Advocating Intolerance

I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of speakers who appear to have no consideration for their audience's needs and expectations. Yesterday, I walked out of a presentation halfway through. I'd never done that before and I know that we are supposed to sit quietly, pretend that we're interested and clap enthusiastically when a speaker has finished, but I just can't do it anymore.

Here are the reasons I left early yesterday:

1. The entire event was something quite different than what had been advertised and was a disappointment itself.

2. The main speaker didn't even bother to create PowerPoint slides, but instead put up an Excel screen that most people couldn't decipher and proceeded to go through it point by point. No one knew why we were being subjected to all this information or what possible benefit knowing this data had for us.

3. One brave audience member suggested that we could be sent this Excel sheet and go through it on our own (i.e. please, skip this boring part and get on with what we came to hear!). This hint was ignored and the speaker plodded on through the numbers...

And, then I left. As I was leaving, I could see others looking on with envy and I felt a bit guilty. Should I have continued sitting until the end? My answer remains NO!

And, I think that no one should be forced to sit through a presentation that adds absolutely no value and is simply a waste of time. Of course, you can’t do this when the speaker is your boss, but if it’s a public event and especially one that charged a fee to get into, walk out and make sure the organizers know why you did.

What if we all voted with our feet this way? Would speakers begin to get the point and start making their presentations more audience-focused and beneficial for the listeners? I think so.

This situation calls for a revolutionary act that won’t make everyone happy but will begin to change the current state of presentations today.

Shall we start to be a little less tolerant as audience members? Yes. But, remember, that we are also speakers at times. This means we have the responsibility to create presentations that people don't want to walk out on in anger. We need to put everything we have into making presentations that people WANT to listen to. Let's do it!!

© 2009 Jeanne Trojan. All rights reserved