Shooting Ourselves in the Feet

As the visitors filed out of the room, Glenn caught Cynthia's eye. Yep, she was just as disturbed as he was. "Buy you a cup a coffee?" he asked. She nodded, without energy, and looked down. Everyone else started to leave, so Glenn and Cynthia walked wordlessly together to San Jose, the coffee bar on Three West.

They poured two talls and sat down in a booth out of the way around the corner. She opened with "Well, that was a disaster. Why don't we cut out the middleman and just shoot each other in the feet?"

Glenn smiled. It would be funny, if it weren't true. They had just given a demo to top management of what everyone hoped would become their biggest customer, and things hadn't gone well. "What could we have done differently?" Glenn asked.

So over those two cups of coffee, and two more, they made up a list of tips for giving small demos, to avoid a disaster next time.

You could make a tip list, too. Here are some to get you started.

Avoid swarming

If the size of your team is about the same as the size of the audience, they can feel overwhelmed, and they're unable to take in your carefully crafted message. In effect, you undermine your own effort. Find a way to limit the number of people in your organization who can attend, without offending anyone or making people feel excluded.

Don't surround the audience

Everyone on your team should sit or stand in a single arc that covers no more than a third of the circle around the audience. Surrounding creates a sense of danger — subliminal, but real.

Have at most two designated speakers

Let the conversation happen between the audience and the presenter. Occasionally, one other member of the presenter team might have something to add, or might answer a question. But if more than two people from the presenter team speak — not simultaneously of course — the message tends to cloud and you confuse the audience.

Designate one speaker as primary

When there are two speakers, contention and confusion is possible. To limit this, define roles. Let one person wear the "business" or "program" hat (B), and the other the "technical" hat (T). B should be primary, and T should defer to B.

Let each other speak

B should never interrupt T, and T should never interrupt B. Work out a gesture signal to indicate "stop talking" but don't interrupt each other.

Support each other

No matter what your partner says, let it stand. Chances are the audience will never remember it anyway. If you must comment, find a way to make your comment a supportive addition rather than a correction.

Publish your tip list on your intranet. And if you send me a copy, you'll help protect my feet, too.  Top    Next Issue

Are your presentations — technical or otherwise — all they could be? Audiences at technical presentations, more than most, are at risk of death by dullness. Spare your audiences! Captivate them. Learn how to create and deliver technical presentations with elegance, power and impact. Read Terrific Technical Presentations, a stand-alone Web site filled with tips and techniques for creating powerful performances. Order Now!

These tips are excerpted from Terrific! Technical Presentations, my new ebook, which is filled with tips for people who give technical presentations large and small.

Reader Comments

John Brtis

Reminds me of an old joke…

An old cow farmer goes to Sunday service and when it's time to start the preacher enters and sees that the cow farmer is the only person present. Rather flustered about what to do with only one other person in the church the preacher asks the farmer, "How do you think we should handle this?" The farmer drawls back, "Well…all I know is cows, but I know that if I go out to bring hay to the herd and I only find one cow, I still feed that cow." With a now clear understanding of what he needed to do, the preacher launched into a full service, including half a dozen songs, and a particularly well crafted thirty-minute sermon. At the end of this extravaganza, the preacher was saying his goodbyes to the farmer and asked him how he liked it. "Well," said the farmer, "all I know is cows, but if I go out to feed the herd and find only one cow, I don't dump the entire truck load of hay on her."

Your comments are welcome

Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrenfHlRlTgqCIXkUHBTner@ChacrEuHRQPYVKkOucGfoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Organizational Firefighting

Sometimes companies or projects get into trouble, and "fires" erupt one after another. When this happens, we say we're in "firefighting" mode. But it's more than a metaphor — we have a lot to learn from wildland firefighters.

Take Any Seat: I

When you attend a meeting, how do you choose your seat? Whether you chair or not, where you sit helps to determine your effectiveness and your stature during the meeting. Here are some tips for choosing your seat strategically.

How to Find Lessons to Learn

When we conduct Lessons Learned sessions, how can we ensure that we find all the important lessons to be learned? Here's one method.

Risk Creep: II

When risk events occur, and they're of a kind we never considered before, it's possible that we've somehow invited those risks without realizing we have. This is one way for risk to creep into our efforts. Here's Part II of an exploration of risk creep.

Paid-Time-Off Risks

Associated with the trend to a single pool of paid time off from separate categories for vacation, sick time, and personal days are what might be called paid-time-off risks. If your team must meet customer expectations or a schedule of deliverables, managing paid-time-off risks can be important.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II

When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.

And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying

Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenfHlRlTgqCIXkUHBTner@ChacrEuHRQPYVKkOucGfoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info