Are you suffering from Presenters’ Performance Syndrome? part one

 The physical gap between the audience and the presenter seems to have given rise to a newly discovered disorder called “Presenter’s Performance Syndrome" – a collection of serious delusions.

searching for the cause of presenters' syndrome

Somehow the syndrome only emerges when presenter walks a few paces away from the audience, in a darkened room in the presence of a computer.

 The seven symptoms of Presenters’ Syndrome:

1 .The delusion of complete audience hostility.

The presenter is convinced that all the blank faced audience members are thinking bad thoughts about him all the time. He is sure that they think he is doing very badly. The audience not only sees his weaknesses but also knows that he was mean to his dog that morning. 

2. The mixed delusion of perfect presenter performance and catastrophe

The presenter thinks he has to be a “proper presenter” up there. That pretending he really should present like his boss is far better than being a real person. As a peformer, he should be somebody with a smooth voice, someone who is perfect with whizzy slide effects and who never makes mistakes. If, however,  he does make a mistake during the presentation, he will of course immediately fall over, lose his job, then his wife and house.

3. The delusion that the audience is totally passive

This is where the presenter believes that there is no need to engage the audience by involving them in anyway apart from talking at them and showing them 60 sildes. They will remember everything because his rational arguments are sound and he has the stats to back them up. They will just sit there lapping it up. And having no questions from the audience at the end proves that he has explained the whole subject thoroughly enough.

 4. The delusion of presenter wisdom

The presenter thinks that they should tell the audience ALL they know about their subject. So that means 60 slides are prepared to give a sense of the presenter’s breadth and depth understanding of the subject and that should impress the hell out of everybody

5.  The delusion that the back of the presenter's head is more desirable than the face

The presenter believes the back of his body is what the audience wants to see. It also helps the audience connect with him better if he pretends he’s not really there. This is usually accompanied by  a speeding up of his presentation.

6.  The delusion of illiteracy

The presenter thinks that the audience has suddenly lost the power of reading and he is now the only one in the room who can. So he reads everything out s l o w l y because the audience has lost their intelligence too.

7. The delusion of knowledge.

The presenter knows exactly what he is speaking about so that must mean that everybody else thoroughly understands him too. No need to worry about the odd acronym, jargon or in-joke. And anyway it shows that he is really on top of his subject.

8. The delusion of time. Or why 7 points is never enough..

The presenter knows that the audience doesn’t really mind if he goes over his allotted time by 23 minutes because his next point is really SO important and they really really need to hear it. “The coffee break after my talk is not that important anyway”.

The good news is that presenters’ syndrome is temporarily cured as soon as he or he returns to sit in the audience and listens to the next presenter.

However the bad news is, that without intervention, presenters' performance syndrome is often a life-long affliction. Teams of top research scientists are currently investigating the best way of telling a presenter how best to think about their presentation.

The remedies are simple.

First and foremost - think about a presentation from the audience’s point of view.
Second - learn how to be present and really connect with your audience

But despite their best attempts they seem to be failing. Presenters and audiences, it seems, are doomed to mutually suffer for years to come.

Part two coming soon. "In which help arrives for the poor presenter and the audience"

Can you help me identify any more presenters’ delusions? Add them to the comments, Thanks