The secret of making your point in presentations 

Have you ever struggled explaining something you are passionate about to other people and even after you enthusiastically explain it you get nothing but a glazed eye stare back? Frustrating, isn’t it? The problem of people not understanding you is pervasive – especially in business. A big issue exists because we listen to respond and rarely listen to understand. The more prevalent problem is that your audience cannot make a personal connection to what you are trying to say. Bottom line is that you are wasting your time when you do not convey information in a way that your audience feels like will provide value.

A few years back I was invited on a radio show to tell the audience about my #triplebottomline management and sales philosophy style . We had become very successful and our employees as well as close business partners bough into this employee and customer solution centered management style.

I was so enthusiastic about it and yet….. it totally tanked.  Kristin Tews interviewed me on her Personal Best show and she tried really hard to coax the best result out of my on behalf of her listeners. I focused way to much on the details what I did. Instead I should have focused on the outcome for my team members and the customers. I overlooked HOW it impacted them for the better.

I failed the same way in an “Unconference” at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business school where I led a mini workshop on the Triple Bottom Line company management style. One of the attending professors called what I presented to them “Utopian”. He proclaimed that no workplace could function like that be successful; “that is an utter theoretical exercise”. Well, “welcome to Utopia” I thought to myself as I knew that not only was it possible to lead a business this way, but we had been tremendously successful.

Where had I failed. I pondered this for a good old while and finally sunk in to me. The common point of failure was that I had ignored how the audience would be impacted with what I shared.

For example, if the audience had strictly been C level business leaders, I should have provided an overview about what kind of cost such an initiative would incur and what measurable benefit would come out of it.

As of late I learned my lesson and I learned it well. Now I dedicate time and slide space to how collaboration leads to a greater team member engagement and how that is measured on the SINGLE bottom line. Yes, the subjective employee engagement can be measured in form of revenue per employee, EBITA per employee, count of non-conformities, number of corrective actions, etc. Now I have the attention of the key business leaders and I can finally go over explaining the details of how to implement collaborative triple bottom line management. Now I provide a reason WHY they are better off paying attention to my presentation.

Bottom line (no pun intended) is that if you want to impact your audience (your listeners) then you had better understand what their key motivators are. Only when you speak to how your audience will be impacted with what your are speaking about will they take action.

Ralf