Through the Firewall and Beyond
A firewall is a network device that protects a private network from public network attacks. Everybody in the audience, including the presenter, has their own psychological firewalls created by their minds.
Where Did the Firewall Come From?
We can draw an instructive analogy from dinosaurs. When a dinosaur woke up in the morning and looked out over the Jurassic plain, it might have seen either dinosaurs that were larger than itself or dinosaurs that were smaller. If it saw a dinosaur that was larger, its reptilian brain would tell it to turn around and run away. If it saw a smaller dinosaur, its brain would tell it to attack and have breakfast. Therefore, one of the primary design functions of the reptilian brain comes down to one word: survival.
Millions of years later, our brains have evolved. The human brain now has three parts: an outer cortex, a mid-brain, and a reptilian brain, which to this very day is still concerned about survival and the survival of whatever it considers itself to be. Understanding the it in whatever it considers itself to be is critical if you ever want to escape from the prison of your mind and experience life on the other side of the firewall.
In using the pronoun it, I am referring to psychological concepts such as I, me, mind, ego, my story, myself, my interpretation, my beliefs, my database of thoughts, my point of view, my little story of me, etc.
When you are born, your database of knowledge is empty. Thereafter, life becomes a conditioning process of filling your database with thoughts, education, and experiences. The thoughts and experiences you have depend on the environment into which you are born and the life experiences to which you are exposed.
As a child, your awareness of this conditioning process is negligible and you really have little if any choice about what is being programmed into your database. For example, you are told your name, family, nationality, religion, tribe, sex, etc. You agree with these labels automatically. And, once you agree, they become the things you consider yourself to be. They become the I, the me, the ego, the mind.
You are also programmed with a language, which are the word symbols or protocols your culture uses to communicate. For example, you asked your mother, “What is that?” and she said, “A tree.” And now, for the rest of your life, when you see an object that has a trunk and leaves, you know it’s a tree. It cannot show up in your conditioned conceptual reality as anything other than a tree.
The word Tree is a mental label you place on an event that gives you the illusion of knowledge. As soon as you create the mental label it reduces the possibility of the event showing up as anything other than the label you put on it and traps you in a prison of “knowing.” However, being able to observe the part of you that automatically generates the label you place on every event in your life creates a space that leads you to a state of presence or stillness. Stillness could be defined as awareness without thought. In aware presence you don’t automatically label each event in your life and therefore, everything you see is a mystery.
I suggest you change the labeling of your life events in this way: “We call that a tree,” “We call that the sun,” “We call you a woman,” etc. By shifting your language, you move from being trapped in an is world to living in a world of mystery, openness, and possibility.
Einstein acknowledged this by saying that the knowledge we have accumulated so far is insufficient to get us to the next level of awareness.
Growing up, you learn a variety of beliefs from your teachers, family, and direct experience, such as the following: The Earth is round, the Earth is the center of the universe, the Sun is the center of the universe, white people are bad, black people are good, communism is bad, socialism is good, democracy is great, and if you eat meat on Fridays, it is a sin.
What does this all mean to you?
As you evolve and become more conscious, you begin to distinguish your database of beliefs from the part of you that observes those beliefs. This is one of the most important distinctions you want to make in researching your own reality. All the spiritual teachers I have read and heard grapple with this concept of observer or witness. There is a separation between what you have identified yourself to be, which we call the I or me, and the observer of the I or me.
How this distinction works in my reality is that when an event occurs in my field of now, I automatically put a label on it based on my past conditioning and then I notice the label I put on that event. As soon as I notice the label, the power it had over me is reduced. It is as though a gap is created between the event and the labeling of the event. I also notice that the labels I put on events stir up thoughts, images, and physical and emotional reactions. The major benefit I experience from being able to observe this labeling process is that my physical, emotional, and mental body enters a state of relaxation and calm. Examples of this labeling/relaxation process occur all the time—a cigarette being lighted, traffic jams, flight delays, late people, bad weather, the slaughter of whales, winning business contracts, losing business contracts—the list of events goes on and on.
After a while, you begin to realize that you have been living your life in a state of unconsciousness or, as Eckhart Tolle would say, in a conditioned conceptual reality, programmed from birth, which you have unquestioningly believed to be the truth. It is not the truth—it is a truth. It is one possible interpretation, but it is not the only interpretation.
