Top meeting frustration? Keep motormouths idle (print subscription required). Boston Business Journal reports Opinion Research USA’s findings about what makes meetings suck:

1. disorganized, rambling meetings
2. interruptions
3. cell phones
   

BBJ readers express peeves from motormouths to disorganized meeting leaders, all amounting to “wasted time”.

Every word you speak in a meeting is a presentation. The art is to filter well. The long list called “what you know” must become the concise and effective short list called “what they need to know.” Be confident and organized.

Of course the meeting’s leader is most on the spot. As leader, get sharp about your objectives and your audience. Prepare thoroughly and steer the meeting according to well-defined objectives. I don’t mean be a control freak. Even a wide-open brainstorming session has objectives. If a meeting must occur, it has at least one objective to be satisfied. Get to it and move on. A BBJ reader points out:

“If the meeting was important enough for a bosses(sic) to schedule, then it should be important enough for them to take the time to be prepared.”

Meetings are truly little clusters of presentations. The most presentations you will ever make are most likely the ones you make in everyday meetings. Organize your thoughts before you speak, and listen carefully. Like most presentations, the part most often missed is the “return path” of listening well. Use your next meeting to practice better listening, and as you do, think about how to apply better listening to better presenting in many realms.

Read this blog and you’ll see a lot about audience + objective = message, what that means, and why it’s important for ALL presentations (from an outgoing voice message to a giant keynote).

This post is about what that focus on the audience doesn’t mean.

Putting the audience “first” is not pandering. You’re not up there to please, make them like you, or even, necessarily, make them want the kool-aid you’re selling. It’s not a popularity contest. You don’t even need their approval. You need their response.

When you factor the audience into your planning, you do it strategically and you factor it together with your objective. The two play off each other and that’s what determines your message (and your approach). Yes, you look at who the audience is, what their needs and wants are, etc., but then you apply that knowledge to your goal.

Sometimes you want the audience to agree with you and repeat your ideas to others. Sometimes you want the audience to disagree with you and churn up a good debate about it. Sometimes you want them to be convinced by what you say, and others you need them to play off you and take it in a new direction.

Presenting with the audience always in mind is not about giving them “what they want,” it’s about reaching them where they are in order to bring them towards your objective. You’re showing character, not compliance.

How’s it work in practice?

Professional speakers are notorious for pride in their “audience feedback ratings”. Hint: they don’t matter. When I’m paid to speak, my job is NOT to get high feedback ratings. My job is to help whomever hired me accomplish what they hired me for, because the person who hired me is the real audience and my business objective is happy clients and referrals.

When I teach a seminar, I love building a close relationship with the participants, and hold my “audience” in high regard. But I’m not playing to the audience hoping they will end the day “really loving” the seminar they took, (or even agreeing with everything I said). My objective is for them to end up better at their jobs because they’ve become more effective presenters.

Incorporate the audience into planning your message, but remember you’re trying to give a presentation that kicks ___, not merely trying to kiss the audience’s ___.

Ben Casnocha book excerpt on your personal brand:

I once spent two hours strategizing with my friend Tim over my one-minute introduction at a big meeting. We analyzed what I wanted to communicate, the dynamics of the room, the needs of the other people, and so forth. Tim and I knew this one minute would be the first time many of the people

Good training should focus on achieving results, often by personalizing the instruction. The training should ideally not end until business objectives are met. Since I teach presenting, for me this includes the objectives students need to go on to achieve with subsequent presentations. I don’t teach set programs by rote and I don’t teach to “rules of thumb.” I encourage clients to see training as a project, with “student” preparation before and mentoring after the actual training.

You can make it through the curricula, have each aspect understood and even mastered, and still not make substantive change in on-the-job performance. I believe trainers should consult to identify client needs and then apply their expertise, experience and talents to substantially re-shape client performance.

Many trainings lean heavily on hackneyed, tactical rules of thumb (again, in my world, things like slides per minute, words per line, font size, “platform skills” such as gestures, and “one size fits all” rules like never say “um”). While each tactic has its use, training is not a “one size fits all” sport.

It’s also a big mistake to treat what you are training (presentation skills, management theory, your discipline here) as the end product. Repeat after me, “what I am training is always just a tool to achieve a specific business result.” Here’s how this plays out in my work:

I teach clients to see their business presentations strategically. I develop two core abilities: how to work from the audience and the business objective/s to craft the message, and how to find individualized ways to prepare and present. I actually teach how to stop “presenting” and start engaging with their audiences. Most of all I exhort clients to know what they want the audience to do as a result of the presentation. If the presenter doesn’t know, the audience certainly won’t.

I challenge you to make your own training work more effective. Can you set aside your training “tactics” long enough to consult with your clients and keep a tight focus on what they (strategically) need to achieve?

The Art Of Not Pitching Yes. what he said.

…

As a wise man (wise guy?) pointed out to me “no one buys from any pitches at all”.

YES.

But… Ineffective presentations, speeches and other pitches waste everyone’s time, slow things down and block opportunities. You don’t need to be “good” at presenting, you need to accomplish business objectives. Don’t get wrapped up in having to do a presentation. Don’t even get wrapped up in wanting to do the presentation “well”. Just get to the point by moving business forward. Speaking “well” is NOT your objective. Achieving value is.

Presenting is as presenting does. (and yes, haters of PowerPoint, PPT is as PPT does)

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Great presentation of the day: Jim Valvano at the 1993 ESPY awards (tip of the hat to Ben Casnocha)
What do you think his objectives were? I know I came away with powerful, emotional ideas on the importance of time and a desire to help Cancer charities.

Witness the power these 9 minutes have over time and space, to influence us 14 years later. Why? Because this person said these things at this time to this audience. He OWNED why he was there, what he needed to accomplish and what he wanted to say. He also knew exactly which rules he wanted to break and why - how much more memorable his spirit (you think i’m afraid of 30 seconds?) made it.

How many meetings consist mostly of lengthy (or if you’re really unlucky, multiple lengthy) presentations that end with mere summary points and the great relief of the audience, who then dashes for the door?

For gods’ sakes, why? Your presentation is a LEAD-IN to an effective meeting. End by jump-starting one.

The more important the meeting, the shorter your presentation should probably be. Tell them what they want and need to know up front, and then stimulate the discussion (and steer its trajectory) that needs to follow it in order to accomplish your business objectives.

When the presenter asks “how much time do I have?” and proceeds to construct a PowerPoint to fill every last minute allotted, (and probably a few more) everyone’s time is wasted. It is pretty thoroughly proven that people do not absorb new ideas just by listening or watching. To internalize ideas, they must get involved, ask questions, articulate them to others, debate them.

Remember:

• Define what you need the audience to DO, and then get them started doing it.
• Figure out what you need the audience to understand, retain and repeat from your presentation.