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New Survey: 70% Say Presentation Skills Are Critical For Career Success

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Seventy percent of employed Americans who give presentations agree that presentation skills are critical to their success at work, according to a new Prezi survey. My first reaction? The other 30% don’t know it yet.

Prezi, the cloud-based presentation platform company, collaborated with Harris to survey employed professionals about their attitudes on presentations. Prezi also asked me to review the survey results. The findings reflect just how important presentations skills are to one’s career, and also reveal the extreme measures people take to get out of giving a presentation. For example, 20% of respondents said they would do almost anything to avoid giving a presentation including pretending to be sick or asking a colleague to give the presentation , even if it means “losing respect” in the workplace.

The fear of presenting is very real among professionals in corporate America today, so much so that that many people are desperate to avoid it. It’s a problem because the survey also reveals that telling a clear and persuasive story through presentations is a fundamental job requirement and a necessary component of career success. In the information age you are only as valuable as the ideas you have to share.  Poor presentation skills mean that leaders fail to inspire their teams, products fail to sell, entrepreneurs fail to attract funding, and careers fail to soar. That seems like a big price to pay for neglecting such a basic skill that anyone can improve upon.

There is hope for anyone who wants to improve at this critical career skill and, according to the Prezi survey, plenty of people want help. Seventy-five percent of those who give presentations say they would like to be better at presenting  and to ‘captivate the audience.’ One way to improve presentation skills is simply to watch great presentations. Thanks to sites like TED.com, anyone with an Internet connection and a computer or mobile device can watch the world’s most awe-inspiring presentations delivered in 18-minutes.

Recently I spoke to author and investigative reporter David Epstein who delivered this TED talk in March that has been viewed more than 1.7 million times. On the 18-minute time limit that all TED talks are required to follow he said, “It forced me to be really sharp with my transitions, and to pick examples that I could explain really succinctly, even if they were not the simplest ideas in the world. With that amount of time, you know you can only make so many points, so you're forced to make them count.” Epstein’s TED experience also taught him the importance of delivering a visually engaging presentation that adds to the narrative, and doesn’t simply mirror the speaker’s words. “The slides should supplement the talk, not give it. The speaker is the performer, and the slides are supporting actors.”

Epstein’s presentation is visually engaging and beautifully designed, a common element in many of the best TED presentations. If you want to improve your presentation skills, here are several other TED talks I would recommend that you watch.

“Why Schools Kill Creativity,” by Sir Ken Robinson (Skillful use of humor and storytelling).

“My Stroke of Insight” by Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor (Dr. Jill rehearsed this presentation 200 times before delivering it).

“We Need to Talk About an Injustice” by Bryan Stevenson (Stevenson tells three stories to support his theme, accounting for 65% of his content).

The fact is that traditional presentations are often boring. In the Prezi survey, 46% of respondents admit that they’ve been distracted during a co-worker’s presentation. Instead of watching the presentation they often do the following tasks: send text messages, answer email, surf the Internet, check social media, or fall asleep. Creating and delivering a presentation that engages hearts and minds does take work and creativity, but with easy access to some of the best presentations on the planet there are plenty of examples to model.

Carmine Gallo is a communication coach, keynote speaker, and author of several bestselling books including The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and his latest Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets Of The World’s Top Minds.