Several years ago, I was interested in measuring the impact of my Presentation Development course. I was preparing for a two day workshop with a client and figured I’d run a simple survey, asking participants to rate the effectiveness of their written presentations on a scale of one to five before and after the class. My selfish hope was that the participants would say that after taking my course their presentation writing ability had dramatically improved. What I found was something very different. And far more interesting.
Before we started, I had each of the fifteen participants anonymously rate their presentation writing effectiveness on an index card. I collected the cards and began to tally the responses on a white board with the group watching.
“Let’s see,” I said, organizing the cards. “We’ve got four fives, and…nine fours and…uh…. two threes.” I stepped back from the white board considered the group’s high opinion of their skills and joked that perhaps we could cancel the training. My sponsor’s eyes were wide with amazement! Or was it horror? In a very kind way, he assured his team that their view of their writing effectiveness wasn’t shared by others, and that the training really was necessary. So on with the show we went.
But for me, the value of this session was far greater than the income I received. I was tremendously intrigued by the survey results. Was this group representative? Did other professionals similarly believe their presentation writing skills to be as strong? And did their audiences – like my sponsor – simultaneously hold a very different view of those same skills?
Since then, I have administered the survey differently. I ask half the participants to rate their presentation writing effectiveness, just as with the above group. The other half, without letting them know they are answering a different question, I ask to rate the effectiveness of the written presentations they’ve OBSERVED, that is, as audience members. Here are the results I’ve collected over the past couple of years
I find this fascinating. Our audiences see our presentations very differently than we do as the writers of them. And, of course, it’s the audience’s view that matters. They are the ones that must decide to believe what we want them to believe, to do what we need them to do. They are the ones who decide whether we are successful. Or not.
I can’t help but consider the results of this simple little survey every time I write a presentation. I hope you will as well.