Orwellian word crimes- Modern heroes # 1

Who could have said this without irony?  They'd have to be in Management Consulting or HR wouldn't they?

Having finished my deck of (presumably PowerPoint) slides I shall now ping you over to Paul who will, no doubt be granular in providing you with the long-tail solutions in implementing the TOM by the TIMs through the twilight zone and beyond..

Answer he's the Head of HR, sorry, Human Resources, for Somerset County Council, a local government in the UK.  Speaking at a conference in Summer 2009.

6 pieces of tomfoolery that some public speaking coaches tell you- and why they're wrong

Philip Larkin, late, lonely, lovely English poet, wrote a short and bitter little thing that leads us into why so much rubbish is spouted to us by people who really should know better.  'This be the Verse'...

They F*** you up your Mum and Dad'
They do not mean to but they do,
They fill you up with all their troubles,
Then throw a few in extra just for you.

But they were f***ed up in their turn,
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern,
And half at one another's throats,

Man hands on misery to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as quickly as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Hmmm.  Larkin didn't have any kids and he died friendless and alone, so let's not use him as too much of a role model.  But it makes me think that we've all been taught things by people who, were doing what they thought was best for us, with the tools at their disposal, at the time.  Hindsight is the human being's greatest gift, isn't it?

Obviously a lot of what we've been told is valid but some, we come to realise, is just plain useless. I look round the great presentation skills blogs by my colleagues across the world (I'll tell you who they are as we go on) and all of us seem to have a collected a few of the presenting  'myths' to dispel, so here are 6 things that I was taught on my journey; by trainers who meant well; but that I've found to be fool's gold as I've grown.

1. Don't speak too quickly- What a lot of tosh.  Some people speak more quickly than others, and they should because it reflects them, their culture and their personality.  It's never how quickly you speak that affects whether you're understood.  It's how well. Ever seen the 'Quick Shakespeare Company' who can do 'Hamlet' in 4 minutes?  They speak at a rate of hundreds of words a minute and are easily understood.  Why?  Because their articulation is perfect and they honour the punctuation in the piece.
2. Don't say 'Umm' or 'Errrr'-  Why not and who cares? If it's a natural, human sound you make occasionally when you're thinking, then I think people don't notice.  But if it's the sound you make at the end of every sentence while you think of what to say next, it probably means you're not prepared and you should be whipped for it.
3. Don't use notes-Why not?  What they often mean is 'pretend you don't need notes' and you end up using your slides, or a surreptitously hidden piece of paper, that looks poor and makes you nervous.  Notes, cue cards, scripts are all fine and rather like wigs (toupees, hairpieces, whatever they're called where you live), they should be used unapologetically and well.
4. Don't get nervous?- Why not?  Surely it's nervous excitement that delivers real performance.  You should get nervous, throw-up if it helps, but learn to use the adrenaline and manage the effects so that you're really 'switched on' when you perform.  Most audiences like to see a little sign of nervous energy at the start.  It tends to mean that the speaker is taking us, and her subject seriously.
5. Don't wave your hands about-  Again, what are the other options?  Handcuffs? Pockets? Behind your back?  No.  Use your hands, gleefully, joyfully (and all those other words from 'The Logical Song' by Supertramp) naturally.  It's what human beings do when they talk, and it helps you to express, emote and, errr, think.
6. Don't get in the way of the projecter- OK so why not? Surely you have to if you want to engage with your visuals, and direct your audience's attention to where it's best for them. What's the alternative? Stand next to it, stiff as a board, looking like a lemon? Just do it deliberately and love it.

Where do most of these myths come from?  American political pollsters who look at politicians and how they 'work' on TV.  Their results, over time are then passed on to political advisers, who work with their politicians on very specific issues to do with the way they come over on camera. And guess what? All of the things I've listed above do look terrible on TV because there's that really powerful, small frame, close-up, magnifying effect that TV has. 

From Nixon vs Kennedy in the 60's (we're back to old style hats and coats) to McCain v Obama right now, the US election is a battle that's won on the news networks, so it's really important that candidates know the rules. 

That's where all this stuff comes from.  It's all valid for TV and totally, completely, ludicrously irrelevant for us in the real world of work.

