The Burden and Blessing of Preparation

Never really gave "it" much thought...until I started speaking up at meetings.

While sitting in the back of crowded conference rooms, I often observed and listened to people with lots of brass on their shoulders, experience on their resumes, and gray strands in their hair. At some point along my journey, I must've broken that pattern by either asking a poignant question or offering some differing (yet enlightening) perspective. I was probably surprised that I didn't get put back into place by some really smart guy sitting at the big boy table. Nonetheless, at some point, I transitioned from being a mere notetaker piggybacking someone's meeting invite to becoming an honest-to-goodness stakeholder (with his own meeting invite and a seat at the big boy table!).

Since that moment, here's my most shocking realization: out of a crowded conference room of 30 people, you'd be lucky to find 5-6 people who actually "get" what is being discussed or how the issue at hand can be resolved. That's a good 80% of folks who are either pontificating (i.e., talking a lot but not stating anything of substance), skating (i.e., not talking and hoping no one realizes that you're clueless), or simply faking their way through (i.e., peppering in a few off-topic statements or anecdotes when you hear something you're remotely familiar with)! On many occasions, I've been outright shocked like the character "Neo" (Keanu Reeves) from "The Matrix" movie in the days after he was unplugged...

How can this be? Not exactly sure. What I can say is that speaking in public is a lot like basketball. The moment you walk onto the court, everyone starts sizing you up and establishes a pecking order in their minds -- mentally ranking who they think are the best players and outright dismissing those who they deem lesser-skilled players. However, all kinds of problems arise when a "lesser" player outperforms his pre-game ranking (like watching a reverse, two-handed dunk against the consensus "best" player). Much of the same happens when an unsuspecting meeting attendee speaks in such a way that everyone else must quickly recalibrate their respective pecking orders and accept the fact that this "new guy" is a legitimate contender for "smartest guy in the room"!

The irony here is that almost everyone in the room has something to boast about. CEOs of this, and Program Directors of that... The last thing you'd expect is for a bunch of seasoned, senior professionals to actually be intimidated by an intelligent, well thought-out question or comment from someone they don't already know or haven't already figured out. With such credentials, one would think that they'd happily take on any and all newcomers, confident in their abilities to shrug off any intellectual overthrow attempts from younger, less-experienced whipper-snappers.

So what's my point? Simply put, "knowledge is power". Watching the facial expressions change when New Guy puts his knowledge on display makes the burden of preparation all the more worthwhile. One trip to the whiteboard to explain how simple your suggested solution really is -- well, at least it's simple to you -- makes you appreciate the nights of studying and refining your core communication skills. When it's all said and done, there's no better feeling than to dine heartily on the fruits of your own labors!