The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters - Lifecycle Performance ...

126 / THE SEVEN STRATEGIES OF MASTER PRESENTERS
2,000 speakers were in attendance and the room was packed. Covey
started the session with an experiential exercise called “Which way is
north?”
Covey asked everyone in the room to point to the direction that
they thought was north. In looking around the room, we could see
that our fellow attendees were pointing to every direction imaginable.
Dr. Covey then asked the people who were sure that they knew which
direction north was to stand up, close their eyes, and point north.
Only about a tenth of the people stood up and there was an immediate
burst of laughter, because those of us who were not sure, could see
that those who were sure were once again pointing in every direction.
Dr. Covey then said that our pointing in all of the various directions
was analogous to most organizations, that is, most of us assume that
we know in what direction the organization is going, but in actuality,
the people who work in that organization do not have either a clear
idea or a strong commitment to the direction in which the organization
is moving.
The second exercise Covey used had to do with negotiation and
influencing skills. Party “A” was anyone who was wearing glasses;
party “B” was anyone who was not wearing glasses. The goal of the
exercise was that party “A” had to convince party “B” to try on his or
her glasses.
Brad: As an expert who constantly lectures on negotiating and influencing
skills and who has written a book about influencing
skills, I was hooked. My party “B” was a very fashionably
dressed young man. Apparently he did not like the idea of
even trying on my conservative looking glasses. I tried everything
I could think of to get him to try them on. For a minute,
it seemed as if my entire self-esteem rested on his trying
them on, while a great deal of his self-esteem equally rested
on his not trying them on.
This was an important lesson for me More importantly, the
magic started when Covey suggested that for all of us (who
were in the influencing role), our glasses had a specific prescription
that was made just right for us and not necessarily
just right for the party that we were trying to influence. Then
Covey hit us all—right between the eyes—by saying that each
of us developed and was entitled to our own perspective, and