So What Has Basketball Got To Do With Giving Great Presentations?

When I was at University in the UK I played basketball for the University team as well as playing in the National League. We used to have team practice sessions every Tuesday and Sunday, and on one occasion a friend came along to watch me play. As a warm-up, I played a little one-on-one with a teammate, and after fifteen minutes or so I went to take a drink. My friend remarked to me that I made it look easy to take the ball around my teammate and score (a nice compliment, but I then felt a little bad for my teammate). I gave it some thought and remarked that the difference was that I didn’t need to concentrate on the ball as much as my teammate did. This gave me an advantage. Whilst he was concentrating on where the ball was, I was concentrating on where his feet were placed. As soon as I saw that he was slightly off-balance, I would take the ball around him. The difference really came down to practice, in terms of time and the right skills. At that point (I was nineteen years-old) I had been playing basketball for around ten years; day-in, day-out, bouncing that ball in the house (much to my Mother’s annoyance), in the yard, in the playground at school, down the pavement, and of course, on the basketball court during every waking moment. I knew what the ball was going to do before it even did it. Simple physics, Newton’s Law, I bounce it in one direction and (providing I didn’t put any spin on the ball) it would bounce off the floor in the opposite direction into my waiting hand. No need to ever look at the ball again! I could now put all of my concentration into my opponent and watch what he was doing.

Your presentation is your ball. And your audience is the opponent. If you have prepared and designed your presentation well, and if you have practiced and practiced your delivery, then you know what your presentation is all about, what is on the slides, when and how you will make your transitions. You can now concentrate on the most effective and efficient way to deliver the information to your audience. You can read their response to the information that you deliver into the room and re-adjust your style and technique as you interpret that response. You can concentrate on your engagement, your eye contact, your method of changing the energy in the room, and ultimately influence how your audience receives your message.