VI. Some Final Advice
The information included in this brief essay is a bare bones outline of the training in my workshop. Despite its brevity, the advice provided, I am confident, will help companies deliver more effective, persuasive presentations. Two statements, written many centuries apart, underline the eternal importance of speaking skills:
In his 1984 autobiography, Lee Iacocca wrote:
"I've known a lot of engineers with terrific ideas who had trouble explaining them to others. It's always a shame when a guy with great talent can't tell a board or committee what's in his head."
About 2500 years before Iacocca's observation, the great Greek statesman Pericles wrote:
"Those who can think, but cannot express what they think, place themselves at the level of those who cannot think."
Iacocca and Pericles have a warning for companies competing for contracts:
"Terrific ideas" can easily be trumped by those who can "express what they think." If your competitors are improving the
presentation skills of their technical experts because of the importance they attach to oral presentations, while you rely on your "superior" ideas, programs, and experience, you may find your firm losing millions of dollars. A small investment in presentations training, therefore, can pay large dividends when lucrative contracts are awarded.
By: Lawrence L. Tracy
Tracy Presentation Skills
Alexandria, VA
(703)360-3222;
info@tracy-presentation.com
Larry Tracy is a retired Army colonel who formerly headed the Pentagon's top briefing team, responsible for daily intelligence presentations to the Chairman of the Joint...