If you live your life believing that yours is the right interpretation, then you are saying that your reality is correct and everybody else’s reality is wrong. This is not a very satisfying strategy to use to play the game of life because your beliefs (i.e., truths) will end up conflicting with other people’s beliefs, which creates a state of disharmony for you.
How does this understanding of the I, me, mind, etc. affect your ability to be a successful IT presenter? The firewall is created by the I, me, mind to protect itself from harm. It views the audience as a threat to its survival, which reduces the quality and effectiveness of your throughput.
It has often been said that most people’s number one fear is not death but public speaking. What you often find in presenters is a deep psychological concern for safety and survival. These fears arise out of putting the I, the me, the little story of me, the ego, the mind, my database, my point of view, etc. on display in front of other people. Being on display makes one vulnerable to attack, ridicule, embarrassment, and psychological annihilation.
When asked to describe these fears and barriers, one often hears words such as “I will be embarrassed,” “I will look stupid,” “I will do something weird, strange, or odd,” “I will be nervous, anxious, go crazy, or lose control,” “I will die (ego),” “I will be uncomfortable,” “I will do something unnatural, which will not be me,” “I will look unprofessional, inappropriate, and be rejected.”
All these thoughts evolve from an underlying unconscious fear that if the I lets go of control, if the I lets go of its firewall, the I will be annihilated. And, in one sense, this is true. The I will be annihilated. And yet, as stated in The Way of Transformation, “It is only by exposing oneself over and over again to annihilation that the indestructible Being within each person can arise.” This is a wonderful quote that was given to me by one of my teachers, Werner Erhard, and I pass it on to you.
When you have the courage to risk being open, authentic, and vulnerable in front of the audience, you are given the key that releases you from the prison of your mind. What is on the other side of those prison walls? What is on the other side of your firewall? There, you’ll find the freedom from suppression and the freedom to express yourself fully with power, commitment, and clarity.
In taking this risk you are shifting from a 56k connection to a full-duplex, present-time, broadband connection to the audience. This is the direction to go in order to expand your ability to be an effective presenter in front of an IT audience.
The fear has its origin in what you suspect the audience will think about you when you are talking in front of the group. When you present a piece of data from your internal database, you are presenting a little piece of what you consider yourself to be. You worry, “Does the audience like me or does the audience not like me?” You care about what the audience thinks, which blocks the broadband flow of energy. Every time you speak, you wait for an echo to come back from the audience saying, “We still love you.”
This psychological consternation lasts until you eventually say to yourself, “I don’t care anymore about what the audience thinks about me.” When you don’t care anymore, you are no longer inhibited by the audience. You are free and move, as George Bernard Shaw said, from being “a feverish, selfish little clog of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy” to the broadband world of present time, love, and compassion.
The conversation inside your head now begins to shift from you to the purpose of the conversation, which is to be of service and make a contribution to the audience. When this breakthrough occurs, the firewall disappears and you go from a 56k dial-up connection to a broadband connection to the space in the room.
Now, your attention is focused on manifesting your intention in the space of the room. You no longer have to maintain the defenses of the firewall. All your CPU power is on offense, which then maximizes your ability to conduct the conversation in the room effectively.
The vast majority of people, when faced with the prospect of annihilation, never risk entering the arena of public speaking. They spend their entire career just watching the show rather than being the show. IT professionals cannot retreat to their chairs and watch the show. Their responsibility requires them to stand up and deliver presentations to the customers.
When IT presenters stand in front of the audience, they usually hide behind their firewalls. They are in Data Land and, when they deliver their communication, they are both verbally and physically invisible. The audience then gets to watch an unconscious, uncommitted, invisible data dumper. Anyone wonder why IT presentations are so ineffective?
There is an old joke about IT presentations: “What is the difference between an IT presentation and a funeral?” The answer is: “You know why you’re at the funeral.”
The psychological blocks and barriers common to IT presenters are unconscious. Unconscious means you are not aware of them or of the fact that they stop the flow of your power and limit your full self-expression. Through training, coaching, and exercises, you can become conscious of the barriers within yourself and release the power of your speaking.
