Out of Office?

by Graham Davies

Imagine sending an email like this to a colleagues, a supplier or a client:

"Thanks for your email, but I just don't care enough about you to read it or give you a 5-word response. I am on vacation, so I don't give a toss about you."

That is precisely the message you are presenting about yourself whenever a piece of software sends out an Out of Office Auto-Response that indicates you will not be accessing emails due to your on-holiday mode.

There really is no excuse for this presentational callousness. And yes, you are still presenting yourself and your business when you are on vacation, whether you like it or not. Of course, people do come up with alot of excuses for being incommunicado:

• I work a 70 hour week, so I am entitled to a complete rest
• There are other people who can deal with anything that is likely to come up
• My spouse forbids me from looking at work emails when we are on holiday

The third excuse is so beneath contempt that I won't even point out how risible it is. If there really is someone you totally trust to deal with everything as well as you could, then fair enough (but are you sure??). But surely you cannot really rest on your sunbed in the knowledge that you might have hundreds of unexploded bombs waiting in your in-box?

Everyone can afford a blackberry. But no-one can afford to present the image of someone who sticks their fingers in their ears and says LA LA LA rather than spending at least 30 minutes a day checking their email....no matter how exotic their location.

If you don't follow my advice, it is just possible that you won't be spending quite so much time on expensive vacations in the future.

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Pointless Politician

by Graham Davies

The speech by Tony Abbot on the night of the Australian General Election was a remarkable achievement. You see, Tony is the Leader of the Australian Liberal Party.....and he managed to lead his audience nowhere.

One of the fundamental requirements of a good speech is that the speaker should take the people he is speaking to on a journey (see Chapter 1 of The Presentation Coach, published next month by Capstone). Sadly, Tony had nowhere he wanted them to go.

The circumstances were difficult. He was surrounded on stage by 4 tall Amazonian women who may have been his bodyguards, but were probably his wife and daughters. They had no business being there and the looks on their faces made it clear that they knew it. They merely served the function of offering alternative targets for snipers.

And there was a hard core of Part Yobs at the front of the crowd who were determined to cheer every other sentence Tony uttered, no matter how indifferent.

What he said was a collection of bland statements that merely confirmed what the audience already knew:

It's too soon to celebrate
Everyone has worked hard
I am very grateful
This is an important night
We have more hard work to do
We are the best Party
We need to work hard
etc etc etc

The most telling verdict on the speech was given by Sky News, who switched to a commercial break half way through.

My message to Tony, and anyone else who imposes themselves on an audience, is this: Don't just have a speech, have a point as well.


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Speak with your Elbows

by Graham Davies

Yet again, David Cameron has shown his talent for creating memorable phrases under pressure. His spontaneous use of the words "sharp elbows" nicely captures the combative attitude needed by parents to secure the best for their children from the Public Sector.

It is also a phrase that should epitomise your attitude to Presentation. There are alot of things competing to get the attention of any audience you speak to. And even if you manage to grab their attention initially, it can still drift away if you and your words are not compelling enough.

That is why you have to be a practitioner of Sharp-Elbowed Presenting. This is a highly assertive form of speaking where you think of yourself as constantly jostling for the attention of the audience. You are prepared to push just a little to get to the head of the queue in their collective mind. But you are determined to retain that Dave-n-Sam charm even when you are at your most determined.

It is then that you will achieve the exquisite presentational balance encapsulated by the following impossibly mixed metaphor: the sharp tongue in the velvet glove.