Too smooth politicians, silky salespeople, urbane company thrusters all set off alarm bells. We can meet impressive people and we can meet impressive looking people. Over time we have learnt how to plumb the difference. The world of presenting is made up of the top 1% who know what they are doing and the 99% who have no real clue. The 99% group are often card carrying sceptics, who have finely tuned radar for anything that looks different to what they know. Also, by definition this clueless 99% are our audience when we present. Are we in danger of turning them off if we come across as too professional?

This is certainly the case in Japan. Standing out and being outstanding are not welcomed here. The most insightful cultural norm in Japan is captured in the traditional wisdom of “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. Owning the auditorium, dominating the podium, being a powerful stage presence are all “nail sticking out” issues. Looking supremely confident, being Mr. or Ms. Smooth, operating at a high level, are all viewed with suspicion. We have a similar idea in the West. When we meet a “smooth talking salesperson” we get worried about them taking our money.

Japanese culture appreciates humility, harmony, group consensus, not putting yourself forward and modesty. Hello to all of our American fans out there. This Japanese viewpoint is absolutely the formula for not getting ahead in aggressive, competitive societies. Interestingly enough, as an Aussie, I think this Japanese approach is close to our cultural norms too. In Australian parlance, someone who “big notes” themselves is a self aggrandising, big talker and they won’t get very far Down Under. A Donald Trump telling everyone how rich he is, how smart he is, would be impossible for an Australian politician to replicate. As presenters, we operate within the bounds of our cultural rules and limits.

So how do we do a professional job of presenting in Japan, when the whole ethos is against the display of high levels of professionalism? There is a difference between being very professionally prepared and being a boring oaf on stage. Talking about yourself, except in terms of self-degradation, is out. That means we frame what we say about ourselves from a more humble lens. We do design a blockbuster opening though, to capture audience attention. We do set up the flow of the talk, so that the navigation is simple and easy to follow. We do provide evidence to back up any assertions we make. We do prepare two closes, one for before and one for after Q&A. We do rehearse numerous times to perfect the content, polish the cadence and make sure we are on time. In other words, we are a total professional in the way we prepare the presentation.

The friction points arise by the way we carry ourselves. I have lived here for 36 years and I have never seen a Japanese presenter stride confidently to the podium or the microphone. They walk slowly and hesitantly to the stage centre, stooping, wearing the greyest of the grey clothing, so they can be as boring as possible. They open up immediately with a series of apologies, to establish that they are not superior to anyone in the audience, even if they are.

I can’t see me doing any of that when I am presenting. I will be a little more conservative in my dress, only because I don’t want a pocket chief or tie or shirt ,to compete with my message. I won’t be bounding up on to the stage like a panther ready to devour my audience. I will walk tall, with subdued confidence and go straight into my opening, without any time wasted on getting the tech right. There will be no microphone thumping because I will have tested it all before the event started. I won’t be fiddling around to get my slide deck up, because I will have someone else doing that for me, while I use those first few vital seconds to engage my audience.

I won’t be making any faux apologies for my poor preparation or poor public speaking ability, because I will be moving straight into explaining the value the talk will bring to the listeners. I won’t be making flamboyant gestures or utilising any thespian artifices. I will be business like and focused on helping people through the messages I am delivering. The way I deliver the talk will be congruent with the content. It won’t feel slick, but it will feel competent and that is what I want, in order to have my messages accepted. I won’t attempt to be sardonic, cynical, use any idioms or try to be an amateur stand up comic. By Western standards, I will come across, as an understated expert in my topic. By Japanese standards, I will come across as a confident, but business like person, dedicated to their message for the audience. I will have threaded the needle between the two extremes and that will be a good result.

English versus mathematics? Easy choice for budding engineers at High School and for when they get to University. Science is logical, knowable, understandable. Presenting seems to have little in the way of science and more art involved, so best avoided. Actually they do a pretty good job of avoiding it, until a certain stage in their careers. These days clients want to talk to the engineers, so they have to front up and visit the buyer with the salesperson. If the counterparty is another engineer, then the code is in place and everyone is fine. Line managers, decision makers, CFOs are different beasts and more difficult. Even more annoying is the client conducts beauty parades to decide which company’s engineers they are going to select.

This is where the skilled engineer who can present in a skilled way eats everyone’s lunch. One engineer mumbles, rambles, doesn’t look confident and is struggling with basic coherence. The other is clear, concise, in command of the material and making the key points like a legend. Well, the choice for the buyer is made pretty easy.

In other cases, the engineers get promoted and have to represent their section to the senior leaders in the company. This is often when we get a call. “Can you help us please. We have a great engineer leading the team but his communication skills and presentation skills are dismal and the senior leadership have tasked HR to fix the problem, by finding a training company who can help”.

This sounds good but it is often a difficult task. The major issue tends to be a lack of awareness around the importance and value of presenting. These skills are soft skills rather than the hard skills, which their profession demands. They can see them as a bit “fluffy”. Presentation skills are very much in the eye of the beholder too, so opinions can vary regarding what is a good presentation. This lack of agreed, concrete measurable aspects can be an anathema to engineers.

Fluffy or otherwise, persuasion power is a real thing. This requires good skills in the design of the talk, the gathering of evidence and in the delivery. Design here means does the talk flow logically resulting in a clear conclusion, that is credible, because of the evidence assembled to support the main argument.

Ace engineer or not, if we start the presentation with a lot of fiddling around with the tech, there is a strong chance our audience is distracted and reaching for their phones to find something more interesting to do. We have to know that this is the Age of Distraction and the Era of Cynicism and attention spans are functioning at microscopic levels. No matter how brilliant our evidence is, we will have lost many in our audience in those first few vital seconds, as we establish that first impression between speaker and listener. Online is even worse because now everyone is granted a free license to multi-task in the background and ignore the speaker.

Our opening has to be a gripper, such that the audience want to hear more, they want to know where you are going with this presentation. We must speak clearly and confidently. Easier said than done for laconic engineers, who are not prone to speaking a lot. Also, not doing a lot of presentations or probably, avoiding to do presentations, has left a confidence vacuum that is filled with nervousness. Sounding confident to an audience when you are not requires a level of thespian ability, which is usually beyond the grasp of hard skill trained engineers.

Rehearsal is the saviour here and lots of it is required. We don’t want to spend all of our time building the slide deck. The delivery is what sells the message and that relates straight back to the fact we have to buy what we are saying first and then communicate that belief to the audience. If we don’t understand the power of persuasion, we are likely to fluff off the rehearsal component of making the speech professional.

I have never been able to trace this supposed Japanese saying but it does sound good, “more sweat in training, less blood in battle”. Let’s make our mistakes in practice, get the talk timing right, work on the cadence, the order and the delivery. If we have the right mindset, then good things will happen and all of these other pieces of the puzzle will fit into place nicely.