I'm finished with two days of presentations at a conference and I've had my fill of long-winded rambling questions from people in the audience. There are so many people who, under the guise of actually asking a question, manage to speak for several minutes, almost incomprehensibly, providing disjointed and unconnected thoughts. At the end of these I'm often left silently going, "Huh? What the heck did you just say?!" It's not clear -- even to the presenter -- what question has been asked.
I used to have a colleague who asked at least one question in every meeting because somewhere along the way in her career someone must have advised her she would get ahead by always having a presence in a meeting. I watched her ramble away to our CEO at a Townhall meeting and when she stopped speaking, the CEO said, "Well, I'm not sure what your question was, but..." and then he went on to pull one of the phrases she said and bridge to his own points on that topic. That seems to be the best defense against this genre of audience question. Pick out a word you heard and work from that. It's an executive gift.
Why can't people form a coherent question? There are probably some real cases of nerves going on. You have a good question in mind and then all of a sudden you realize all eyes are on you and you become self-conscious. I think a lot of people also process their thoughts out loud -- and because minds are messy, so are their questions. But there is another large group of people who I suspect purposely hijack the floor to become the center of attention. Their question is more about "look at me and what I know" than actually seeking information from the speaker. Some even seem to try to upstage the speaker.
I had an unusual experience at this conference involving a question I asked. At the end of the Futurist's talk -- the opening talk of the conference with ~200 people in attendance (see yesterday's blog) I went to the microphone and asked this simple question: "What advice do you have for late-stage white collar workers or are we destined for obsolescence?" I worked on my question while four other questions transpired ahead of me and when I nailed what I wanted, I rehearsed it. When I got to the microphone, my heart was pounding, but when I finished asking my question, the audience laughed! Success! I had recognized that the audience was largely late-career and found words for the thing everyone was wondering. And here was the unusual part...for the remainder of the two days, I had random people congratulating me on a great question -- and talking to me because they remembered me from that question. I may not speak up a lot, but when I do, it's brilliant.
I could probably make pet peeves a recurring blog entry. But don't worry -- they won't all be a story that ends with how brilliant I am. It was just a convenient end to this one. Questions? :)
I used to have a colleague who asked at least one question in every meeting because somewhere along the way in her career someone must have advised her she would get ahead by always having a presence in a meeting. I watched her ramble away to our CEO at a Townhall meeting and when she stopped speaking, the CEO said, "Well, I'm not sure what your question was, but..." and then he went on to pull one of the phrases she said and bridge to his own points on that topic. That seems to be the best defense against this genre of audience question. Pick out a word you heard and work from that. It's an executive gift.
Why can't people form a coherent question? There are probably some real cases of nerves going on. You have a good question in mind and then all of a sudden you realize all eyes are on you and you become self-conscious. I think a lot of people also process their thoughts out loud -- and because minds are messy, so are their questions. But there is another large group of people who I suspect purposely hijack the floor to become the center of attention. Their question is more about "look at me and what I know" than actually seeking information from the speaker. Some even seem to try to upstage the speaker.
I had an unusual experience at this conference involving a question I asked. At the end of the Futurist's talk -- the opening talk of the conference with ~200 people in attendance (see yesterday's blog) I went to the microphone and asked this simple question: "What advice do you have for late-stage white collar workers or are we destined for obsolescence?" I worked on my question while four other questions transpired ahead of me and when I nailed what I wanted, I rehearsed it. When I got to the microphone, my heart was pounding, but when I finished asking my question, the audience laughed! Success! I had recognized that the audience was largely late-career and found words for the thing everyone was wondering. And here was the unusual part...for the remainder of the two days, I had random people congratulating me on a great question -- and talking to me because they remembered me from that question. I may not speak up a lot, but when I do, it's brilliant.
I could probably make pet peeves a recurring blog entry. But don't worry -- they won't all be a story that ends with how brilliant I am. It was just a convenient end to this one. Questions? :)