If you are in any type of management or leadership position, then chances are that you are called upon to deliver some presentations occasionally – or at least do stand up and do some public speaking. And you probably spend a lot of your time preparing the content of what you will say.
And indeed you should spend time on preparing good, informative content. However, in this video clip, you are reminded that if you speak with confidence and authority, then your style can weigh more heavily upon the impression of your audience than the quality of your content.
The video clip describes a classic experiement conducted in the early 1970′s, in which an actor was introduced to an audience of psychiatrists as “Dr Fox, an expert in Games Theory”. He proceeded to deliver a lecture, which was subsequently rated very highly and favourably by his audience – and yet in reality, his content was gibberish. A bit scary really, that such an “intelligent” group could be fooled so easily!
I would never advocate that you don’t need to worry about your presentation content – but whether we like it or not, our presentation skills and our delivery style are at least as important as the content.
By the way, if you’re interested in gaining some great tips on how to deliver with confidence, have a look at Presentation Tips
Posted by PerformanceDevelopment 