My coaching goal is to free IT presenters from these psychological constraints and help them find the courage to face their fears. The old saying, “Face your fear and the death of fear is certain” makes sense to me.
In my own life, the psychological block that imprisoned me was the fear of rejection. The little voice inside my head said, “Alan, if you really reached out, opened up, and expressed yourself, people would realize that you are just a shy little boy from Bergen County, New Jersey.” This thought of exposure kept me trapped in the prison of my mind.
Then one day I was faced with an uncomfortable choice. I could either stay in the hellhole of my suffering or jump into the Zone of Annihilation. I made the choice to jump. And, in that moment, I escaped from the prison of my mind and experienced freedom for the first time in my life. Let me share that story with you.
It was in 1974. I was in a hotel ballroom with about 200 people taking a training course on public speaking and self-expression in San Francisco. Part of the training included standing up and taking a microphone and sharing yourself with the other trainees.
After you shared, people would acknowledge your effort by clapping. A great share, one that “moved the room,” would receive a robust applause; a so-so share would receive polite applause. Thus, you got immediate feedback about the quality of your sharing. And, for someone who had never publicly opened up and was concerned about rejection, it couldn’t get any more terrifying than this.
The program had been ongoing for six weeks and I hadn’t yet shared. It seemed just about everybody except me had shared. I felt an internal pressure to stand up and share myself. I told myself the next time the trainer asked if anyone wanted to share I was going to raise my hand. I remember preparing what I would say and rehearsing it in my head because I certainly didn’t want to make a mistake and look like a fool. And then the moment arrived. It was around 10:30 in the morning at the Holiday Inn® on Fisherman’s Wharf.
Marcia, the trainer, asked if anybody would like to share. A number of people raised their hands. I didn’t. I sat in my chair and listened to the voices inside my head. One voice said, “Raise your hand,” and the other voice said, “You are not ready; you don’t want to embarrass yourself, especially in front of the women in the room.”
Back and forth the voices spoke, one saying “Do it now” and the other saying “Wait.” Finally, I thought, “Screw it, just do it,” and I raised my hand and took the biggest, scariest leap of faith in my life. I gave up control and the constant attempt to look good.
I knew being suppressed and stewing in my mental cauldron of thoughts was not working. So, leaping into the unknown seemed like the only option to take. I raised my hand and the voices inside my head stopped.
As I raised my hand, Marcia saw me and immediately called my name. In the following two minutes, my experience of living life was forever altered. The microphone was passed to me. I leaped out of my chair and for fifteen seconds in a loud and fast voice I blurted out: “Good morning. My name is Alan Carroll and I have voices inside my head. One voice says to do this and the other voice says don’t do this. All I want you to know is it is Saturday morning and I am here. Thank you.”
So much for preparation, wanting to move the room and impress the women. The applause was polite. But what was transforming for me was that I experienced something I had never experienced before: I tasted the space of freedom from the suppressive inner voice of my mind. I had let go of wanting to look good and given up the need to be in control. I had risked annihilation. I had risked looking like a fool. I had risked not looking cool and not having my act together. And, in return for this risk, I was given a profound gift, an awareness of my true self, and the experience of my Being, which is beyond the ego. I woke up from a mental dream and became present to the space.
The trainer drew the attention of everyone, then pointed to me and said, “That is what it looks like when you break through.”
It was like being in an egg. You don’t come out of the egg as an eagle with a twelve-foot wingspan. You come out of the egg a tiny eaglet, very vulnerable and easily injured. By having the courage to give up wanting to look good, I had unknowingly climbed out of the hellhole of my unconscious mind and moved into a more open, lighter, and conscious space. I was no longer concerned about what the audience thought of me. I was willing just to be myself. It was wonderful and continues to this day to be wonderful, just being myself in front of the audience. The unconscious firewalls I had in place to protect myself dissolved and I escaped from a mental prison I hadn’t even known I was in.
To be an effective presenter, you must discover the psychological barriers and fears blocking your full self-expression. Find these blocks that stand in the way and, rather than move away from them, move toward them. There is an old Zen saying: “That which stands in the way is the way.” For example, if you are afraid of being silly, then do something silly. If you are afraid of looking like a fool, do something you think would be regarded as foolish. Silly and foolish is what you erroneously think the audience will think about you when you act a certain way. Therefore, you don’t act out of fear of how you think the audience will respond. You are being controlled by what you think the audience will think about you. You are not free just to be yourself.
