Perfect or Perfectly Boring: There's a Better Way

Perfection causes stress. Stress is toxic. For that reason alone, trying to attain perfection in your presentation is self-defeating from the outset. Let go of it now. 

The human ability to sense another's nervous discomfort is not only exceedingly keen--it is contagious and stretches an audience's tension level like a taut rubber band.

If no perfection, what do people look for  during a "presentation?"

Connection and  engagement that allows them to experience the meaning useful information. The first two require humanity, which includes a degree of imperfection and vulnerability that prompts listeners to think, "Hey, (s)he's kind of like me!"

We want real people because we've come to understand that emotionless, perfection-emitting talking heads aren't connected  with our reality. When we sit through a flawless data dump of any sort--financial, research, engineering--we wonder why the speaker didn't simply send us a White Paper and call it a day.

Where Does The Perfection Thing Come From?

Let's be fair. If you are educated in the sciences, finance, or engineering, your college grades and professional performance appraisals relate directly to your ability to be precise. In fact, you are valued and rewarded  for precision. Discovery research, accounting and financial projections, aerospace engineering and quality control of all sorts contribute to the growth, safety, and stability of every aspect of life. 

So, it's only natural for many to extend that kind of well-rewarded precision and analysis to the  speaking platform. The problem? Lengthy, detailed, here's-everything-I-know-about-this-topic presentations that bore instead of score. 

But perfection isn't limited to the precise. It extends to an entire range of psyches seeking to avoid embarrassment, be seen as "the best", or believing that anything less than perfect will be punished. The causes for that kind of thinking are numerous and varied but the results are the same: unhealthy stress that touches everyone involved. 

OK, Steve, What's the Solution?

Find out what the person or audience wants to know about your topic.  Make a few phone calls, drop into a cubicle or two, and say: "I've been charged with talking about The Widget Launch. What do you need to know?"

1. Your audience will give you the content.

2. You'll feel confident about being on target because you'll know you are fulfilling an already-expressed need.

3. The "presentation" will feel like the continuation of a conversation instead of a stand-up routine.

4. Those in the room will start off on your side because you've already developed a relationship with them. 

5. "Perfect" loses its power when "meeting needs" replaces "knowing it all."

Let me know how it goes. . .

Comments

[peter vajda]

An incredibly insightful nugget, Steve, "You can't be perfect and real at the same time."

This incredibly self-limiting and self-destructive "trying" and efforting to be real is the cause of most people's inner turmoil. If our parents wanted us to be perfect to prove they were good and decent parents, then we most likely experience difficulty being "real" and authentic in our relationships, and that includes being real in front of groups. The more we try to be perfect, the less we are real.

Many of us were punished, ridiculed, shamed or ignored as children when we were our authentic selves, when we were real, alive, juicy, etc. As a result we learned to "shut down" to be safe and to be "liked", to be "good little boys and girls". So, in front of groups (our "family", from a psycho-emotional perspective"), we have a tendency to shut down, to not be real, feaful of criticism and judgment of these others. And, thus, we need to be perfect and use all the tools techniques and devices you spoke about earlier to shore oursleves up to be perfect, "trying to be real and authentic" but not succeeding.

Understanding this psychodynamic can go a long way to help us heal the wounding of childhood and allow our True and REAL self to arise...even in front of groups.

[Wally Bock]

Now you've gone and done it, Roesler. Asking your audience members what they want to know and then building your program around it is one of the great secrets of professional speaking. Yup. Ask 'em what to tell 'em. Then, tell 'em. It's great. The program hits the bullseye and it's way, way easier than guessing.

[Mile High Pixie]

This is the part of presentations that as an underling I really want to know but am not in charge of finding out. Potential clients often send us a description of what the presentation should touch on or include, but to me there's always something they're not writing down on that form letter they send all the architectural firms. There's a "Factor X" that they're looking for and want to know. And calling and talking through the bullet-point list is invaluable helps us find what Factor X is. And I don't know if anyone at my firm is doing that.

[Lisa Gates]

Steve, you/we had a conversation on your blog a while back about management by curiosity. Using open ended questions, not having pre-digested outcomes. I'm waaaaaay paraphrasing. I think good presentations involve the audience in the same way. I can have all the info, knowledge and learning objectives and outcomes and yadee wazoo, but if I engage the participants by turning information into queries, people actually invest in you, trust you, and learn, bottom line. You can take the same 90-minute talk full of slides and statistics and grueling bullet point descriptions and hand it over to the participants as a guided discussion--and they will walk away invested.

We are way too smart for tell em whatcher gonna tell em, tellem, and tellem whatchya told em.

2 cents, as always

[Steve Roesler]

Peter,

Thanks for adding some of the underlying issues.

I've concluded that when I catch myself "trying" too hard--at just about anything--there's something else going on. In fact, "trying" is a signal to stop action, chill out, and wait until the activity takes a more natural course or not do it at all.

[Steve Roesler]

Wally,

Yeah, isn't it fascinating how the obvious can lighten one's load and bump up the game? I'm still dumbfounded when people refuse to simply ask because they want to appear "in control." Of course, the presentations are often out of control and off the mark as a result.

[Steve Roesler]

MHP:

I hear you.

By submitting some bullet points about what they want, they've opened the door to a phone call and further inquiry. It doesn't get any better than that.

Time to get someone on the case!

[Steve Roesler]

Lisa,

Well, the issue then goes full cycle to the act of talking with participants before the event. Not only will you be able to edit accordingly but you'll be on target with the kind of process questions and small group discussions that will bump up the game exponentially.

I figure that 90% of a good presentation/meeting/discussion is about diagnostics and design. Once everyone shows up, you're simply finishing the work.