3 acts worked for Shakespeare maybe they'll work for you- Story structure

Everbody knows that stories have structure.  They start with 'Once upon a time....' and end with 'happily ever after.' And in between the beginning and the end, comes the middle.  In Western culture, most novels, plays and films tend to follow a simple 3 act structure, with each act playing a particular role in driving the story to its end.  Broadly speaking-

• Act 1- Sets the scene and introduces the characters, the context and the challenge.
• Act 2- Introduces the challenge in more detail and gives choices for the character to take
• Act 3- Sees the pay-off where the character makes a decison, takes action and gets a result.

Each of the acts allows the audience to be taken on a journey that starts with- 'I Don't know anything about this character and don't really care what happens to the little bleeder...'; through 'I care now and don't want to see this lovely little thing fail'; to 'Oh my God, is he going to fall, die, leave, lose, love...?'  To the bitter (or sweet) end of the story, where our emotions are released in joy or pain or hope..., and we can relax and go back to our lives with a lesson learned, or a message taken.  But the story has to build step-by-step or it will fail.

Imagine the film 'Toy Story' going straight in at the scene where Buzz appears on the kid's bed.  It would have no meaning, because we wouldn't understand so many things.  Why his arrival changed things, why the toys were talking, who the skinny guy in the cowboy outfit was.  We wouldn't know and we wouldn't care and we wouldn't watch for long. Imagine 'Titanic' starting at the point where they're all in the water; or 'High Noon beginning with the gunfight. 'Saving Private Ryan' opening with the tedious walk through the hinterland of Omaha Beach, looking for a kid called Ryan.

Stories whether drama and fictional or commercial and factual work better if the thousand year old structure of a story is used.

P.S.  I know that there are more than 3 acts in Shakespeare, and there's alot of controversy about story structures, Freytag's 5 act structure and Quentin Tarantino's method, but sometimes you've just got to choose.  I did.  For more information- try this-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriting or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure

So what can you do about it-? If your presentations are rubbish?

1. Get people to take themselves and their presentations more seriously
· Get people to do fewer but better presentations
· Get people to prepare as if their reputations depended on it

2. Show how you can gain a real competitive edge in business by simply being a bit better than the kind of presenter I’ve spent the last 19 years trying to avoid.
· Commit to the audience, the subject and the occasion
. Make shorter presentations
· Make them more relevant, interesting and memorable for the audience

If you want to find out how. Read on.

So why is it so? Why are so many corporate presentations rubbish?

I have come to the conclusion that it’s so because, 1- Most of us set pretty low levels of performance for ourselves along the lines of- “Another presentation, let’s just get it over with”, and, 2- Those of us that have more experience don’t really care about most presentations that we are involved in. We’ll prepare for the really big ones, but do virtually nothing for the run of the mill talk. We tend to think, “I’m too busy to prepare properly, I can wing it.” And, 33- For the extra cynical among us “I’ll be able to wing it and it’s all bullshit anyway, so why bother doing anything else?”

Even when we’ve got a really important presentation to do; a sales pitch for an important contract, a product launch or a senior management briefing, we’re unsure as to what to do to make it brilliant so we accept “safe”. Have I missed anything? Is there any other reason why we collude in wasting our, and everybody’s time in taking part in such pointless rituals as:

“The project review meeting”- a whole day of scared people, presenting data they don’t believe in, to people they don’t trust, in order that the “people they don’t trust” can rip into them for missing one tiny piece of data that the senior management thought was really important, and sending them home depressed and really looking forward to the next one.

“The Employee Briefing Session”- A thirty minute break from the production line so that a young man that they don’t know, in a new suit, doesn’t introduce himself, and talks to them like children, uses a laptop and projector to show his script to the disinterested crowd, shovels platitudes of the “We’ve had great year but the Far East situation, as you can see, has greatly affected our ability to compete, blah, blah, blah…”

“The Market Update”- A cryptic title for a bad-news presentation to all employees, “just to fill you in on the opportunities and threats we face in the next financial year”.
I’m not saying that these meetings aren’t important. They are incredibly important. It’s just that our lack of professionalism in preparing for them, and our lack of skill in doing them undermines their effectiveness, however worthy the intention.

