FRANCISCO SARAIVA

Curved Vision’s words in their website have a life of their own that would really move you to take action. It would be impossible not to explore. To simply describe the site as unique is an understatement. And it is with such honor that we were given the chance for a short interview with the man behind Curved Vision, Dr. Simon Raybould.

Curved Vision is a communications firm specializing in presentation skills training, effective public speaking and voice coaching in Newcastle, United Kingdom.

We asked Simon about his post, “Don’t Practice” where he talked about rehearsing the speech before delivering it in front of a live audience.

“Don’t you feel that some people “rehearse” so much that when they deliver they are just acting and the communication style is not in congruence with their own personality?”

“Oh yes! That’s always a risk - mind you, in my experience it’s much more likely that people don’t practise enough than they over-practise. However, part of the skill of rehearsing is knowing when to stop practicing, of knowing when to let things go so that there’s a little live magic

I work a lot with dancers and I watch them working in studios, hour after hour after hour and then they “go live” and perform something fresh, dancing something that takes your breath away no matter how many times you see it. I asked one once how they did it, how they stayed fresh, “It’s easy”, he said. “Every night when we walk out onto the stage we’re not just ‘performing’, we are ‘re-creating’ “.

Simon stressed that presentations should be like that. Preparing is about gaining the technical competence to mean that the pressure is on, and the audience is there in front of you, you’re not going to miss your steps - you can concentrate on re-creating afresh.

Clients consult a professional for a reason so we asked Simon the main challenges in public speaking that the majority of his clients have in common.

“Fear is the most common thing that our clients come to us complaining about. It’s not the biggest problem most of them face in reality, though. Most people’s main problem is that they don’t actually know what the presentation is for, what it’s about and what it’s supposed to achieve. Of course they’re afraid because they don’t know how to succeed… because they don’t know what success will look like. They do know, however, what failure will look like!”

Here we find ourselves nodding in affirmation, right? Simon continued, “The other main problem is that people simply try and say too much. They don’t put themselves in their audience’s shoes and say, “What do I need to say?”. Instead, they stay firmly planted in their own shoes and say, “What do I know?” The two things are very, very different. If you don’t know what your audience needs to know, you simply tell them everything they might need to know - and thus they actually get nothing.”

“If it looks like you are working hard when you ‘perform’ then you have not been working hard enough when you prepare”. In conclusion we asked his opinion on how important is being “effortless” in business presentations.

“It’s very important. You see, for me a presentation is all about getting your message over to the audience in the best way for them. Perhaps being ‘effortless’ is over-stating the case a bit, but generally speaking, I’d try and get rid of anything that can get between the message and the audience. Anything less than ‘effortless’ presenting, in the sense of the mechanics of delivering the presentation, draws attention to the presenter and thus away from his or her message. In one sense, presenters should be invisible!

On the other hand it’s easy to take this too far - sometimes all you need to do is to be ‘good enough’ not to get in the way of your message!”

Dr. Simon Raybould is the author of “Little Big Voice Book, Voice Coaching Book for Ordinary People”. He also has an e-book,”… like a brick wrapped in velvet…” This is about making business presentations. A visit in his website will surely be worth your time, www.curved-vision.co.uk

“Don’t believe me? Watch any good stand-up comedian. See how assured they are in their delivery and yet how fresh their material appears!”