Being controlled by how you think the audience will respond makes you a puppet or a doormat. You are being pulled around by the strings and stepped on by the feet of the audience. In chapter four, which is titled “Own the Room,” we will address this issue and begin to switch from being dominated to doing the domination. You will learn that by becoming more assertive, the audience, rather than being upset, becomes more respectful and interested in the conversation.
If you have the opportunity to watch yourself on videotape being silly and foolish, you will see it doesn’t look nearly as bad as you thought. In fact, it looks like a self-assured human being with power, confidence, and clarity. You’ll discover that you were basing your behavior on a mind-created delusion.
Now, let us explore the steps necessary to dismantle the firewalls and the benefits that you will accrue. To maximize the data throughput and increase your effectiveness, you need to create a presentation strategy that gives you access past the firewalls and into the private network of your audience.
The firewall is a psychological entity whose design function is survival. It is put in place by the mind to protect itself from harm. The firewall is analogous to a wall built of bricks. Every time you remove a brick from the wall, you create an opening through which data, communication, and energy can flow. The more bricks you remove, the greater will be your rapport, affinity, and throughput with the audience.
The future is broadband. It would be hard to find anybody who prefers a 56k dial-up connection. Broadband is a source of satisfaction on the Internet and is the source of satisfaction in your presentations.
Broadband means to be yourself without any firewalls between you and the audience. You are no longer inhibited by the audience. You no longer worry about what the audience thinks about you. You have achieved a state of consciousness in which you are open, present, vulnerable, and free from inhibition. You have now regained your power for full self-expression.
How do you dismantle the firewall?
If the firewall is in place to protect the I, me, ego from harm, then the presenter needs to create an environment in which all the participants feel safe. I call this environment a safe space. In a safe space, the audience feels no psychological need to protect itself. If there were no need for psychological protection, there would be no need for a firewall. And without a firewall, the speaker will be granted access into the private network of the audience.
This concept of a firewall helps explain why IT presentations are usually so ineffective. Without a safe environment, the mind tells the firewall to stay up. When the firewalls stay up, the transfer of data between the presenter and the audience flows through a smaller pipe. The smaller pipe means the connection shrinks down to a 56k level of throughput. The less throughput there is, the lower your effectiveness and your audience’s satisfaction will be.
The good news is that there is a simple formula, which, if followed, will grant you access through the firewalls of the audience. All you have to do is focus on removing as many bricks as possible between you and the audience. Bricks are removed through communication. The more communication that is exchanged in the space, the more bricks that are removed. You start the process by removing the bricks inside your reality. You open yourself up. You share yourself. You reach out, shake hands, and get into communication with the space.
Why? Because the audience’s firewalls are in place to protect them from harm. By opening yourself up, you are rendering yourself harmless. Once they see that you are open and harmless, it takes away the justification to keep the firewall in place. As it is reduced, the room becomes lighter and the throughput of communication increases.
Working for more than thirty years with hundreds of audiences, large and small, this response has proven itself true every single time. At the start of each presentation, firewalls are at their thickest; at the end of each presentation, firewalls are thinner. The space is lighter, the “Being” is more present, and the flow of communication is greater.
Think of this lighter space like a hot-air balloon. There are two ways to make a hot air balloon go up: put heat into the balloon and release ballast. As you remove bricks from the firewall, you are throwing off ballast and the space gets lighter. The opposite is also true. If you have withheld communication, it adds bricks to the wall and the space gets heavier.
Initially, sharing yourself and removing bricks is an act of courage because you are lowering your defenses and making yourself more vulnerable in front of the audience. But soon, you’ll discover that it doesn’t take any courage at all. In fact, you’ll begin to enjoy the process and look for every opportunity to share yourself, realizing that your ability to contribute and be of service to the audience is directly related to the number of bricks that have been removed from the firewalls in the space.
