20/20 Vision
“Don't worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88 miles per hour, the instant the lightning strikes the tower... everything will be fine.” Doc Brown, as played by Christoper Lloyd, Back to the Future
Recently I was honored to be able to speak at an event called Pecha Kucha. The most common response I have received when telling people about this event was, “What the heck is Pecha Kucha?” It’s a fair response. While Pecha Kucha is an event held in hundreds of cities and is attended by thousands of people, it still falls on the fringe of popularity.
For those not in the loop, here’s a brief explanation. Pecha Kucha was invented by some architects in Japan who were looking for a way to be more concise communicators. The format that they created is highly specific— speakers present a topic or story in six minutes and forty seconds. That time is made up of twenty slides or pictures that auto advance every twenty seconds.
What that means is you have to practice a good amount so that your story times out with each of your slides. Having just participated in a Pecha Kucha, I can tell you that it’s very difficult. In fact, when I first started practicing my presentation, I felt a lot like Marty McFly listening to Doc Brown in the quote that started this article. It’s all about precision and timing, and honestly the difficulty of the whole process surprised me.
I expected Pecha Kucha to be like any other public speaking that I’ve done previously. And for the record, I’ve done a lot of public speaking in my life, so I felt pretty confident. On my first run through the presentation, it took almost ten minutes and basically none of my slides were timed correctly. I was immediately hit with a lot of fear and some of those old imposter syndrome feelings. How was I going to make this work?
Practice. More practice. So much practice.
I ran through the presentation probably forty times. Which is likely more times that I have practiced for all my other speaking engagements combined. The nice thing about practicing for Pecha Kucha is that six minutes and forty seconds goes really quick.
When it came time to do the actual presentation, I was so rehearsed that it went off without a hitch, and I was so glad that I had put all that time into preparing. Here’s some other good news, even if I had messed up, the Pecha Kucha crowd is literally the most forgiving and accepting group of people you will ever meet.
The Pecha Kucha events are generally held in a place that has adult beverages and halfway through the program there’s even a “beer break.” The event is a unique social gathering where you get to drink beer and listen to approximately ten presentations that can vary greatly in topics. The night I presented, I talked about the death of my nemesis but others talked about topics ranging from being mentored by a camel, being a professional mascot, and David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth.
So why am I rambling on about this cool event in my leadership blog?
One aspect of being a leader is to be comfortable speaking in front of others. Whether it’s your team, peers, executives, or clients, having the skill to present yourself and your ideas in front of them well is key. Even outside of being a leader, I believe that being capable of speaking in front of groups is a skill that will always be useful.
You might be scared to do it and that’s okay. Even with my experience in public speaking, I get nervous every single time. But I don’t let it stop me. And you shouldn’t let it stop you.
This post comes with a challenge. Whether you are new to public speaking or an old pro, go out and find your local Pecha Kucha. Then sign up to give a presentation. I know, I know, I said it’s a lot of work and that it’s super difficult and that’s true.
But there are two big benefits that outweigh the difficulties of preparation. First, once you are prepared, your presentation is basically on rails. Because of the way the slides automatically move forward, it forces you to have very specific timing. There’s no skipping portions of your presentation or adding in new pieces because those steamrolling slides will help keep you right on track.
Second, as I mentioned, the crowd is very forgiving. So much so that I would say that they will actually like you more if you mess up. It helps them relate to you as a person and makes them believe that they could do it as well. Which, they can!
You still may be thinking of other excuses why not to go out and do your first Pecha Kucha… I say stop that and go do it anyway. This truly is a fun and free way to learn some very valuable new skills.
I’ll leave you with the video of my presentation from Kalamazoo Pecha Kucha Volume 9.
What Happens When Your Nemesis Dies?
-Jason