Are Good Presentation Skills Important for Workplace Success?

Presentation skills are the qualities you need to possess to deliver an effective presentation. They include everything from smiling at your audience to a passionate delivery.

One of the most difficult things to do while giving a presentation is to hold your audience’s attention.

How many times have you lifted your head from your notes to find everyone on their phone?

A presentation can be viewed as embarking on a journey, with you in the lead and your audience following. How many people are still following you when you arrive at your destination depends on your presentation skills?

So, are good presentation skills important for workplace success? The answer is YES.

A Good Presentation Prevents Miscommunication

Good presentation skills are tantamount to good communication. One of the biggest causes of workplace problems is miscommunication. Having a colorful presentation will not do a lot for anyone if it does not communicate your point.

Common Causes of Miscommunication in the Workplace

Making Assumptions

Making assumptions is one of the most common causes of miscommunication. For example, you might assume that something is common knowledge. This assumption may lead you to overlook vital explanations. This leads to your work colleagues receiving different interpretations of what you intended to communicate.

Not Understanding Non-Verbal Communication

Non-verbal communication involves all other kinds of communication that are not spoken. This includes hand gestures, body language, visual presentations, and so on.

Different cultures and societies also have different interpretations of non-verbal communications. Failure to understand these cultural differences may cause you to offend others without meaning to.

Objectives are Not Clear

In the workplace, it is important that everyone clearly understand the objectives. This clarity helps the workforce to move together as one unified team.

Different interpretations of objectives can lead to catastrophic results in the workplace. Clear objectives ensure everyone is moving in the same direction. Moving in a unified direction facilitates the achievement of a common goal.

Having good presentation skills means being equipped with clear communication skills. Good communication leaves no room for misinformation.

For example, during employee training, you need to set clear expectations. Failing to do so will result in ineffective and inefficient employees wasting precious time and financial resources.

How Good Presentation Skills Help Solve Miscommunication in the Workplace

Concentrate on the Core Message

A good presentation puts focus on the core message. This means you should avoid presenting assumptions or inaccurate information during a meeting.

Make sure that your core message is emphasized. This technique will help your audience stay connected to your message. One way to spice up your message is by using some free PowerPoint templates. PowerPoint templates help create a perfect layout for your information in a concise manner.

For example, pyramid templates can help your audience identify the important message of your presentation. Using this to effectively convey your thoughts will prevent any miscommunication.

Build Your Presentation around the Audience’s Needs

This strategy means tailoring your presentation to what is most pertinent to your audience. Delivering a presentation is equivalent to making a sales pitch. You are trying to sell your presentation to potential business clients. Therefore, you target their needs and make your points compelling. Once you have your audience engaged at this level, you can easily win them over.

Use Expressive Body Language (But Don’t Overdo It)

You are always expressing something, whether you’re speaking or not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher explains that your actions can overcast your spoken words.

Body language and gestures are important to illustrate and emphasize your point. However, too much of anything isn’t good. Your body language can become a distraction. It is especially important to limit your body language during a work presentation.

Are You Wasting Everyone’s Time with Poor Presentations?

Have you ever sat in a presentation and the speaker talks for an hour before you get what they’re talking about?

Presentations can be a time-consuming drag if the speaker lacks these important skills so let’s address some ways poor presentation skills might be wasting your time as well as your audience’s time.

Ways How Your Presentation Wastes Time

Talking About Points that are Irrelevant to the Topic

It’s natural for a speaker to want to share his/her passion for the topic. This desire sometimes causes the speaker to go into long, tedious detail.

Very often, the more you say, the further you can stray from the point. This is a waste of time for both you and especially your workmates.

Irrelevancy will lead to not meeting the presentation’s goals. This will also cause confusion and great disinterest in people looking forward to the main points of the presentation.

Failing to Answer Questions

Your audience expects you to have a firm grasp of the concepts and the subject matter behind your presentation. And they expect you to have the answers to their questions. Failing to answer questions implies that you’re not knowledgeable enough to have earned their time and attention.

Lack of Interaction

Presentations are different from speeches in one respect. During a presentation, you need people's undivided attention. You cannot give your presentation as if you're giving a speech. Talking at people is a quick way to lose the audience’s interest and end up wasting everyone’s time.

Good presentation skills involve being organized and systematic. You should know when to ask questions to engage your audience. You lead with the point so that they know what you are talking about, and they can follow.

This saves a lot of time trying to answer questions from confused workmates.

Increases the Attention Span of the Audience

The late theatre actress, Dorothy Sarnoff, once said “Make sure you have finished talking before your audience has finished listening.” This point is important because of how hard it is to keep people’s attention.

According to a consumer insights report by Microsoft Canada, the human attention span in 2000 was about 12 seconds. This year is around the time smartphones started becoming popular. Fifteen years later, it had come down to 8 seconds.

Interesting fact:

Goldfish have a 9-second attention span. That's right! Goldfish have a longer attention span than we do now.

Poor presentation skills will drive the team to their smartphones during your opening remarks.

However, with good presentation skills, you engage them. This means having charisma in your delivery and keeping them interested. The only time smartphones come out will be to take videos of your presentation. This creates harmony and ultimately success at the workplace

Ways To Succeed in Your Presentation

Do Adequate Research to Prevent Misinformation

As an employee, you are responsible for both what you say and what your workmates think you said.

To ace your presentation during a business meeting and win over that deal that your boss has been dying to get, you need to set your facts straight right from the start. That means you need to have excellent research skills.

Proper research helps you avoid inaccuracy in the information you want to present to your audience. It ensures your statistics, quotes, and data is credible so that you can avoid miscommunication.

A single error in your facts will make your workmates question your whole presentation.

Thus, it is so important to put in the research necessary to make a good presentation. This is a key to success in the workplace.

Display Your Knowledge and Expertise

Being given a platform to speak anywhere is always an opportunity.

There is not a single person who, at one point in their life, does not wish they were given a chance to present their point of view, especially in a work setting.

Good presentation skills set you up to show off your knowledge and expertise in a way that builds and supports your team.

In the workplace, a presentation is an opportunity to showcase new ideas.

This is where you inspire your team to reach for greater heights

Connect with People

Good presentation skills include having great people skills.

This skill helps you reasonably interact with others. It involves valuing their ideas and input.

A good presentation keeps the audience involved and makes them feel important.

This involvement is key to building lasting work relationships. Engagement whether in a presentation or interacting with co-workers helps make your workplace successful. Unity among colleagues is fostered by your connection and involvement with them.

Communicate Complex Information in Simple and Interesting Ways

Have you ever heard of the adage “put the cookies on the lower shelf”?

This quote generally refers to breaking down complex ideas into simpler terms.

Simplifying your message is an important part of good presentation skills.

While conveying complex information can make you look very knowledgeable and sophisticated, it can be ineffective.

You want your audience to think “Wow, what an interesting perspective,” instead of checking out and murmuring “Those were some boring and confusing words.”

It is more important to communicate than to appear smarter than everyone.

Conclusion

The success of the workplace rests on several supportive pillars. Good presentation skills are one of the most important of these pillars.

Good presentation skills inspire loyalty and hard work in the workplace. By building connections with people rather than talking to them, you will invoke engagement and build stronger, more effective relationships.

We hope this information was helpful. Do let us know if there's anything we left out or what stood out for you.