I'm at Parsons School of Design watching retail guru Paco Underhill (author of Why We Buy, which I honestly haven't read yet). I'm writing from the lecture not to report on his content, which is somewhat what I expected--a talk about why people buy stuff, a topic I don't honestly care that much about.
I'm writing this from my phone in the lecture because Paco Underhill is one of the strangest presenters I've EVER seen (and I've seen A LOT of people present). I can't figure out what's wrong with him exactly... The room is divided into two halves with a central aisle. Paco keeps strutting up and down the central aisle, twisting awkwardly to the left and right to address the people over there, then the people over here. My first impression is that this is a bad presentation trick that some presentation coach told him to do, because he's a generally uncomfortable presenter, and people who are comfortable presenters strut around a lot.
But there was a problem with my thesis... He's not actually a bad presenter. His speech is somewhat lively and actually delivered fairly well. In fact, if anything, it feels a little pat, a little over-rehearsed. What's weirdest is the combination. This awkward, uncomfortable, forced strut combined with a speech that feels like he's given it 100 times. You'd think that, if this were old material, that he would have figured out how to present it by now. Could the strut just be some new trick that he's added recently to liven it up, at the suggestion of some presentation coach?
That's what I thought, until I heard something else... At first, I heard a pause, like he was struggling to remember the next word... like his word-for-word memorization of the script was beginning to fail him: 'plan my... menu for the week.' So, is this script memorized word-for-word? Is this just a performance? Is he perhaps animatronic?
Then I heard something else... 'We have new ne-necessities.' That's it! He's a stutterer! And this speech has been rehearsed significantly, first with a voice coach, and then, it seems to me, with a presentation coach.
Well, good for him. I admire his 'polish,' or, at least, his sense that in order to make a polished presentation, he needed to rehearse it to death with (probably) two different coaches.
I look at him. I look up at Paco, into his eyes. I put my glasses on in order to see more clearly. I look in his eyes, and he looks terrified. Despite the fact that he's strutting around the place, making large gestures, speaking with gusto. He's simply been rehearsed by experts, over and over and over. Like an animatronic actor.
But most people probably haven't noticed any of this. They probably just think he's a little weird.
That said, once I've figured out that he's a stutterer, and sensed that he's afraid to be making a big presentation like this, I find him empathetic and charming. He seems real and human in a way that he didn't before. Once I know the story, I like him more.
What do I take away from this? Well, I think it's important for each presenter to find their own natural style (and Paco Underhill, despite his growing prominence, despite his attempts to overcome his stuttering, hasn't found it). For my brief keynote at THE Marketing Event on Friday (see text below or elsewhere on this blog), I wrote it Thursday morning, and I rehearsed it once... at about 11pm, Thursday night, in a bar, for four friends. I wanted to do it again at home, but I ran out of steam, and felt good with my one rehearsal, so I let it go. And I think I did well... My words, written word-for-word as I talk, written 24 hours before the speech was delivered (so it was as fresh and topical as possible), then rehearsed once, in a bar. And it felt fine. It was fun. I didn't stress out. I was a little nervous, but channeled it quickly and attacked my material.
Another lesson here is that the more we know about people, the more we learn facts about them that make them real and human to us, the more we are able to empathize with them. The lesson is that we all need to try to bring our entire selves to everything we do, so that we are real and empathetic to those around us.
Now back to Paco's talk...
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