Presenting for Results!®

Most People speaking in corporate roles are “Presenting to get through it.” “Presenting to get it over with!” “Presenting to Not Fail!” “Presenting to Check a Box in a Matrix!” Few people are Presenting for Results!®

— J. R. St. John (1952 – 2018), Chairman and Founder, The Fusion Group

Define “Results!”

Everyone who “stands to speak” (even those of you who present while sitting down) achieves a result.  Let’s give a little credit here.  Yet though they are to be commended for conquering their fears, they perhaps have further to go.  After all, “merely living through an experience” is not to be equated with “Triumph!”

In school, we got “assignments by the pound or the page”: “Write a five-page paper!  Deliver a five-minute presentation!”

Unfortunately, what passes for achievement in a learning environment just doesn’t cut it in corporate life — here, we are graded on whether or not something takes place! *

*(Although you would not think so to witness the pitch team bringing in the “Holy Response to Proposal” on a dolly with a hydraulic lift to the conference table, intoning “Let us now turn to the appendix and contemplate the wonder of the Portfolio Holdings…”)

In corporate life, being smart is the price of admission.

But to be accorded high praise, you need to make something happen! So, when you engage a group of people to come to a room at the appointed hour for a presentation, it’s not enough to look good, sound good, be intelligent, funny, or insightful. You need to have thought through the process to the outcome — and the Next Step.

You only win when they take that step!

Subscribe to our Newsletter