Wakey wakey!

In order to ensure that your audience really is engaged with your presentation, it can be interesting to lead them up the garden path - with sage nodding all the way along - until the punchline.

I was doing a talk for a bunch of management consultants a while back, rapping on about how self-defeating their clients can sometimes be (nod, nod) and how the market frequently has blinkers on (nod, nod) and that all the major corporates seem to be stuck in short-term-thinking mode these days (nod, nod).

And then I mentioned that I had come across an organisation that seemed to be making great strides in their field and furthermore, seemed to have broken out of this mould (some shifting in chairs, who could this be?). I was VERY careful not to say that I had worked with these guys - which I haven't - for reasons that will become clear.

I pointed out that one of the plusses this organisation had working in its favour was a sharply-defined goal (nod, nod) that they were working towards in a very strategic, long-term way (nod, nod - and the occasional whisper - "I bet it's so-and-so"). I mentioned that one of this organisation's biggest strengths was that the entire team really were working coherently together - no politics, no personal agendas, no internecine bullsh*t (nod, nod - "harumph, sounds bloody maaarvellous!").

I noted that they had conquered the age-old problem of what Andy Lester calls 'Bus-Sensitive Knowledge.' So, if a key player in this organisation gets hit by a bus, the strategic goal of the organisation will not be compromised. To this end, they are truly and superbly decentralised (nod, nod, much muttering - "Who could it beeee?") with a high degree of empowerment cascaded down onto willing subordinates.

And finally, I talked about the tremendous level of loyalty and employee engagement that this organisation engendered in its people and how there was a real sense of pride, commitment and ownership evident in all of its personnel, from the CEO down to the data entry people (vigorous nodding at all of these buzzwords).

Next, I boldly stated that I doubted that anyone in the room (and all the Big 4 consultancy houses were represented) had worked with this organisation and idly wondered if anyone would care to hazard a guess who they were or even what industry they were in. There were lots of jocular suggestions from my (by now, wide-awake) audience, none of them accurate.

I then put up a slide of the CEO of the organisation. There was a sharp intake of breath and then ... a whole lot of nodding. Don't get me wrong. No-one in the room (including me, especially me) expressed any admiration for their methods or their goals. But as objective observers, everyone in the room could see how scarily effective their 'business model' is.

I've since had conversations with a number of the participants who have presented the model to their clients as a thought-provoker when looking at restructuring and re-engineering models. Some of them have said to me, "I'm appalled that I find myself agreeing with you, but your point was irrefutable. I HATE what they are doing and how they are doing it, however you can't help but admire they way they have organised themselves and gone about their objectives."

Aaron Sorkin wrote a great line in The American President where Michael Douglas, in full flow, says: "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

I reckon that any idiot can win an argument when he's right; the fun in public speaking is in getting people to agree with something in spite of themselves or at the very least, waking them up along the way ...