I had a university talk today and I was late. There were about 60 students in a lecture room waiting for me for 20 minutes. Just imagine if you were a student, in a post exam time, you signed up for a talk which is not compulsory and the presenter turned up 20 minutes late. Pretty unacceptable huh? What’s worse, he’s a professional from a company. What image will you have for that company?
As I ran into the lecture room, students watched me as I walked in. Some were smiling with their friends as if they were saying “Finally!”. Some put on a very disappointed face and I can easily understand why.
It’s a difficult to begin the talk, because I have already left a not very bad impression. And any reasons I explained could just be seen as excuses. But I still have to talk, so I tried…
“First of all, I owe everyone here an apology. If I were you, I would think this is not acceptable! But have you ever had a day that is just not your day? … I left my office at 10am this morning, which according to the railway timetable, I should be here 30 minutes earlier. But the train got delayed for 30 minutes. Then when I arrived, I had to call a taxi, which took 9 minutes to arrive at the station to pick me up. And I happen to run out of cash and the taxi driver doesn’t accept cards. So he had to drive me to a cash point. When we arrived at the closest spot near the station, there were three cash machines, but guess what, none of them have cash…” The students started to laugh. “So the driver took me to another ATM near the student unions, where I have to walk across students crowd who were enjoying the sunshine and beer with their T-shirts but I’m wearing this.” (I point to my black suit with a tie closely tied up to the neck). “It happens…but that still can’t justify the fact I’m 20 minutes late. So again, I’m very sorry!”
That’s my starting lines.
Those are all true by the way. I didn’t make that up. But sometimes when you are late, you are late, even though it’s not your fault. However by sharing the embarrassing story, I quickly built a more personal relationship with the audience. I could have started by apologising, and explained the train got delayed, then jumped straight to the presentation. But that wouldn’t end up as well as telling the story. It took me three minutes, but I was glad to see a few smiles from the audiences. At least, that put me in a better position to start my talk.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Good job! Sounds like you are well on your way to management!
What were you presenting? A show about your company? *Bloomberg right?*
Well, I’m still finding my ways there. Yes, the presentation is about my company… when will you be back?