I occasionally hear from clients that they don’t want to change their style as presenters. The implication is that any behaviors I recommend that are outside their range of normal will be artificial and ineffective. They just want to be themselves.
I know how they feel, and focus them on the flow and logic of their content: they don’t want to be actors. But eventually their success could come down to being a little more interesting.
So I may ask, in response to their desire to “be themselves,”–“What if “yourself” is distracting, or having difficulty keeping people focused? Do you still want to stick with it?”
If they let me, I will tell them about Brian Little, a psychologist and Professor at Harvard who does research into human personality. He says that we have fixed traits–those habits of being we are comfortable living in every day, and free traits, which are those modes of being we are willing to stretch into for life projects that are important to our deepest values.
For instance, Little cites himself–a highly introverted person–who, in order to do his job as a professor, acts like an extrovert in order to deliver his lectures. He does this because he knows his teaching career depends on his ability to hold the attention of the students in the lecture hall.
He also says that after his lectures, in order to recover from the stress of operating in the zone of his free traits, he retires to his office and lies down on his couch for a few minutes.
He calls this his free trait agreement with himself.
Presenting is the number one tool of leadership, influence, and persuasion. We will all use the tool in our own unique way, and when we work on our presentation skills, we work on ourselves.