As a vigorous networker, constantly in motion, always looking for new clients, I attend a lot of events. Usually there are speakers or panel discussions or sometimes both. In this regard, I probably see over 100 people a year presenting in Japan. One consistent theme across all of these presentations is the lack of understanding of the “ba” (場) when speaking. This “ba” in Japanese means the physical locale or place or occasion, in this context. What I notice is that the speakers are confusing the “ba” as a presenter. They address the audience in the same voice strength, body language projection and gesture application, as they would use if they were sitting together having a chat over coffee with their friend. You might wonder why they would do that when they are there facing an audience of fifty people or more? Why can’t they scale up what they are doing to suit the much larger assembly? Don’t they feel the need to engage the entire audience once they have been given the shot to address the masses? Basically, they have no clue because they have never received any training on presenting. Their only reference point is coffee chats with a friend and they just keep that template for the larger occasion. Now I am sure they have seen someone present professionally, but I feel there must be a mental disconnect between what they are witnessing and how they see themselves. Perhaps even that is too optimistic for Japan, because they may have never seen a professional presentation here because they are so rare. Regardless, if they have ever seen a professional presentation they were just observers rather than students. They didn’t see what was going on as a model. They were just passive audience members observing someone else going through the motions. Once you have been trained, you automatically become a critic and keen observer of what the speaker is doing, because you have a range of relevant reference points to compare against. The combination of panelists and speakers I saw in a recent event had a common theme – no differentiation of the “ba” for this occasion and chatting over coffee with a friend. The voices were quiet. The energy low to non-existent. The body language turned off completely. No passion, no highlights, no take-aways, no persuasion attempted. It was as flat as a pancake. Yet here were a large number of company representatives giving their ideas on a particular subject, without much in the way of real commitment or passion. A number of them were youngish, if late twenties- early thirties counts as youngish. Is that an excuse? I don’t think so. Whatever age they were, no one on that stage had given much thought to what they were doing and what they wanted to achieve. It was obvious that representing their firm well as professionals was not in their minds. And yet here they were – on stage speaking to us in the audience. Just speaking more strongly would have made a big difference. Not yelling. They had microphones so there was no need for yelling but there was a big need to more vocal power and especially hitting key words. It was all a series of monotone deliveries, one after another. There was no passion for their subject or their point of view and that is a death sentence in the persuasion business. No storytelling either. They gave up such a major opportunity to connect with their audience by telling personal stories which would have made the point they were getting at. It was just a lot of talking without much to say really and so very disappointing. Engaging the crowd was not in their minds whatsoever. This makes sense if coffee chats are your only reference point for presenting. One-on-one over coffee you don’t have to project yourself, engage the other person or lift your voice. The average person is just not trained to know what to look for. At the event, I was chatting with a female lawyer about how poor lawyers are as speakers at their own seminars where they are trying to find clients. She had no idea what I was talking about. As it turned out the hosting firm’s senior legal counsel gave a speech at the event and afterwards I referenced it to my lawyer companion, as an example of what the problem is with the way lawyers are trained. She had just seen the same speech, but she couldn’t distinguish what was missing. Like most people she had no clue what to look for. I gave her some examples from the talk and I could see a glimmer of a lightbulb going on inside her mind. A faint glimmer to be sure. The coffee chat “ba” and the stage “ba” are totally different. On stage we have to be more. Bigger, bolder, louder, more energized, more persuasive , more engaging. We have to be “on”, rather than passive and acting like a spectator, when in fact we are the main act.
