Event Management

At last, I met the Remarkable Ron Kaufman who writes, trains, speaks and consults on his area of expertise – customer service.  I heard a lot about him from my friends in Unilever but I never had the chance to be in one of his sessions during my time with the company.  Since 2002, I have always wanted to see him in action.  I wanted to experience his infusion of magic.  My dream became a reality yesterday at the Service Leadership Workshop.

Before I talk about his speaking skills which are remarkable, I would like to share with you this little story.  Before the event started, I approached Ron and told him: Ron, I have been waiting for years to meet with you.  I am so excited to be here.  Ron surprised me by saying:  “Come here, let me give you a hug!” Then he added: “Why don’t we take a picture together.” And sure we did.  And here is one of the pictures we took after the event ended.

Now, I’m not telling you this little story for the sake of showing you the picture but rather I wanted to show you how Ron hit many birds with one hug!  First, he established a connection with me when he knew about my desire to meet with him for a long time.  Second, I am sure the delegates who saw the hug were surprised too.  They must have thought: “This speaker is hugging people; we have never seen anyone do this before.  What else would he do today?”  Thirdly, he demonstrated to us he is a speaker who can add value by simply having a small encounter with you.  We took the pictures using my friend’s iPhone.  The moment, we finished taking the pictures, he shared with us two quick tricks.   We thought: This is great, what could we learn from him during the day!

Then, I was disappointed.  Ron began his workshop by saying: “Good morning.”  I thought this cannot be happening.  How can you start with good morning!  You should start with a big bang.    You should capture our attention.  In his language, that was criminal.  In a few seconds, I was relieved because he added: “This is not the official opening.  I would like to introduce my introducer because the introducer often goes without any recognition or appreciation for their hard work.”  Like everyone else, I was taken by surprise.  This was the first time I witness the speaker introducing his or her introducer.  This was different and created a high level of energy among the hundreds of delegates attending the workshop.

When Ron took center stage officially, he shared with us his passion of creating a world where everyone is educated and inspired to excel in service.  His passion about the subject was clear during the entire workshop.  This has validated my belief of speaking about subjects that I am passionate about.  If you speak, speak with passion or else you will not add value to your audience because it will be clear through your voice tone, body language and your level of energy.  If it is boring for you, it will bore them too!

An expert speaker like Ron knows how the different seating arrangements impact the audience. Since he was planning to sprinkle the hall with high energy and excitement; he managed to move the audience to the empty seats in a clever manner unlike other speakers who would order or beg the audience to move to the front.  Here is what he did.  He asked the audience few questions about traveling by airplanes and then he asked them:  If you are traveling on economy class and you are offered an upgrade to business class, would you accept the offer?  The audience shouted: Yes.  This is when he retorted: Great.  Come forward we have empty business class seats.  The audience laughed and moved forward to occupy the empty seats.

Ron had the audience move forward not only managing the energy levels but also to accomplish something else.  He wanted to fill the seats because he was planning to have the audience discuss and reflect on his questions and case studies in groups of two or three at most.  These brief discussions kept us engaged and excited during the entire workshop.  He provided us with ample opportunities to exchange ideas and to make notes for our future use and reference.

I could go on indefinitely writing about Remarkable Ron; perhaps about his fascinating stories, fabulous impersonations of his stories’ characters, his crazy gestures, body language or voice tone.  However, I will write about the one thing most speakers forget when they speak: Connecting with the audience.  During the workshop, one delegate went on the stage and presented Ron with a Bahrain flag pin and asked him if he could wear it.  Ron pinned it to his suit without any hesitation and commented: “Now, I feel I am more connected to you.”  The audience clapped profusely.  Ron you will forever be remembered by the delegates because you were unbelievably Remarkable.

Last time, I introduced you to Dynamic Dave.  This time, I want you to meet Poor Peter.  When I wrote about Dave, I wanted to share with you some tips about becoming a good speaker.  This time, I am sharing with you some bad speaking habits to avoid especially when you use slides for your talks.  But before doing so, please allow me to thank Poor Peter for inspiring me to write this article.  Thank you so very much Peter, you made my day!

Peter started his presentation poorly.  When he was introduced to us, he immediately went to his laptop to project the slides but the projector would not work.  He struggled with it trying to make it work.  He was tracing the cables and the power switches to make sure all were in order.  The audience started chatting with each other.  He lost an opportunity to capture the audience attention. Peter could have avoided this awkward situation by checking the equipments in advance.

Once the slides were up and running, Peter struggled with the slide clicker.  He was going back and forth with his slides.  Again, he should have tried using the clicker in advance.  Personally, whenever I speak, I always take my own clickers.  Yes, clickers.  I always carry two clickers with me just in case one of them fails to function properly and as a precautionary measure, I always take spare batteries with me.

He then committed the speakers’ biggest unforgivable sin when it comes to using slides.  Peter was reading from his slides.  He forgot an important fact about using slides; they are visual aids not notes to read from.  By doing this, he missed an opportunity to connect with the audience through his eye contact.  In addition, he sent a wrong signal to the audience, in a way, he told us: “I’m not fully prepared that’s why I’m reading.”  Finally, why didn’t you send us your slides to read in our homes or offices at our own convenience instead of boring us to death!

