence, Kate. It's the rise and fall of your voice, the musicality of your voice. I like to think of cadence as a little toy car that's going all the way up a mountain and then all the way down the mountain and that I looked a loop and then around a bend and then around another bands. If I say everything all in one note, no matter how interesting it is, what I'm saying, it's never going to be interesting because it's really all in one note. There's no cadence to my voice right now. Kits. The other thing I want to drop in is articulation, making sure you are saying each word correctly and clearly. Now I'm over doing it right now, right But it's an important thing because we want everybody to hear every single word you have to say. Articulating your words in an over exaggerated way like I just did is also a really great way toe warm up your face. Warm up your voice, get everything all these muscles moving so that when you're speaking and can really come from your heart and you're just going for it, we want to avoid up. Speak. What do I mean by up? Speak. It's ending those sentences in a question mark that don't really need a question mark. I'm really smart. I know what I'm talking about. I know what I'm talking about ended with a period when it needs a period up. Speak does not make you sounds like the incredibly smart, confident person I know you are. Let's also think about avoiding vocal fry. You've heard it when it's like this. When people's voice gets stuck down here like this and it's not because they're sick or they have a cold, it's really because they're tensing their neck. Maybe they're jutting out their chin a little and their voices getting like this. We want our confident body posture to align our posture so that everything is loose and warm and not strained and our voices air flowing and delivering all of this incredible information that is a part of our presentation. 8. Authentic Gesture: And now the hand awkward hands make for awkward presentations. We've all felt it. We've all seen it. Here are my tips for authentic hand gestures. First of all, get your hands out of hand. Jail. I'll show you what I mean. Hand jail hand, jail hand, jail hand jail hands in my pocket and gel hand Jail. Right now, My hands. Aaron, hand jail because they're stuck. You want your hands to be free and kind of somewhere vaguely around your heart. Why? Because when our hands air up here, it actually changes the quality of our voice. When they're down, all of our energy goes down. We all talk with our hands. Some of us do it a lot, and some of us just do it a little. And that's fine. Again, I'm not into public speaking robots were all going to look and sound differently in our best presenting Selves. All of us talk with our hands, though, so we've got to give our hands the room to move now. We don't want any hands choreography, right, cause that's gonna look phoney and weird. All we want to do is start our hands in an open, relaxed position. So here's the surgeon. I like to start him up here. A lot of the time I come out, I start talking and I naturally connects to what I'm talking about. I give you this example on this example and tell you about what happened last week, and now everything is wonderful. My hands were doing this dance all on their own. I don't have to choreograph it. They started out in an open position and as soon as I was connected to the material, they just went on their own. I like to start up here. Some people like to start. Here's another favorite for those of us that like to clasp ourselves, go to the almost clasp fingertips touching again. I go up, I start my presentation. I'm a little nervous. Maybe my hands are shaking little. I started my point in this in that and now getting into it. And I'm telling you all about this incredible idea that's gonna change the way you do business and look in my hands. So they just went. They started in an open place. They went when they were ready. If they started in a close place, look at me right now. I don't Look is confident. I'm clutching myself in tensing up. It affects the sound of my voice. And they're not as easily gonna do that un choreographed dance. They're probably going to stay right here. A nice open place, open place, or even one on top of the other. I'm not clenching their lightly placed here I go up to my podium, I begin my presentation. And look, there went my hands. Start your hands in an open unclench to position. You've got energy and magic in these hands and you want to give it to your audience. You don't need to Spidey sense them from over here. But I do love that visual of having all this energy in your hands and giving it to other people. What? I'm holding on to myself. I'm just giving it back to myself again, making it be about me and not about my audience. 9. Using Strategies To Achieve Objectives: we use strategies to achieve our objectives. We've already talked about some strategies are posture our voice, our hands. Now we can go deeper into the ways we can use those strategies to achieve our objectives. Going back to our voice, we can use volume. Sometimes if we talk really quietly, people will lean in to hear what we have to say, because it sounds really important. We can also slow down the most important part. We can use a lot of energy and get very frenetic to get everybody very excited about our ideas. Because enthusiasm is contagious. We can use active thinking where we get an idea on the spot and the audience gets to watch our brains life. We can ask questions to our audience, even if they're not going to verbally response big off the best teacher you ever had. What was their name? Even if my audience is huge and not talking to me directly by asking a real question and asking them to picture in their minds, I'm no engaging my audience as active thinkers going through something with me. They're no longer passive audience members just listening to me. There are a part of my presentation because I've activated their minds, too. Another strategy is to use personal connections now. It's always good to connect with another human being. Sometimes we can get really personal about it, adds in details. Tell a story ever scenario is different and you know what's appropriate. But when it is appropriate to share a small detail about yourself, it helps people see you as a person to relate to. It makes them think of their own experiences. It gives that personal connection, and that's all we're going for. Visual scenarios is another strategy picture the best vacation you ever took? Where did you stay? What did it look like? I'm asking right now, my audience for a visual scenario so that they're actively going along with it in their heads. I can flip that and give you mine. My favorite vacation ever is really gonna go to the beach. The saltiness in the air, the way you could hear the seagulls makes me so happy and instantly relaxed. Those small sensory details of what I see and what I hear help people get into the scenario . With me, it activates their imagination again, making them an active listener 10. Engaging Your Audience: we want to engage our audience. We want our audience to be engaged. We can do that by using a lot of the strategies we just discussed. We also need to remember, as always, it's not about us. It's about our audience. And in order to make it be about our audience, we need to ask who is our audience and what can we give to our audience? Enthusiasm is contagious. If you are speaking about something that you feel passionately about, your audience is going to feel that passion. You have got to be interested in what you're talking about, otherwise no one else will be now. Sometimes this is really easy. Sometimes we're presenting on a topic that we are incredibly passionate about. We have great enthusiasm for it. We have great expertise and we can't wait to share it with the world. Fantastic. Also really life. Sometimes we have to give presentations on things that we do not feel so passionately about sometimes is just part of our job, and we need to convey this information. You've got to find something that excite to about it. It doesn't have to be the whole thing. It doesn't have to be the particular topic. But you have to find something within that topic. The structure, the organisation and experience you had with it, a personal connection or story. Something about it that invokes your enthusiasm makes you excited, and that's the only way you're audience is also going to get excited. 11. Class Project: Create Your Introduction: enough of me talking now it's time for you to talk. Here's our class projects. I want you to create an introduction, a small presentation of yourself to toe four minutes long and in it tell us who you are, what you dio and why you care about. Remember to use All of the strategies we've talked about here today are confident. Body posture are authentic hand gestures, our engagement with our audience, listening to our audience, remembering to use cadence and play with. Ask questions, make personal connections. Practice this introduction in front of someone else a friend, a family member colleague and then ask for feedback. Did you seem authentically yourself? Were you confident in your voice and posture? What part of your introduction did they respond to the most? Get that feedback and practice again. It's always useful to have a quick snapping, 2 to 4 minute introduction of who you are, what you do and why you care about it. Think about all the places you could use that in networking events. Introducing yourself in a new workplace, interviewing for a new job. It's an incredibly useful introduction to have, and the more practice and feedback we get better. It's going to be after you've practiced this in front of another person. Now, if you want to take on the challenge, film yourself, post your introduction here and then watch somebody else's. Ask them a question. Give them a little feedback. Put yourself out there. I can't wait to watch all of your videos.