If you want to demonstrate your intelligence in a meeting, you have two options.
Based on more than 60 workshops and meetings over the past few weeks for a bank in the United Kingdom, I noticed among all presentations there was one consistent difference.
Of the time allotted to them …
The presenter filled up the agenda with their needs, never the audience’s.
They did all of the talking, almost all of it in sentences. Sentences don’t invite discussion. They are one-sided conversations.
Perhaps without realising it – or maybe they knew what they were doing subconsciously? – they left little to no time for Q&A so interaction with the audience was minimal.
If you drew the agenda visually, with the circle representing an hour, the meeting would look like Example A.
Or …
The presenter focused the agenda to the audience’s interest, not their own.
They presented their points with just the necessary time to do so. Their points were articulate and concise.
Once they delivered their key messages, the presenter spent the remainer time – in fact, the majority of the time – answering questions from the audience or elaborating upon their responses to ensure understanding if not engagement.
If we drew this second agenda visually, it would look like Example B.
Why the Difference in Focus?
I asked the presenters why they chose to organize the presentation and meeting as they did.
The common answer was the presenter had to offer a real business recommendation to a senior executive, usually an executive vice president or higher.
More often than not, the audience was also the presenter’s direct supervisor.
When I asked the presenter to describe these senior people, the two responses were muted but consistent. Anal-retentive and notoriously controlling. When I pressed a bit more, the answer was: their boss was tough.
At the same time, I’d earlier been told all of the presenters attending the workshop were either vice president or senior vice president. More concerning, they all knew their employer (one of the largest banks in the UK) was on the verge of axing up to 1,000 jobs. The cuts would primarily come from the level of the presenters in the training.
This made their choices to deliver the presentation and meeting even more interesting.
Subconsciously, how many of them were more focused on trying to keep their jobs, rather than trying to deliver an effective presentation?
Presenters in Group A Spent Most of their Time Talking
Whether deliberate or subconscious, the first group chose to fill-up their allotted time talking. Somehow they believed if they kept talking it would demonstrate to the audience they were extremely prepared and knowledgable, if not to kill off any discussion or dissent.
It wasn’t just the air they filled up. Most used a congested level of information on their slides. One presentation had nearly 50 slides. No surprise, time left for Q&A was minimal. One person even went over their alloted time and had zero time for discussion.
I understand they thought they were the pinnacle of professionalism, but frankly, all it demonstrated was an unconscious quality of begging, as if to say: You can’t fire me! I know too much!
Presenters in Group B Spent Most of their Time Responding
Even though they were presenting to the same type of audience, the second group chose a different way to present.
Again, their recommendation and messages were clear, succinct and prioritised. (They knew The Rule of 3s.) Their accompanying slides were almost minimal compared with the first group: a few key words, one chart or picture as evidence or support, a firm open and close. Most presentations were less than 10 slides inclusive.
Perhaps most telling, they intentionally chose to distil a volume of of information down to its essential points as a way to demonstrate a thorough command of their topic. They chose not to fill up the slide with charts, graphs and details. They perfectly demonstrated one of the key factors of data presentation. So said Walter Shewhart, Data contain both signal and noise. To be able to extract information, one must separate the signal from the noise within the data.
In other words, their response to the anal retentive or controlling boss was to show they could differentiate between stratetic data and minutiae. (The first group wasn’t showing any ability to differentiate. Their choice was to show everything, which as we all, shows nothing.) To the tenuous position or situation they may be in, their response was to show their ability to rise above it and be both effective and efficient.
More so, Group B presenters showed zero signs of nervousness. They were in total control. As you do, when you know what you’re doing, your confidence skyrockets.
There's a Certain Irony Working Here
Think of the smartest person you’ve ever met in your lifetime.
Isn’t it true that smart people make a complex subject easy to understand for the other person.
The opposite is also true. People who take a simple subject and make it more complex than necessary are anything but intelligent. They add too many words, statistics, stories, time … or simply talking too much.
Want to demonstrate your intelligence in a meeting?
Make your topic simple for others to understand.
Does This Remind You of the Famous Einstein Quote?
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
If you want to demonstrate your intelligence:
- Make the Q&A section be the largest part of the agenda, not the smallest.
- The most engaging and dynamic part of the meeting is the interaction between presenter and audience, not the reading of the information to the audience. Remember: your audience can read faster than you can talk.
- Don’t give us numbers. Tell us what the numbers mean.
All of this might be a long way of saying your intelligence shines through when we (the audience) watches you think on your feet. It shows you trust you know what you know.
This also reminds me of an odd thing my Nana Eklund once said to me;
If you can’t trust your own brain, why should I?
How have you demonstrated your intelligence in a meeting? Please add your comments and thoughts below.
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