As predicted last month, it’s cold. Colder than I expected and it is snowing quite heavily outside. To the North across the park and mountains beyond and to the South across Tokyo Bay to the next peninsula the view is quite spectacular.

It is hard to imagine that only two weeks earlier I was diving in

sub-tropical waters. And, there were sharks. Not huge sharks,

but big enough (easily the same size as me, if not larger) to instil

healthy feelings apprehension, respect and heady excitement.

Scuba diving is an intense activity. There is a lot to remember when you are underwater. You are constantly checking (or you should be) gauges to monitor depth, time, air supply, no decompression factors, compass bearings; it often seems endless.

And, on top of this you have to be aware of your body and how it is reacting to the dive. Feeling tired, sore, lightheaded, tense or nervous? Breathing too fast or too slow? Are you neutrally buoyant, as you should be or are you tending to float or sink?

All of these factors either alone or combined could turn, if ignored, the average dive into a life threatening situation. It can be very intense.

And yet talk to any diver and they will tell you that when under water

all they seem to feel is a mixture of sheer exhilaration, sublime peace, timelessness and silence.

If you have full command of what you are doing, you know how to deal with any problems that may occur, you will relax and slip into a kind of flow state where you feel in complete control and are able to deal with whatever occurs if and when it does.

This is composure at its best. And composure can be a very powerful attribute when we are undertaking any kind of stressful activity; not only  for extreme activities like diving but also for more commonplace activities such as presenting.

To quote Robert Wright in his 2017 book ‘Why Buddhism is True’

‘If there is anything more unnatural than being in the presence of a bunch of people you’ve never seen before, it’s speaking to all of them

at once. The mere thought of such an event can give us terrifying illusions about the future.’

Which leads me to…

At the end of last year, during the approach to Christmas, Tokyo saw a flurry of design related activities; events, exhibitions, presentations and thoroughly civilised evenings spent discussing beautifully designed objects whilst eating cake and drinking wine.

Two such presentations I attended made quite an impression on me

and whilst the formats were very similar the impressions made were quite the opposite.

There were similarities in that both were given by European companies, both delivered in English with simultaneous Japanese translation,

both were about high-end luxury products with a strong heritage

in the European design tradition and both took place in beautiful

central Tokyo gallery/showroom spaces.

What really interested me however, was how different the impact of each presentation was, and why.

I think it is fairly safe to say that the first presentation followed all the rules of ‘corporate’ presenting: Powerpoint based, an overview of the company, a brief history, who founded it and who is in charge, where the factories and workshops are, the product range, the new products that are the focus of this event (launch) and a close with a little about how the company is addressing environmental issues.

The problem was it all came across as scripted, done a thousand times before, detached from the audience and if you took away the few visuals that actually showed the products — as opposed to the many visuals that showed organisational charts, historical timeliness, year on year production figures and global distribution maps — this presentation could have been about anything: cars, insurance, stationary products, you name it.

It was formulaic, generic and worst of all, it was ‘corporate’. Which meant that the tone it set could not have been further removed from the glorious, carefully designed and crafted objects the presentation was supposed to be about.

The whole presentation had all the hallmarks of something downloaded from a shared server, direct to a laptop, only to be hastily packed away before the taxi journey to the airport to catch the flight to Tokyo; then opened five minutes before the start of the presentation.

The second presentation took a very different route. It started with a walk around a showroom whilst being asked to examine and pass around various samples of the designed material.

The audience were interacting with the materials, the presenters and each other before the presentation proper had even begun — genius!

It set the tone perfectly — this presentation is all about you, us and these fabulous materials.

The main part of the presentation took place in front of a large screen but rather than the usual tired parade of corporate slides, the presenters just showed the products in situ in the homes of a select number of clients, from around the world.

You can see corporate diagrams and histograms (information) in almost every presentation you attend but, how often do you get the privilege of seeing inside (insight) some of the most beautiful private residences in the world — whilst handling the things you are looking at?

N.B. I’ll talk about the power of insight over information in a future Brief.

The biggest difference between these two presentations was the difference between enthusiasm and passion.

The presenters in both instances showed great enthusiasm for

what they were talking about. But, only the presenters in the second presentation showed passion.

And here is the thing; enthusiasm can be faked, passion cannot.

You can sound, appear, look enthusiastic, even when you are not but, genuine passion just is.

Passion just shows and you can’t hide it and you certainly can’t fake it.

Herein lies the real issue, give anybody a ‘corporate’ presentation to deliver and they will do exactly the same thing — read through from slide to slide, act enthusiastic about the material and assume they
have done a good job by just getting to the end in one piece.

However, passion drives us to learn all we can about a subject; to know it back to front. And when we do know the subject intimately, that same passion ensures that we can then talk about it freely, without the need to treat the slides like a script or to hide our personalities behind information and most importantly to speak with complete composure.

To give a simple, clear presentation in such a relaxed, informal manner, with slides that are only images (no words) and to talk in such a way that not only puts the audience at ease but compels them to listen and watch requires a deep understanding and appreciation for what you are talking about.

Only then can we avoid reading from notes or our slides and only then do our true personalities shine through.

And, if due to our passion, we know our subject so well; we should be prepared to, in fact actually want to, write our own presentations.

We should never be prepared to settle for something downloaded from the company server. Something prepared by others ostensibly to make everyone’s job easier but usually to ensure everyone who presents on behalf of the company says the same thing in exactly the same way.

The presentation is about you and your relationship with the audience.

It is your platform to build trust and you’ll never build trust by hiding your personality and speaking someone else’s words.

(Part 2 in next month’s Brief)

Click on the image to navigate to the full Dispatch.

When we speak through passion and with composure the words will flow naturally like musical notes do when a great musician improvises.

Great musicians, especially great jazz musicians understand the importance of passion, composure and the ‘flow’ state that exists

where you know what you are doing and how to do it so well that the performance simply appears to take shape of its own accord; often known as ‘improvisation’.

Supposedly there was a conversation between two of the greatest jazz musicians and improvisers of all time — saxophonist, John Coltrane and trumpeter, Miles Davis, in which Coltrane said to Davis that when he improvises a solo he is never quite sure when the solo should stop.

To which Davis replied ‘the solo stops when you stop blowing the f**cking horn.’

My interpretation of this is that Davis was saying trust yourself, you are good enough to stop when the time is right — you don’t need to overthink it - just flow until it stops and it will stop at the right moment.

Because Davis knew, Coltrane had supreme control and composure, in effect mastery of what he was doing.

Here is another astounding piece of improvisation where Keith Jarrett opens his own composition - So Tender - with its distinct melody and closes it with the same melody but for ten minutes or so in between goes to a place that probably only he could reach and, I suspect it is a different but equally amazing place, each time he plays the piece.

You can hear it here.

Nicholas Raistrick | Communication Strategist, LABtokyo

Nicholas founded LABtokyo 10 years ago with the express commitment to helping people communicate to their highest potential.

We work with private individuals and corporate groups by delivering training and coaching programmes specifically designed to enhance all facets of interpersonal communication.

If you are interested in learning more please write to us here or check our website at labtokyo.com.

We are always more than happy to hear from you.