July 24, 2009

“What a shame!  They ran aground answering a question no one asked.”

Presentations and reports are funny things.  The outcomes are often fickle.  The variables and their alignment are critical to success.  Thinking back on the hundreds (could it be thousands?) of presentations in my background, I see such a kaleidoscopic landscape.  Preparation, while pivotal to success, is far from a guarantee.   

Getting derailed in a presentation is not uncommon.  The potential hazards are many:

·         Is there a mercurial one present who enjoys disrupting on a whim? 

·         What is the general mood of the audience coming into the meeting? 

·         Will the recipients of the message be able to comprehend it?

·         Is this the meeting where so-and-so decides it is time to grandstand?

·         How could any meeting be successful when the news is this bad?

·         Were the right people “pre-briefed”?

·         Are the presenters not well-liked by the audience and disaster lurks no matter what they say or do?

Presentations, like life, are perilous.  Skating through the occasional areas of thin ice requires a bit of savoir-faire and seasoning.  As the Old English Saying goes, “Life is full of hazards, which experience neither taught nor bought will always enable us to foresee.”

Unfortunately, on this particular day, the presenters’ experience was blind.  They had been brilliant, well-received, and completely on point.  Wisdom would have told them it was time to stop talking.  Riding on the euphoria of their heretofore successful delivery, they lingered.  The batter was struck out.  Yet, for some mysterious reason pardonable only by greenness, a few more pitches were thrown.

Raw confidence miscarried into a nasty ricochet.  Venturing into unknown territory and far away from the script, a stellar performance vanished.  The audience was now confused.  The mercurial one in the room smelled blood. His calumny followed.  Whispered into my ear were the words, “What a shame!  They ran aground answering a question no one asked.”

Craig Halsey

They Said It

July 24, 2009