Another benefit is that, as you increase your vulnerability and openness, it moves you into the space of just being yourself in front of the audience. Often, after training sessions, the IT professionals will admit that they were not being themselves in front of customers. They were playing a role that was not authentic. Now they are relieved to discover that all they need to do is just be themselves in front of the customer. Being yourself makes you a human being and not some data-dumping IT robot. And, when you reveal your humanity, the humanity in the audience will respond. Sharing yourself will differentiate you from other IT professionals who just make love to the data. The sharing and openness need to be deliberate and relevant to the conversation. It is a great way to hold the attention of the audience and establish your credibility.
Another benefit of reducing firewalls is an increase in your effectiveness. Effectiveness can be measured by the amount of information retained by the audience over time.
Being psychologically vulnerable, visible, and open is essential to becoming a powerful and effective speaker. We can draw an analogy from the television show Star Trek. The ship on Star Trek is called the Enterprise. When the Enterprise is attacked, Captain Kirk tells the weapons officer to raise the shields. The shields surround the Enterprise and prevent the enemy phasers and photon torpedoes from causing damage. But in public speaking, when your shields and firewalls are up the flow of communication between you and the audience is reduced. In order to maximize the flow you need to lower your shields, which psychologically make you vulnerable in the space.
Once again, it takes courage to disarm and open yourself in front of the audience in the beginning. It is so much safer to wrap yourself around your PowerPoint slides, concentrate on the data, and just be a data dumper like everybody else.
Why even risk it? Remember this business saying: Differentiate or Die. Do you want to spend your entire career playing the presentation game just like everybody else? Or do you want to be regarded by your customers as an outstanding presenter? Do you want to be of service, make a contribution, and have an impact on the well-being of your customers? If so, begin to explore the space that exists on the other side of the firewall. Each time you risk moving outside your firewall, a little voice sensing danger is going to tell you something terrible is about to happen.
If you are seduced by this message, you will remain trapped in the prison of your mind for the rest of your life. The little voice is not a risk taker and has no interest in you becoming a great presenter. The little voice is your constant companion that labels, judges, assesses, and evaluates every event that occurs in your field of now and even the events that occur in your dreams. As a presenter, you look out at the audience and the little voice will tell you what the audience thinks of you. For those of you who have never heard the little voice, sit down, close your eyes, stop speaking, and just listen for ten seconds. If you still don’t hear the little voice, then perhaps what you heard was: “What little voice? I don’t hear a little voice inside my head. What is he talking about?” That is the little voice I am talking about inside your head.
As you evolve as a public speaker, you will need to release the suppress button of inhibition and have the courage to step beyond the prison walls of your mind. You will need to have the courage to risk being a fool, to face annihilation, and to have your worst fears exposed in front of the audience.
The dismantling of the firewall is part of the responsibility you have as the manager of the conversation. You cannot and should not expect the audience to take the lead in this process. You have to take action. The following are some communication strategies you can use to create a safe space, lower your shields, and remove bricks from the firewalls in the space.
First, let’s start with asking a question: “When does the conversation, the search for common ground, and firewall brick pulling begin?”
Often, the presenter thinks the conversation/presentation starts when he or she is in front of the audience. I suggest starting the conversation as soon as possible. It could start before the day of the presentation or it could start when you walk into the room.
When you start the conversation, you are not only in the data delivery business but also in the building relationships, rapport, and common ground business.
Here are some suggestions of things to do before, during, and after the presentation.
Before the Day of the Presentation
The bricks start being pulled through communication before the audience enters the room. Be in communication with the audience—send them e-mails, regular mail, or give them a telephone call. Let them know the purpose and key points of the conversation and ask them what they would like to have addressed. Provide all the logistical information about start times, room locations, maps, breaks, lunch, contact people, and where to park. Make note of any common ground you have with the participants or they have among themselves.
For example, shared acquaintances, places you have visited, technology background, educational background, books read, movies seen, events attended, sports, vocation, religion, beliefs, history, hobbies, and television shows can all create common ground. Knowing this information ahead of time allows you to introduce it when you meet the people at the presentation. Communication before the presentation starts to shift the expectations of the audience from being unknown to becoming familiar. It gives the participants a greater sense of certainty about what to expect and therefore reduces the ego/mind need to maintain a firewall. Communicating in advance sends the message that you care and reflects the level of service your company will provide them in the future when they become a customer.
