Unready to spring

Oops, I have just found out that an internal development session I was meant to run tomorrow has been extended by over an hour, and it was only meant to be a 45 minute event in total. I think it was me who misunderstood, but unsure as it was set up a couple months ago. I haven't prepared enough - I guess I should add a slide or two.

For my own company I don't have to produce so much content as most of it is discussion based and on-the-fly as it depends on what is going on in their work at the current time, something that can't be prepared for, but requires the ability to adjust quickly. This means having the resources available to lean upon as needed. It is different in many companies however, as there tends to be the culture that unless something is written down on a slide, it doesn't exist and no work was done in preparation.

Often in Finland people will present excel charts with a thousand numbers no one can read rather than just the bottom line and key points as it "proves" they did their job. In my opinion, this approach takes away from the overall communication be drawing the audience into what they have no ability to absorb in the time frame. And then while they are reading, there is no pause in the spoken component which means attention is split and not much sinks in from either source.

I wish that as a kid I spent more time developing a good communication and presentation style, but I was and still am relatively shy when having to be in the spotlight - nowhere near as bad as I was as a teen though where my hands would physically shake giving a book report to the class. These days i can stand up in front of pretty much anyone and deliver, I just don't like doing it that much. Training sessions are a different animal though.

This will be an internal session and it requires finding consensus on some changes that I have been looking to make for a while, changes that not everyone will likely agree on, but will be held accountable for later. Defining areas of responsibility and generating accountability is important within a team, especially when there are many interdependent projects leveraging multiple people who crossover between. It can get messy and easily out of sync - and that puts tension on relationships and accomplishment of goals.

There are many personalities involved and each has their own preferences and idiosyncrasies in the way they work, which creates a complicated dynamic. Finding harmony requires some level of compromise by nearly everyone and some are more willing to bend their ways than others. This adds another layer of complexity on top. Pretty much, life is easy - we just make it harder than it needs to be when unable to adapt to conditions.

Talking of adaptation, I think I need to get onto adjusting the presentation for tomorrow to include some of the scope creep that has been added as I write this. And find a power socket as my laptop battery is about to die.

Til tonight.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]