Let’s talk about Peter’s slides.  His slides were cluttered with text and pictures.  For example, in one slide he had four pictures on the left side while having one full paragraph and five bullet points on the right side.  What a way to confuse the audience!  Think about this analogy for a moment.  What happens when you present too many toys to a child? He or she gets confused on which toy to pick.  However, if you present one toy to a child, chances are he or she will focus on that toy only.  As a speaker; you should make your slides simple to help the audience in focus on your ideas and thoughts.

Now, allow me to share with you few more mistakes Peter committed in his slides.  Firstly, his text font size was inconsistent.  In some slides, the font size was big while in others it was small.  This is not a good practice.  Secondly, the pictures colors were poorly chosen and the lighting level in the hall complicated this matter further.  All the pictures seemed to be in black and white; they did not add vitality to his slides.  He should have asked the event organizers on the lighting levels of the hall and whether they are adjustable to support the visibility of the slides.

Finally, at many times Peter stood between the audience and the projection screen.  If you are projecting your slides, why you are not allowing us to see them!  As a speaker, you should always think about how to use the stage effectively.  If your slides are in English, it is better to keep the projection screen on your left side while are you facing the audience because this will make it easy for them to watch you when you speak and then shift their attention to the slides when required.  If your slides are in Arabic, stand on the right side.

Whenever you plan to use slides, think about your speaking situation.  Answer this basic question: Do you really need slides to support the ideas you are trying to communicate to the audience?  If not, leave them out and save yourself all the hassles associated with slides.  However, if you think that you should use slides because they will support you in speaking to the minds, hearts and the funny bones of the audience, plan their use carefully and never be like Poor Peter!

The place smelled like money; the company must have spent at least USD 500,000 on the event.  This amount is peanuts for the billionaire investor who has investments in all major business centers of the world from New York to London and Tokyo.

The place was so well decorated; I thought I was walking in one of the internationally famous galleries.  The gorgeous servants were wearing very short and tight skirts along with high heels.  They were as busy as bees serving the VIPs.  In the right side of this commodious reception hall, there was an old man playing a strange musical instrument, it looked like an enlarged guitar but sounded very disturbing.  I felt like a stranger because I did not meet anyone I know and these VIPs were busy talking to each others, perhaps striking lucrative business deals.  Few minutes, I was lucky to meet some of my business contacts and few friends.

The organizers called us to enter one of the halls of Bahrain RitzCarlton Hotel to begin the official launch ceremony.  It was on the eve of 1 February 2011 around 8 o’clock.  We sat comfortably on one of the round tables.  Without waiting for the organizers permission; we attacked the samboosa, spring rolls and the cheddar cheese cubes on our table.  We were so hungry!

The Master of the Ceremony tapped the microphone to check whether it was on or not and then began by opening in the usual way: Your Excellencies, Your Highness, Dignitaries and our most welcome guests: Good evening.  I thought this was very boring and expected.  This well-known TV news anchor lost an opportunity to make an impact on the audience by having a better and stronger opening.  She then continued with her prepared remarks and introduced the different segments and speakers of the event.  She was very formal and dull.  She did not smile at all.  I thought we were supposed to be happy and jolly because a new company is born.  But instead I felt I was in a funeral.

Unfortunately, the pain and suffering continued.  All the speakers she introduced lacked the basic skills of public speaking and had common areas of improvement to shape up their speaking abilities.

For example, the first speaker did not start with an attention grabbing opening, instead he had the same boring opening of the MC.  He almost put us to sleep because he spoke in monotone voice.  He would definitely be a good babysitter.  In addition, he had zero eye contact with the audience because he was reading his remarks from his notes.  I did not connect with him at all; he did not use stories to engage us.  I thought: Please tell us about your vision for the company, share with us your dreams for it, tell us how all this started, and take us with you in a journey.  He was pouring facts and figures that did not make any sense to me because he did not put them in perspective. His speech was verbose.  Five of the six people on my table started typing and fiddling with their Blackberries and iPhones.  I even overheard someone telling another: “Can you believe it, we are in the RitzCarlton and we do not have a 3G network!” When he finished everyone was clapping for him, instead I grabbed another spring roll.

I remained in the hall observing the speakers and making mental notes about their performance while I was indulging myself in the starters available on the table.  What would you do if you were in my place? Stay or leave?  I decided to leave the event because I was so bored but then I decided to stay few more minutes because they started a fantastic laser show.  It was so colorful.  The two performers were magnificent.  They knew their routines, they perfected their choreography and they were so entertaining.  The audience clapped for them several times during their show. What a change from the powerless speakers who did not prepare very well and did not make us listen to them.  When the show finished, I left the hall to go home.

Do you think it would be a good idea for those speakers to join Toastmasters International to enhance their public speaking skills? You bet.  On the other hand, if these executives are too busy to attend Toastmasters meeting regularly, they could have hired a speech coach to help them in crafting their speech messages and improve their speech delivery because the last thing you want as an event organizer is to have a powerful event but powerless speakers.