The Day of the Presentation
The conversation/presentation doesn’t start when you walk to the front of the room. It starts when you first walk through the door. The warm-up period is important because it is much easier to do the brick pulling during the informal gathering time than trying to do it from the front of the room.
Here are some possible communication strategies you can employ on the day of the presentation but before the presentation actually starts. Whether you are at your facility or the customer facility, you still are the Manager of the Conversation and the role you play is the one of host or hostess. The participants should be treated with hospitality and as honored guests.
Do you have greeters? Is there someone to welcome the participants and give them directions? Have you put any signage in place that gives clear directions?
When participants walk into the room, greet them. Introduce them to other participants. In this informal time, you have direct access into the other people’s private network.
Listen to what they say. The more you know about their world, the better you will be able to shape the conversation to meet their needs. As the leader, you need to take the initiative to meet people. Human beings often seem reluctant to walk up and introduce themselves to the leader.
For your own comfort, shake hands and meet as many people as possible before you go to the front of the room. Shaking hands symbolizes warmth and openness and communicates you have no weapon in your hand. The only time in most business cultures when you can actually touch a stranger physically, male or female, without giving offense is when you shake his or her hand.
Every culture seems to have its own greeting dance. For example, kissing once on one cheek, kissing twice on both cheeks, touching noses, hugging, touching foreheads all expose an intimate connection. For example, when I was in South Africa, the students taught me a local handshake that I used every time I met them. It always put a smile on their faces.
You especially want to meet the people you don’t know. Any attack/resistance will most likely come from the person with whom you have the least rapport. Most people’s tendency is to walk into the room and go toward someone they know because it feels comfortable. When you introduce yourself to another person, he or she is forced to come out from behind the firewall and open up to you. This communication exchange is a wonderful time to begin exploring other people’s worlds.
One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is to listen to them fully. If you want people to like you, ask them interested questions about themselves. Most people are more focused on themselves than on other people. You can differentiate yourself by being interested in the people in the room.
When first meeting the participants, try to remember their names because it is a great rapport-building tool. If you use people’s names, it shows that you care about them. These memory techniques can help you remember names.
• Have it as your intention to remember the person’s name.
• Repeat the person’s name three times in the first two or three sentences of the introduction.
• Collect business cards. Arrange them on a paper corresponding to the seating pattern in the room. Having the business cards will help you remember the participants. The cards are also useful in accurately entering their information into your database.
• Make nametags or tent cards. On the nametags, make the first name bold so you can easily read it at a distance. The ideal place for the nametag is the upper right part of the chest so you can easily see it when walking up to someone to shake hands. Use people’s names during the presentation. This reinforces the relationship, helps you to learn their names, and is one of the many keep-alives or hello packets that brings the listeners’ attention back to the presentation.
• Ask people you know to introduce you to people you do not know. Why? Because the person you know is saying to his or her friend, “This person is a friend of mine.” This technique helps to build rapport faster, thus dismantling the firewall more quickly because you are using the leverage of an existing relationship to springboard into the private network of the new person.
There are not only firewalls between you and the audience but also between the participants. You are playing the role of host, so introduce participants to each other. If you know their common ground, tell them, because it provides an excellent starting point for their conversation. This common ground will also be beneficial later on during the presentation because you can use things you heard to help emphasize a point or acknowledge the contribution of a participant.
For example, if you know someone’s interest is fishing, you can use fishing analogies to illustrate the conversation. Using information that comes from a participant will make that person feel recognized and valued.
Have music playing. The music you select depends on the type of energy you want to create. You can play relaxing, smooth jazz, classical, up-beat music like classic rock tunes, or popular current hits. You could even play music from the culture in which the presentation is taking place.
Most presenters do not play music, so this differentiates you and makes your show a richer experience. Music helps to reduce tension in the audience, which reduces the need to maintain a protective firewall.
Food and drinks are another means to create a comfortable, intimate, and safe atmosphere. The greater the informality, the more disarming it will be. The goal is to create a space that will relax the defenses of the audience.
During the Presentation
Now that the connecting and gathering phase of the conversation is over, the official part of the presentation begins.
