And finally let's talk about a bit of
a problem with motivation and motivational presentations.
Of course, motivational presentations have huge benefits.
They are engaging.
If you want something from the audience,
you work with them,
you ask questions so you look them in the eye,
you watch for feedback etc.
etc. And thing number two.
You use your goal as a filter.
Does it lead me to where I want to be?
Should I tell them in order to- this,
you know, in order to get what I want.
But there are also some drawbacks and we need to talk about them.
Thing number one, you have to push,
you have to work,
you have to produce emotions on stage.
And while people get tired you have to invest a lot of emotions
during the preparation and during delivery and it may lead to emotional burnout,
a common problem among salespeople.
Thing number two, there's a tendency to filter out
important stuff to oversimplify, to dumb down.
I think that, well,
they don't need this.
I'd better leave this out.
And this turns out to be a crucial element in this you know,
the whole decision making process.
And thing number three,
it might be a bit ethically questionable.
There's no like line between good manipulation and bad manipulation.
And there are various attitudes,
various assumptions about truth in the three genres of presentation.
If you're informing, you are boring,
but you are presenting accurate information dispassionately,
distantly but you are telling the truth.
If you are entertaining,
truth is totally irrelevant.
If you believe anything a stand up comedian says, you're insane.
But if you are motivating, things get complicated.
Well, okay, I'm going to tell you the facts,
but I'm not going to tell you all the facts.
I'm going to cherry pick the data so it supports my conclusion.
And secondly, I'm going to get all the data in a way that supports my conclusion.
So motivational presentation is maybe they'll say, manipulation.
And sometimes it leads to very bad results.
This was probably a result of a good presentation.
Some people sell things that shouldn't be sold.
Well, so this is the choice.
We can be either boring lecturers or annoying salespeople.
What do we do? Where's the fine line?
Where's the middle ground?
And I think if we want to answer the question,
we need to answer another question of
why do people listen to presentations in the first place?
What's their goal? Okay, for us this information transfer, it's a sales process.
But for them, what's- what is it for them?
And I would say that for them it's largely a decision making process.
Whether they are aware of it or not,
they are trying to make a decision as a result of you presenting them.
In a decision like,
should I read this guy's book?
Or is this sales goal achievable?
Or should we buy this new equipment or should we approve this new loan?
We're trying to find out from the information that the presenter is giving to us.
We're trying to find out what should we do.
Right. And I think that the ultimate goal for
the presenter is to help people to make good decisions.
To make better decisions.
Now, what is the decision that I'm trying to facilitate?
What is the decision that the audience has to make as a result of me speaking.
What's my point? What do I want?
But what do they want?
What do they need? And what could be our shared common goal?
These are the question that I thinks we need to be asking ourselves as a- as presenters.
What is the decision that I'm trying to facilitate?
Many people have a particular idea or a product to sell.
What do they do?
And I think the most important question here is who is my target audience.
Where are the people and what are the situations in which my product is ideal,
and to sell my product not to everyone,
but only to the people who really really
need this product at this particular moment of time.
About 10 years ago,
I saw a presentation by the late Steve Jobs,
and it was a presentation of a very small Mp3 player with no screen called iPod shuffle.
I didn't buy iPod shuffle as a result of this presentation
because Steve explained to me that I'm not the target audience,
but a couple of my friends were and I actually went and
sold this player to a couple of my friends.
This is what good presentations do.
They don't sell to the wrong people.
So who is my target audience,
is the most crucial question.
So in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen,
you do have a choice.
You might set the goal for your presentation as to inform.
But is there a request?
Are you answering questions that are relevant for the audience?
You may want to entertain the audience,
but are you talking to a group of friends and strangers that have no common goal?
Is this your only choice?
You may go and try to motivate people and motivation is great.
I think it's a very worthwhile goal to accomplish,
but do know better than your audience?
Do they need to be pushed?
And finally, you can try to facilitate good decision making.
And the question is what would be the best decision for
both me and my audience in this situation.
So as a great quote and I want to end with this quote by JFK,
who said that the only reason to give a speech is to change the world.
And, well, I don't know how to change the world.
Maybe with informing, maybe with entertaining,
maybe with motivating, and maybe with facilitating decision making.
Or maybe you shouldn't be so ambitious.
Maybe you should go and change something.
So go ahead. Try to change something.
Alexei KapterevLomonosov MSU BS
