Before my arrival, I searched the web for “presentation success China.” So many rules. Do this. Don’t do this. Sure, there are cultural nuances.  But it turns out that the answer is the same as presenting anywhere. Love them, and they love you back. Respect them and they respect you back. Honor them and they honor you back.

It’s about taking the time to care more about them than about all the possible ways it is to embarrass oneself.

Sounds just like good teaching anywhere. To any generation. At any point in time.

First up was the gymnast. Her job was to perk up the audience. It was 9am and it was the first day of the conference. The music was fun and the stretches felt good on the back and the butt. The woman next to me refused to play, I guess, thinking she was already perked, but really she seemed to be most in the need of perking.

Next up was the researcher. She started by sweetly thanking the committee for placing her right after the gymnast. It got a laugh – obvious and vulnerable truth always will – and then she went on. Brilliantly.

Rather than simply spew meaningless research, before providing “answers” she asked questions. Kind of like Jeopardy but totally different. She said: Tell me what you think. Do you think X went up or down? Do you think Y was better or worse? Do you think Z was more prevalent or less? After each question, she waited. And you know what happened? The 750+ attendees answered. Down. Better. Worse. And then, with her data, she confirmed or corrected. With her data! She spent 2 -3 minutes, talking to people who just expressed their opinion, and then wanted to find out if they were as smart as a 5th grader or not, explaining the research findings. She could have talked  to us for 10 minutes or 20 about each point. But then, no one would have cared.

She involved us and then she taught us. Genius!

How do you make data interesting? How do you involve your listeners? How do you keep from being boring?

This week I had the opportunity to observe three sales trainers; training professionals rather than experts in the field in which they were training (think English teacher teaching a math class).

I’ve observed hundreds of speakers and trainers and here is what set these woman apart: They started with heart.  They wanted their students to succeed and it was apparent from the moment their attendees arrived. Their care, compassion, authenticity and preparation made everything good.

I was once told that what I lacked in professionalism (which at the time was everything!), I made up for in enthusiasm. These women showed me up. What they lacked in professionalism (which was very little), they made up for in heart.

So it got me thinking: how can we authentically amp up the love? When the people we teach and talk to know we care about their success, their success – and ours – is practically guaranteed.

Great article in Convene, PCMA‘s monthly magazine, written by Jeffrey Cufaude. He says, …”if you don’t give [the audience] a voice, they may raise their own.”

And they should!

What would we – speakers, sales presenters, teachers – do differently if we encouraged listeners to walk out on us if we bored them? What if we gave every attendee, student, colleague 3 flags – red (stop), yellow (somewhat interesting, tell me more about what this means to me) and green (great stuff) at the start of the session and invited them to raise their flags at 5 minute intervals? How about if we asked them to raise their voice in protest as soon as they felt we were wasting their time? What about asking them to text or Twitter their comments to us in real time – not so much to tell us how much we suck – but to help us to suck- less, to help us get back on track and create an environment that enabled them to learn best?

What different design would we incorporate to ensure they stayed with us for the length of our talk? What else would we do to engage and stimulate them?

What would you do to keep them from voting with their feet?