Let’s Be Honest: Most presentations we see in our working lives are rubbish.

You’ve probably sat through hundreds of them in your time. Hours of PowerPoint type talking, gigabytes of bullet-pointed slides and a few charts that carefully combine the unintelligible and incoherent. If you’ve worked in corporate life over the past few years, you’ll have seen it all. Dull content gingered up by the occasional use of, apparently, witty, clichéd clipart to lighten the mood, and on a few tragic occasions, sound effects (Bullets, skids, bells and the like) that only the presenter and the bloke from IT, who doesn’t spend enough time with humans, find amusing.

It’s a miracle of once in a blue moon proportions if you happen to enjoy a presentation that you’re invited to. Name the last time you did. The last time that the presenter was friendly, open, interesting, and amusing; and the stuff she was talking about was relevant to you, clearly explained and put across in a shorter time than your natural attention span. When was the last time you were informed and entertained at a presentation?

It does happen, though, I grant you. I can think of 3 examples from my 19-year career…
That’s all. Three people in all that time. 3 out of about 950 presentations. 4 out of 1900 hours, a 0.21% success rate, a probability of 475-1 against that the next presentation I go to will be worse than finding yourself at the end of a very long queue for the loo at Islamabad Airport.

Even if you went to a presentation once every 2 days, and I know some of you do more than that, it means that it could be 4 years until you next attend one that helps you do anything other than catch a few minutes sleep. Bloody hell. Why is it so? And it’s not just me, I’ve checked with hundreds of friends and clients at many European and US companies, it’s the same there too.

Bullshit Bingo

Have you come across it? It’s the fastest growing participation sport in corporate life. It just needs a place in which to do it, an audience, as many players as you can muster, a few minutes’ preparation and a victim. The game is a product of boredom, cynicism and powerlessness and comprises a strange mix of childish prank and indirect aggression.

Do you have the first idea of what I’m talking about? No? Well the chances are that if you have never played it you’ve been it’s innocent prey. I first came across it at the end of year lunch for the firm of consultants I’d just joined. I’d been asked to make a speech to my new colleagues, and had prepared a short, address to the whole staff before a boozy meal and taxi back to hearth and family for the Christmas holiday. As I approached the stage, I noticed a small fuss from the five, forty-something teenagers on the back row. They were sniggering to themselves and passing a piece of paper to one another, and I was genuinely interested to find out what was going on.
I asked them what they were doing and there was much shuffling, whispering and passing of papers back to the ring leader, who said, rather defensively, “Nothing!”. I persisted, sensing some kind of set-up.

“Please gents, what’s going on?” I asked again, the rest of the audience now fascinated, silent in anticipation…The ring-leader, Roger, Handed me a piece of paper rather sheepishly, and whispered, “Bullshit Bingo”. There was an awkward muttering and a few titters from the crowd and a confused nothing from me. I could smell trouble but I didn’t know what this “Bingo” thing was, so I asked Roger to explain. Pale, and in very public agony, he told me about this game that he’d spent time preparing, for him and his highly paid mates to play at my expense. And for your information “Bullshit”- or “buzz-word bingo”, for the easily shocked- is played as follows…

Any number of players pays a stake to enter the game. Each entrant is given a “bingo card” with a blank,16 square grid on it. In each of the squares the player writes a piece of jargon, a cliché or other trendy but meaningless phrase, that they think is likely to appear in the presentation they are to attend. Then the players simply sit and listen to the talk and wait for their predictions to appear.
When one of their chosen words or phrases is spoken, the player crosses it off their card, just like bingo. When they’ve crossed off all of their words, they’ve won. Then they must shout “Bingo”, loud enough for all of their fellow players to hear. The victor collects the winnings, usually, to be spent on champagne in the bar at lunch.

Stakes vary from industry to industry, though the highest pot-scoop I heard about was £5,500, (110 players at £5 per head) at an analysts briefing run by a Japanese investment bank in London in 2004. I was astounded and appalled. I’d never heard of “BB” before and the more I found out, the more incredulous I became. My impending speech was forgotten for a moment and Roger, thinking I was angry (I wasn’t) said, “It’s nothing personal Jim. We do it to everybody. Kevin, (the MD), got ‘bingoed’ in his first 3 minutes last year.”

