Reading Time: 5-1/2 minutes   

This is part 18 of a 19-part blog. To see the previous blogs, click here. In part 1 of this subtopic on Presenter Pitfalls, we discussed why Reading from a Script can produce flat energy and weaken audience connection. In part 2, we discussed why you should avoid vague references and "consulting speak". In this blog, we'll continue our discussion on presenter pitfalls that can reduce the effectiveness of an oral presentation.

Even experienced presenters can unknowingly develop habits that weaken their message and distract them from their strengths. We'll examine how the words presenters choose can influence evaluator perceptions and explore ways to communicate with greater confidence and impact.

Power-Robbing Words

Power-robbing words reduce, diminish, or eliminate the impact of what you present.  Power-robbing words literally say the opposite of what you mean to say. They often insinuate a negative meaning or force someone to infer something negative.

Story: My quick and short demonstration

My clients nearly always present well when it is a static presentation.  It gets harder for them when they have to demonstrate a capability. When I learned that my client’s theme was “Do, Not Tell” and that they were planning on a best-practice demonstration, I was excited.  Demos are risky because if they go wrong, you have wasted time and shown incompetence at the same time. In contrast, well-executed demos generate assessments of authority and expertise in a way that the competition will struggle to beat.

They only had an hour to deliver a detailed presentation, and the demo was not requested in the RFP.  We figured out a way to embed it into a gradable section of the presentation and decided to give the demo seven minutes of the allotted hour.

Haroon was a hard-working cloud application developer responsible for turning the demonstration script into a live demo. He knew that it had to go quickly, so when we got to his section in the first practice, he started with: “Hi, my name is Haroon. I’m going to do a quick and short demo for you today.”

During the debrief, I read this back to him and asked what it communicated about the importance of the demo. Everyone agreed that starting with words like “quick” and “short” immediately gave the impression that the demo was not important enough to warrant time and attention. Haroon agreed with me and worked on something with higher impact. The next practice session, he started with:

“I’ll be doing a demo today on the best practices we presented in sections 1a and 1b. These best practices demonstrate our current capabilities that we would bring  immediately to you on programs such as…"

As you can see, Haroon took the coaching well and dramatically increased the impact of his words by using words that matter.

Actually, I Had an Impact 

The word “actually” robs your power and reduces the impact of your words dramatically, and most presenters have no idea the impact it has. “Actually” infers that the result was a fluke, that you are surprised by the result, and that you didn’t expect it to happen. These examples illustrate the point:

“... and we actually got the Nunn Perry Award from the SBA for our small business subcontracting ...” 

“We completed the contract on time, and we actually  did it under budget!”

I’m wincing as I write these examples. They illustrate how much “actually” changes the meaning, making the accomplishment more of a fluke or surprise than purposeful and earned. They sound awful when you read them, and you would be shocked at how many times I’ve coached otherwise strong presenters to remove that word from their presentation.

Now that you’ve read this section, you will hear the word “actually” everywhere, and it might even make you cringe like me! 

More Power-Robbing Words

Here are some other power-robbing words and what they mean: 

Really:  The word “really” nearly always reduces the power and impact of the content it accompanies.  Part of the problem with “really”, when used as an adverb, is the implication that you are comparing particularly strong performance against a lower-level norm. For example, “In this phase of the project, we engaged with the client to really make sure the requirements were documented correctly.” 

“Really” also gets used as a filler word and can be particularly annoying in that context. Do your best to eliminate this word not just in the presentation, but also in your conversational speech.

Probably:  Why “probably” kills the meaning is that it leaves the outcome up to chance or has no commitment. This word comes up in Q&A sessions when the speaker is not 100 percent sure of the answer. Use the 80/20 rule instead. If 80 percent or more of the time something is true, use the phrase “Most of the time” instead.

Leverage: A vague reference, the word “leverage” obscures the work the team did and makes it harder to fully understand. “Leverage” is a physics term that means to use a lever to move  something more easily. Since it is unlikely that your example includes a lever, I recommend replacing this abstract word with something more concrete and specific.  For example, if you “leveraged the team’s knowledge,” instead say “we used the team’s knowledge.” Even better, say “For this project, we brought together our internal experts, including Sarah for her expertise as a shipboard systems engineer, Jim for architecture design, and five other experts internal to our team to tackle this challenge in only five days!” 

Utilize: This is no clearer word than “use”, which has the benefit of being shorter, easier to say, and, well, sounding more human.

Responsible For: Being “responsible for” something is not the same thing as successfully completing the task/action. “Responsible for” reads like “supposed to,” which does not indicate not whether the task was completed. It is more effective to say, “Mr. Gere collected and analyzed data, ” rather than “Mr. Gere was responsible for collecting and analyzing data.” 

Hopefully: Do you really want to leave it up to hope? 

Kind of / sort of: These are filler words that are used automatically and unconsciously by many people (including me). They kind of reduce the meaning of your words by sort of making what you say you did but not what you actually did.

Maybe / Possibly: Derivatives of “probably” from above, these words creep into speech whenever the speaker doesn’t want to make a strong commitment.

There are many more of these words. Sometimes words that would not normally be power-robbing words turn into power-robbers through specific use. Getting rid of power-robbing words is a two-step process.

1. Have someone listen to your presentation and point them out. A coach will be an expert at hearing these and pointing them out. Your presentation team may also be willing to point them out. Friends and family may not feel comfortable calling you out.
2. Once you have your most common power-robbing words and phrases identified, notice when you use them, and stop and say the phrase over again when appropriate.

The key is to notice and not get tripped up when you hear yourself saying these words. Just the simple act of noticing your use of these words will trigger your subconscious to stop using them.

Action Words to Consider

The following verbs convey strong, specific action.

The words you choose matter. A strong example can lose its impact when it is introduced with language that weakens the message or causes evaluators to question its importance. Recognizing and eliminating power robbers helps presenters communicate their experience more clearly and allows their accomplishments to stand on their own.

Next Steps

Do you need help preparing your team for an oral presentation? Contact Trident today to discover how our experienced orals coaching teams work to strengthen messaging, improve delivery, and build confidence before presentation day.

Don't miss Blog 19: Presenter Pitfall Part 4: Unsubstantiated Claims, where we'll wrap up our presenter pitfalls series by examining another common presentation mistake and its effect on evaluators’ perceptions.

Written by Jeff Everage

Jeff is the President and Founder of Trident Proposal Management. As a GovCon Oral Presentation Coach for more than 15 years, Jeff has coached more than 100 teams to success. His insights into oral coaching, gained from the trenches of coaching, are designed to support you and your team in your efforts. As a Navy veteran, Jeff resides in Southern California and provides support to clients worldwide as part of our globally dispersed team.