Mopsos

I made a big mistake this morning. I was asked by my boss to present the progress of knowledge networking initiatives to senior VPs of my company (some of which I am involved in as a project member or advisor), and I actually did it.

The audience was composed of ten managers. During my presentation, two of them turned out to be supporting the idea of building knowledge networks in the company, two were opposed to it as being theoretical and unrealistic and six just stood by.

I was of course challenged during my presentation, sometimes a little aggressively, as if I was some sort of unwanted sales rep trying to sell snake oil. Some remarks were so strange that I made the mistake of entering into a discussion to prove my point. The discussion was quite messy from there.

My advice to all of you: Never ever do that. When a subordinate is invited to talk to an assembly of superiors, he is expected to behave like a subordinate, and report on his actions and projects. No more, no less. He is not expected to argue, even if -which was not the case ;)- he is challenged to do so and even scorned if he doesn't.

If you want to argue and persuade, find other business settings (very large audiences including clients for example), or have a guest speaker do the talking to you. This guest speaker should be perceived as a peer of or a superior to the guys in your audience. If you get caught into discussion where you are expected to the justify the plan and start giving factual evidence of the wealth that it created until today, you are doomed. Somebody else should do it for you, because you cannot be both the actor and the referee.

I was naive! Well, the point is taken, and that's the good news.

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