La Resistance

La Résistance happens. While it’s true that all people are different, there are similarities. We all think in a finite number of ways and thus speak in a finite number of patterns. We just don’t know how many. But, there are quite a few that we do know. But, you may not know all of the known patterns. Join the club.

If you find you are not getting your message through to your audience, celebrate! This is where the opportunity is.

Give me a list of of messages where you hear your audience resisting. And I’ll show you a finite list of patterns threaded through them. e.g. courtesy of Lisa Braithwaite’s Hitting a brick wall with resistant clients.

“We have to brand every slide with our logo, in case a client or someone from another company uses one of our slides out of context.”

“We have to brand every slide with our logo because the audience doesn’t know our company very well.”

“We have to do slides full of text and bullets because our clients don’t take our presentations seriously without it.”

“We have to do slides full of text and bullets because we have no time to do a report as well as slides.” (To which I reply, “Waah waah waah. Nobody has time. That’s not an excuse.”)

“We have to give our slides as handouts, because the conference requires it.”

“We have to make our slides fit this format because we give it to another department afterward who won’t understand if we change it.”

OK, now, having read through and found the common thread, you’ll notice an emerging pattern. 1. 6 of the 6 have to do with something causing another something to happen. 2. 6 of 6 have to do with a locus of control outside of themselves. 3. 5 of the 6 have to do with negative consequences of doing PowerPoint properly (applies equally to skills other than PowerPoint)

It’s easy to say, “all objections involve these three objections.” But they don’t.

It’s easy to say, “How does just knowing this help me?” It doesn’t - and notice what I’m doing here. I’m inoculating. I have done this before and it works. If you know what the objections are, then inoculate them. If you’re fortunate enough to speak to their group before speaking to them individually, weave the inoculations throughout your speech.

Inoculating is like sending a costume party invite. There’s a lot of pressure to be there with them and do something different, even if you’re not accustomed to it.

In the case of the PowerPoint, bring these objections up, but never without a corresponding rebuttal ( in story whenever possible) focused around causing things to happen, proactively, that take advantage of known best practices that get them the end result faster and easier. And, be sure to include the negative consequences of continuing to not do PowerPoint, properly.

Don’t resist. Just do it.

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If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. -Tony Robbins #isocolon catch Tony here

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

Photo Credit: By Felix42 contra la censura Rachel Cobcroft on Flickr