Much laughter erupted around the room, but Kevin, who obviously didn’t know a thing about it either, just sat there red-faced and furious. Mind you, he is a truly terrible presenter, and we all know the truth hurts.

Now here’s the thing. I fancy myself as a good speaker and had been brought into the business to help the firm get better at just this kind of thing, so I had an idea. “What’s in the pot then?” I asked.
“Er, 320 quid” said Stuart, “16 (of the 30) people in the room at 20 pounds a pop.” Rogers’ sidekick in the game and a main-board colleague of mine. “OK, so if I agree to double the winnings if I lose, can I play against you?” I continued,

“If I make my speech as planned, and I say even one of those words on your sheets, I’ll double the pot. But if I go through the whole thing and no-one wins, I’ll take the money.” After a little bit of debate behind hands, the players agreed to the challenge, and off I went.

Even as I spoke, I was struck by the thought that this is in fact an awful and excellent pastime in equal measure. Pastime being the precise word, because it does, really help to have something interesting to think about when some M&S clad corporate clone is droning on about “visions and values, synergy and strategy” to the background of the dullest set of slides seen on stage.

The real issue here, is not the fact that some bored blokes, too scared to stand up for themselves, have invented such a game, but that they’ve done it because they’re sick of the same old “bullshit” they hear in corporate life. Can you really say that a part of you doesn’t agree with their sentiment? Have you never sat there during a slide show and secretly wished that the presenter would explode, or wet himself or do something to relieve the tedium? Why has Bullshit Bingo sprung up now?

Maybe it’s because as business becomes more global, we tend to find larger companies dominating, and some kind of international language of business takes over. The kind of language that sees nations, borders, traditions and culture as irrelevant to their operation and the people stuck in these “territories” as irrelevant too.

Maybe that’s it. The speeches mean nothing because we, the audience, are not seen as people with sense, feelings, education, families and other things to do, but as Human Resources. Things like every other business resource, to be bought, consumed and discarded. You don’t waste time and effort briefing your office building on a takeover, so why bother briefing the office staff?
But all of these companies have Human Resource Departments who have been trained to pretend that people need a little more maintenance than a building, who persuade their bosses that it might be a good idea to keep the Human Resource informed, so they set up “Employee Briefing” sessions.

In a recent survey, senior managers in over 50 of the UK’s top 250 businesses were asked to rate the value and effectiveness of the presentations they attend. Of the 2000 people that replied, over 80% of them felt that the presentations they attended were of “little to no value” to them in their working lives, and that 95% of them felt that the they could have learned more from a single page of A4 text on the same subject. What a disaster. .

So what should we Infer from the outbreak of Bullshit Bingo? In corporate terms, a speaker that uses concrete language might make the following point in the following way.

“We have made a £4 million loss this year. That is a very bad result and one that cannot be repeated next year or we will go bust.” A skilled bullshitter may say the same thing as follows.

“We have made negative £4 million profit this last reporting period. It’s a result that leaves us with a real challenge going forward.”

Abstract nouns include: Quality, Integrity, Trust, Faith, DNA (metaphorically), Hope, value-added and reliable. You get the picture, abstract nouns are the DNA of a bullshitter’s speech. The binding thread that holds an idea captive until it dies of boredom and the audience follows soon after. If you want to know how to stop BB in your Company, you can do one of 2 things- Ring me, or give the biggest bullshitter in your business this article…


Oh, and by the way, I lost! One rogue “vision” and £640 was gone from me forever.


Cheers

* What’s an abstract noun? Any word that describes a thing (noun) that needs further explanation before it makes any real sense. “Cat” is a noun, a concrete noun, that needs no further explaining before the audience can conjure up the image in their heads. Each of us may be thinking of a different type of cat, but that’s OK, we’re together in that we’re all thinking of CAT= Mammal/4 legs/Furry/Miaow etc.

Now an abstract noun is a little different. Abstract nouns describe things that exist only in the imagination, so you can’t touch, taste, smell, hear or see them. They need further explanation if they are to make any sense to us at all. Trust is an abstract noun, so is quality, honesty, integrity and synergy.