We Can Do Hard Things
Three Practices for Doing Hard Things Well
We can do hard things. We can also make them harder than they need to be. I just did a hard thing and feel good about it. There are three practices I leveraged to make presenting to a large group of colleagues better and easier.
I have done hundreds of presentations. I have been in front of audiences all over the world, managing all the challenges and anxieties that come with that. Despite this experience, the skill of presenting is always a hard thing to do and one that I will always be honing. Whenever there is an opportunity to practice this art, I find ways to make it a little easier and better the next time.
I presented at our annual global sales conference to 500 of my colleagues and our executive team on what a skills-based organization (SBO) is. I had thirty minutes to share what it is, what it is not, how skills are different from competencies, and how an SBO is different from a learning organization. I had to throw in some examples from customers and also share how we are approaching this at Udemy, where I currently am the Chief Learning Officer. It is a topic that everyone is still trying to figure out in the industry so there many different directions I could have taken. It was an intense few months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to that presentation. Here are a few lessons and reflections from this experience:
Clarify what you need and want from your support system: Who is going to help you complete that project? With design? In my case, with the flow of the presentation? Moral support? That last one is key and one that we often forget to include. My leadership team helped me brainstorm ideas through our weekly Thought Leadership Jam Sessions. My presentation coach and dear friend Susannah Baldwin helped me refine my message; three of my colleagues–the Chief People Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer–checked in with me every other week for the past few months to provide input on my progress; Emma, a digital designer helped me with visuals, and other learning leaders who are also good friends helped me with the final notes and flow of the session. I spent roughly 40 hours on this presentation, including all the research, reading, and discussions we had on our own team about the topic.
Here’s the big lesson: Know what you want and need from each of your supporters. We all know we need a support system in general, but we do not always clarify what exactly we need from each person or role. Maybe even more importantly, what we may not need from them. At a certain point, I had to stop taking in information. There were a lot of great ideas flowing, ways to present the information, even suggestions on how to make things funny. I started to feel overwhelmed after many failed attempts to incorporate it all. My presentation had grown to over 40 slides with a detailed support document of over 50 pages. At this rate, I would need at least an hour to convey everything I had pulled together into what was supposed to be a 30-minute presentation. A “bat call” to Susannah put me back on course with two simple questions: What is your main message and what do you want people to get out of this presentation? She also gently reminded me that this was my presentation. I had to own whatever I was about to say. I have agency and I was close to giving it away. Nothing good comes from doing that.
Embrace The Messiness: The day before my presentation, we did a run of show. I walked on stage and was blinded by the bright lights. One of my colleagues had already fallen off the stage because of the lights—one of my worst fears. There were 6 “comfort monitors” that made me anything but comfortable. I started going through my deck, starting off with a few light jokes that got no laughter. I was reminded that the few people in the room were not focused on my presentation but their own, thus the reason for no laughter, but still. It made me pause and remember that most jokes fall flat so should I just leave those out? The notes weren’t lining up with my slides, the builds weren’t working, and when they asked me what my walk-on song was going to be, and I picked Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire”, all I could think about was how not on fire I was feeling. I reconfigured my slides, shifted some notes, and wasn’t going to go back on stage. Then, one of my colleagues inspired me by doing her entire presentation as if she was presenting—even practicing walking up on stage, smiling, and sharing every key point, mastering her flow by reinforcing where she was supposed to click to the next slide for dramatic effect. She did not care if all of us were distracted. She did not care when she screwed up. She began again. She knew that practicing out loud would only help her, and failing that day meant succeeding the next day. Inspired by her tenacity, I went back up on stage to get more comfortable. The lights were a little less blinding, the clicker worked, and some people even laughed at my jokes. The jokes were staying in my presentation. Susannah reminded me that “this is my process”. I get into a groove, and then somewhere along the way, it gets “messy”. I question myself, I question the presentation, I question the flow. I then turn that mess into an opportunity to either validate what I have or change it. I changed a few slides, but left in most of the other content. I practiced the presentation out loud in my room, timing myself, moving from the messy phase to the excitement phase. I was now looking forward to presenting.
Control the Controllables: I often coach leaders (and remind myself often) to focus on what they can control. Surprisingly, we forget how many factors are in our control. When we look at our circle of influence, it is important to make that circle larger while making the things we can’t control smaller. My physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are factors that I can control. Health is a core value of mine and the importance of good sleep, working out, and eating well are amplified when doing hard things. I left dinner early the night before my presentation and got some good sleep after listening to a calming meditation by Sharon Salzburg on my favorite meditation app Ten Percent Happier. I felt good the morning of my presentation. I even “shook it off” with my friends and colleagues, Han and Celinda, as we danced to Taylor Swift. Dancing has always been a form of therapy for me.
I walked on stage, nailed the first question, and then the clicker stopped working. Did panic set in? Nope. There had already been other issues with the clicker, so I knew the AV team would fix it. They did. I wasn’t thrown—why? Because I had the support system, I got through the messiness phase, and I knew I could only control what I could control. The clicker started working again, my jokes landed, and I even had fun presenting.
I feel good about the presentation overall. I got a lot of great feedback and some constructive feedback that I will incorporate this week as I do this again in Dublin.
We can do hard things. The thing itself is often not what is hard. It is the preparation that is often the most challenging. Next time you are preparing for a hard thing, figure out your support system, embrace the messiness, and control the controllables.
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure” ~Colin Powell
Good stuff!