- Anna, I am pretty smart guy you know, you do not need to speak to me as a child.
Our head of controlling smiled when he said this to me during one of my presentations to him and our head of supply chain a few years ago.
It hasn’t always been like that, but I have developed a habit of speaking in very basic terms when I hold presentations.
I use as simple words as I can think of, I strip away all the unnecessary fluff and only keep the core. I highlight the background and the purpose and I always imagine that my audience knows close to nothing about what I am talking about.
Which is normally about how to practically implement sustainability activities in a supply chain.
But as I said, it wasn’t always like that.
I used to be shy to hold presentations and I wanted to get them over with as soon as possible. I also had this annoying habit of thinking that my audience knew so much more than what I did, so I did not need to go into the background or the reasoning, it would just bore them.
I learned the hard way that that is a recipe for losing the audience, not getting the needed buy in and budget, and wasting people’s time rather than bringing them value.
Today, I am a changed person and sometimes I apparently take it too far, but I rather over explain any day of the week than under explain and lose my audience doing it.
What is your trick to get your message through effectively? Let me hear it in the comments below. 👇👇
