Yesterday I had to give a talk. Not to a board of directors or an audience of hundreds. Just a little kick-off chat with my new team. It’s challenging, working remotely, and since I can’t take them all out to a pub for a proper mixer, I thought the least I could do on a Friday before a long weekend was to call everyone together for a quick huddle before we dig into a real work week.
I’d been thinking about my talking points for a little while. I hadn’t obsessed about it, but I’d written out a few pages of brainstorming notes on a couple different occasions and thought I’d narrowed it down to a pretty decent set list. I shared my thoughts with my old boss and she had some suggestions. “Saying it that way makes you sound weak,” she said. “You should make sure to convey what you’re passionate about.”
I didn’t want to sound weak or lame, so I took her suggestions and tried to incorporate them. I read my notes through a couple times so they’d be fresh in my head (no reading from cue cards — that would be lame). Then the Microsoft Teams meeting kicked off.
As you’ve probably already inferred from the title of this post, it didn’t go well. Several people were late, so the rest of us sat around and bantered for a few minutes. When the slackers arrived, I got started. About half the attendees turned off their cameras, so I was looking at their avatars instead of their human faces. (Charitably, I think some people turn off their cameras when there’s a solo speaker to be polite, but it had the effect in this instance of making me feel like I was mostly talking to myself.) My intro was okay, but a little tepid. My points about being not-weak and yes-passionate were… neither. Blank avatars, polite smiles, silence from the audience. My wrap-up was equally bland and flavorless. I closed, lamely, with “That’s my speech. Have a great weekend.”
In stand-up comedian terms, I bombed.
I was still thinking about this today as I wrote my morning pages. About how embarrassed I was to have face-planted so resoundingly in front of my new team. My entire new team. My monkey mind started chattering, imagining the snickering and side-bar conversations among the staff members who knew one another better than I know them now. No second chance to make a first impression, the school-marm portion of my brain was yelling in my ear. What a mess.
It’s clear to me now that a better method of working out this presentation would have been to keep it as simple as possible. Here I am, here’s what I expect, here’s how we’ll work together. The end. I won’t have another chance to introduce myself to the team for the first time. But they’ll be working with me every day, and while I think I screwed the pooch this time, I’m not so hard on myself that I think I will every time.
As for the embarrassment — that’s pure ego. I wanted to look a certain way and I didn’t. That’s not a game anyone can win, at least not for long. No stand-up comedian’s career has ever happened without bombing, or even a long slog through the valley of bombs. There’s really nothing in life you can get better at without being bad at it in the beginning. Thinking that you can be a natural at anything is just more ego, and it’s an easy excuse to do nothing.
So, kids — I’m letting this one go and starting with a clean slate next week. If you’re holding on to something similar, or anything at all, I recommend trying to do the same. Tell me how it goes.
P.S. If you find yourself in regular video conference calls, as many of us do these days, consider what impact keeping your camera off might have on those who are speaking. When in doubt, turn it on!