How can you massage the space and relax defenses so that the resistance to opening up and communicating is reduced? Facilitate participation as soon as possible. Get the audience to speak in the first three to five minutes. This will be easier if you have pulled a lot of bricks during the connecting and gathering phase.
I call one technique I use to accomplish this The Level of Expertise. After you have introduced yourself and stated the purpose of the conversation, say something like this: “Before I move on, I want to get a sense of your experience with the subject of the conversation. How many of you have been involved in it for less than a year? How many for two to three years? Five years or more? For how many is this a brand new subject?”
Ask the people with considerable experience follow-up questions. You can list the years of experience on a flip chart and have someone add up the years of experience the group (including yourself) has on the subject. This becomes the group database. This accomplishes three things: first, it pulls several bricks; second, it lets everybody know where the knowledge lies in the room; finally, it lets you adjust the gradient level of the conversation to meet the level of expertise in the audience.
Share stories and experiences with the audience. A story is a factual or fictional account of an event. Experience is active involvement in a particular activity. I believe that your most valuable content is your stories and experiences about the information you are presenting. If you don’t have any stories or experiences, you might have a credibility barrier with the audience. The audience wants certainty that what you are selling actually works. If you have no experience, you are less believable. It is like claiming to be a guide who can take someone from one point to another when you’ve never been to the final destination.
Another value of sharing stories and experiences is that they promote intimacy in the space. When you make yourself vulnerable, the audience will open up in return. The reason the audience has the firewall up in the first place is to protect and defend themselves from you. You are initially perceived as a threat because you are “not one of us.” Sharing stories and experiences makes you more “one of us.” It establishes greater common ground upon which to build the relationship.
When the audience sees you as open and vulnerable, they don’t need to defend themselves and so don’t need a firewall for protection. Stories and experiences are disarming. I would encourage you to share yourself as deeply as possible. Your sharing of self creates a more intimate environment in the room.
Being an authority on the subject matter gives you the confidence to project your energy into the space. The thicker the ice is under your feet, the more power you will have in the room. If you have not earned the right to talk on the subject at hand, you’re likely to be hesitant and uncertain in your delivery. Have you taken the time to plan and practice your presentation? Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Ideally, you should know thirty times more about the subject than you will be using in your talk. If you are an authority on the subject matter, you are standing on thick ice. You will be confident in your ability to fire the data across the space and you will have no fear of being asked a question that you cannot answer.
Listen to the audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What are their concerns, cultural background, loyalty to the conversation, and knowledge level? The audience is listening to you through their conditioned reality. The more you understand that reality, the better you will be at navigating past their firewalls and positioning the data in a manner they can accept.
Always allow the audience an opportunity to contribute to the conversation. When someone asks a question, it may be appropriate to let someone else in the audience answer.
Maintain eye contact with one person in the audience when you are delivering your data packets. Only speak when you have a solid virtual private network (VPN) eye contact connection. This automatically pulls you out from behind your firewall and ensures a high level of consciousness. The more conscious you are, the more effective your speaking will be. This is discussed in chapter four in the section on the Point of Focus.
Facilitate a conversation by asking the audience questions. Encourage the audience to participate. Techniques for accomplishing this will be addressed in chapter seven, which deals with The Art of Questioning.
If you are delivering the presentation in English in a foreign country, pick up a few words of the local language and use them in the conversation. Surely, you can learn to say hello, good morning, and thank you. From time to time, ask the audience how they would say a particular word in their language. Refer to popular subjects such as traffic jams, local sporting events, the World Cup. These references create the impression that you are interested in them.
This completes my suggestions about things you can do to reduce firewalls and create rapport, relationships, and common ground during the presentation.
After the Presentation
Here are several ways to continue the brick-pulling process and build a network of relationship with the audience:
• Collect names, addresses, phone numbers, titles, company names, and e-mail addresses and enter them into a database program.
• Use your database to send future newsletters, announcements, and updates to your contacts.
• Thank the participants for their participation and attendance at the presentation.
• Send the participants a summary of the presentation, along with a list of action items.
• Follow up with phone calls to answer any questions and to check on the status of the action items.
This completes my suggestions on how to lower the firewalls before, during, and after your presentations. By increasing your ability to dismantle the firewalls, you will notice the quality of your presentations increases.