I remember two presentations that made me cringe.
First One:
A speaker gave a pretty good presentation, during the Q&A there were a couple of general questions, and then the room went quiet.
Disturbed by this the speaker said “So everyone understands everything I’ve just said?
Raise your hand if you understand everything I’ve just said”.
Everyone looked around at each other and slowly all the hands in the room went up.
I can guarantee everyone did not understand what had been said, but they felt very intimidated and just put their hands up anyway.
Who would want to continue to communicate with someone who was being openly passive-aggressive?
To this day I don’t understand what motivated that person to destroy all the good work they had done by ending it in such a negative way.
Second One:
A guest speaker was invited to speak to an audience of young students, but couldn’t keep them engaged.
As students do, they started to look at their phones.
In frustration, the speaker slammed their fists on the table as a way of shocking them into paying attention.
The students’ bodies release adrenalin and cortisol engaging the fight, flight, freeze, or faint response.
They turn their bodies side on in a self-protective posture and buried themselves deeper into their phones.
In both of these cases it appeared that the speakers had become temporarily possessed.
Their intentions may have been passionate, however their behaviour showed something very different.
I only wish I could have videoed them both and been able replay the audiences reaction to their behaviour.
I would have asked them what they were wanting to achieve and how they could have got the outcome they wanted through a different approach.
If you’re finding yourself more possessed than passionate then maybe someone on one coaching is the exorcism your looking for
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