I bristle at those who say to presenters, “Just be yourself.”\u00a0 Which self?\u00a0 The self that converses with my best friend’s grandmother at her dining room table, or the guy who teases his teammates and drinks beer while taking off his hockey equipment in the locker room?<\/p>\n

What if my self lacks expressiveness, intellectual clarity, empathy for others, a sense of humor?\u00a0 Should I just be me and hope for the best?<\/p>\n

The fact is, I’m a lot of different people and I wear many different costumes.\u00a0 I don’t go to weddings wearing my running shorts, and\u00a0I don’t go to the gym\u00a0wearing my tuxedo.\u00a0 I have costumes and behaviors for various functions.<\/p>\n

In fact, most of us are offended by untucked shirts, short skirts, and baseball caps at the opera or a graduation ceremony.\u00a0\u00a0 And most audiences\u00a0experience a nonrational annoyance at speakers with inappropriate presentation behaviors<\/a><\/strong> and clothing.<\/p>\n

This is because style communicates character<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Every presentation is a mingling of fact-based argument\u00a0and impressions.\u00a0 Shrewd observers discern character traits in how we dress and present ourselves.\u00a0 The words we use, the intonations and pacing of our speech, our body language, the frequency of our blinks, of our “ers and uhms”–they all add up to the audience’s perception of our abilities.\u00a0 The French naturalist Buffon concluded that “Style is the man himself.”<\/p>\n

Should we tell cell-phone manufacturers not to worry about style.\u00a0 “Just make plain old phones, don’t worry about how they look.”<\/p>\n

Shall we tell Ford, GM, and Chrysler to fire all their designers and give us boxey vehicles in one shade of black?<\/p>\n

Shall we all give up on fashion, and wear identical burlap sacks?<\/p>\n

I don’t think we want to do any of these things, and we don’t want to “just be ourselves” when we’re presenting.\u00a0We want to win the assent of others.\u00a0 We want to induce belief when we speak.\u00a0 We want to inspire trust, loyalty, respect.\u00a0 We need to use all the arrows in our quiver.<\/p>\n

There are many (some in high places) who scorn any proficiency in adding force and color to a presentation.\u00a0 These people are often completely ineffective themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 They\u00a0scorn the persuasive arts<\/a><\/strong> and their audiences may very well dismiss them as irrelevant.<\/p>\n

The suppression of style is itself a style.\u00a0 Remember Senator Sam Ervin, who brought down the Nixon White House with his, “Aw shucks, I’m just a country lawyer” style.\u00a0 Very effective.\u00a0 The stealth approach.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that you can’t affect others with your idea if you yourself are not affected by it.\u00a0 Your listeners cannot tell if you are affected by it except by your language and expression.\u00a0 The main reason we make presentations is to demonstrate not only our mastery of the idea we’re presenting, but our ability to overcome the obstacles, the passions and fears of others who may get in the way of it’s implementation.<\/p>\n

In other words, the audience is looking for good ideas and someone to make them happen.\u00a0 Your style is a big chunk of your substance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bristle at those who say to presenters, “Just be yourself.”\u00a0 Which self?\u00a0 The self that converses with my best friend’s grandmother at her dining room table, or the guy who teases his teammates and drinks beer while taking off his hockey equipment in the locker room? What if my self lacks expressiveness, intellectual clarity,… Read More »Which Costume Should You Wear?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[960,1],"tags":[618,21,63,112,113,78,174],"yoast_head":"\n