I’m a bit of a traditionalist (in some areas of my life at least). The main ways in which that really manifests tend to be to do with Christmas – but there are other ways. One of them is how I start training sessions… it’s more often than not with a round robin of who they are why they’re here what they want from the day.
You know the kind of thing, I’m sure.
Obviously it’s different for large groups but I find that works really well with smaller ones. Yesterday, like many, many other days, I did this and made a note of what the people in the room (nominated by their line managers) actually wanted (rather than what their bosses and the paperwork said they wanted). Each and every one of them told me they wanted to know “How do I do X, Y or Z?”. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, except that it shows a remarkable passivity in terms of what’s what.
No one asked me (literally no one!) “How does my audience….?. It’s not surprising, given that these are people who (almost by definition, as they want some training) are anxious about their abilities to stand up in front of an audience.
But it is just a bit sad.
It’s sad because it shows very effectively, the mindset of novice/nieve/amateur presenters. As soon as you think about it, of course, it’s not like that – or at least it shouldn’t be.
It shouldn’t be about you, the presenter, it should be about the audience. I got asked things like “How do I design a slide to tell my audience X, Y Z?” but a better questions should have been things like “How does my audience best understand X, Y, Z on a slide?”
It’s almost the same thing, it’s almost the same question… it’s just a different mentality and perspective.
