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“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”

Will Rogers

This quote came to mind today as I was conducting a personal coaching session for presentation skills. My client, who is an engineer by training who manages teams of engineers in disparate disciplines, and in presenting to them or to senior managers (almost all of whom are also highly technical by background), he gets nervous because he knows he’s going to face some detailed technical questions that he can’t answer satisfactorily. In effect, he’s afraid of seeming ignorant.

I reminded him that everyone in that room is ignorant, only about different things. The days are long gone when anyone can be an expert in everything, so there’s no shame in admitting ignorance. If you go into a presentation or a meeting determined not to show ignorance, you will be called out. There’s no shame in saying “I don’t know”, and then either offering to find out (unless it’s an irrelevant question that was only posed by the questioner to show how smart he is), or passing it on to a team member for an answer.

Before your presentation, plan ahead for the knowledge level and particular interests of audience members so that you can bring support for questions outside your area. You might also find it helpful to set some ground rules up front, letting your audience know the boundaries of your expertise.

The key is to be totally honest about your own ignorance. This starts with being honest with yourself, which is not as easy as it sounds. As Richard Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

It’s nice to be self-confident, but remember that most people overrate their own abilities, and the most ignorant are least aware of it. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and its corollary is that people with high competence tend to underestimate their ability, because they know how complicated the topic really is.

So if you’re afraid of seeming ignorant, you probably have less to fear than you think, and those who think they have it locked maybe should be a little more afraid!

You might want to leave some baggage behind

I am currently on a two-week trip to five cities in Asia teaching two of my favorite courses: Precision Questioning and Answering, and Executive Presentation Skills.

I pride myself on traveling light, and in fact was able to get everything I need into a briefcase and one carry-on. But to accomplish that, I had to think very carefully about what to bring and what to leave behind.

Actually deciding what to physically bring is the easy part. Deciding what to bring and what to leave behind mentally is harder, and far more important.

Although the scenery in Asia is certainly different, there is so much that is the same as in the US—from familiar brands to what’s on TV in hotel—that it’s easy to assume that communication is just the same, and that what works at home will work just as well here. But people here think differently, and express themselves differently, and that has important implications for anyone wanting to conduct business successfully as well as to simply make the most of the experience.

Mental Baggage You Should Bring

An open mind. The most important item of mental baggage you need to bring is an open mind. Be willing to try new foods[1], new ideas, and new ways of doing things. Don’t go to the extreme of those irritating folks I run across who are fond of criticizing everything back home and thinking every little thing is wonderful over here, but by all means withhold judgment, and try to understand things from the local point of view.

Curiosity. Bring a healthy dose of curiosity. Learn a few words in the local language and try them out. A book that I’ve found helpful  is Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, which describes customs and business tips in over 60 different countries. It taught me the secret of how to keep from getting plastered when your Chinese hosts take turns proposing toasts to you—tell them you would be honored if everyone would join in.

Situational and cultural awareness. I remember one  time  in  Japan  when my host asked  what I would  like to in  my free time, and I  suggested attending a sumo match. Rather than respond directly, he suggested something else. I insisted on sumo, and he got more and more uncomfortable as he made other suggestions, because he was mortified to tell me that it was impossible because it was not the right time of year for it.

What to Leave Behind

The assumption that our way is the only way or the best way. Sure, the scientific study of management began in America, and we lead the world in business schools, but other countries are catching up and in some areas surpassing our best practices. You can learn from anyone.

Excessively direct way of speaking. There are a few countries that are more direct in their manner of speaking than the US, but very few, and certainly none in Asia. What you take as merely clarity and directness can seem excessively rude or unsophisticated in other countries. It’s actually quite difficult for us to learn quickly how to express ourselves more indirectly, but at least we should be alert to what our hosts are trying to tell us between the lines.

Politics. Frequently when I travel I get a lot of people who want to question me on my views about American politics, and then inevitably try to turn it into an argument. I avoid it by saying I left my views at home. It hasn’t yet come up this trip, but only because it’s not election season; our elections have an oddly fascinating appeal to the rest of the world.

The world may be getting flat, as Tom Friedman says, but there are still enough lumps and bumps that you should be very careful what you pack when you go out in it.

Nice suit. Now, about the fit…

Most effective business presentations have a clear structure in which the individual parts fit like pieces in a puzzle. Different structures may be more or less suitable for specific situations, but the benefit of any structure is that it presents information in ways that are familiar to how your listeners think, so that what you say is easy to follow and makes good sense. It provides a thorough answer to the main questions that they must have answered before they make a decision.

There are different structures for different situations, including Topical (three reasons to buy my product), Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow, and Problem-Solution.

Clear structure also helps you as a presenter to craft your presentation, and when you make the same basic presentation over and over, such as a sales presentation, you quickly develop a template that is easy to replicate, so with just a few changes to company name, change some numbers here and there, and you automagically have a customized presentation. What could be easier than that?

Here’s the problem: selecting the right structure is like choosing the right ensemble for someone to wear for an occasion. Pulling the right one off the rack is just the first step—no matter how appropriate it is, it still needs to be tailored for the individual wearer to be just right.

Let’s break down the Problem-Solution structure to illustrate. It comprises these elements:

• Problem
  • Description
  • Root causes
  • Consequences
• Available alternative solutions
• Recommended solution
  • Description
  • Implementation
  • Benefit
• Call to action

If your listeners are just finding out about the problem for the first time, you will probably have to give full weight to each of these elements in your presentation. But most audiences, or at least different people within the audience, have already thought about it and will have different questions.

If they already know they have a problem and are eager to solve it, you could easily lose their attention in the early going by spending too much time describing the problem. On the other hand, where a lot of sales presentations go off track is that they spend too much time describing the solutions without first convincing the decision maker that they have a problem that needs to be solved right now.

The point is that all of the elements probably need to be in your presentation, but some have to be longer or shorter depending on where the audience is in their thinking. Let your audience analysis be your guide, not the prescribed number of slides you have built into your template.

How do you know? It requires a deep understanding of the decision making process in the room, driven by the questions in your opportunity plan. An internal coach or champion can be invaluable, but they’re not likely to tell you unless you actually ask the questions. If you can’t find out before the presentation, you have to be completely alert to the body language of the decision makers and be prepared to make adjustments on the fly.

Also, keep in mind that the tailoring depends less on what the audience wants to hear than on what they need to hear, and you may need to challenge their thinking. They may think they fully understand the problem and just want to hear what you’re proposing to solve it, (especially if your competitor has shaped the terms of the discussion), but you might have to show them an aspect of the problem that they haven’t considered.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates used this phrase in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. In his case, he was mainly referring to his dealings with Congress and the press, but it’s excellent advice for anyone interested in preserving their credibility, relationships and personal effectiveness.

I’ve had the taste of my foot in my mouth often enough to know that it’s hard to do when the lips are pressed tightly together. While it may be obvious, it’s easy miss chances to shut up when we’re fired by passion for our position or our product, or even when we’re trying to help someone else. Common opportunities to shut up include:

Coaching others. We see someone making a mistake we’ve made before… “You ought to…”

Talking past the close. “Put that pen down. I still have 13 slides.”

Perfectionism. Correcting someone else’s mistake when it’s not germane to your aims. “Did the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor?…Forget it, he’s on a roll.”

Story-topping.  “I think that’s great that your kid got into County Community College. I was so proud when my son got into Harvard.”

When you’re angry. (and on national TV):

Information asymmetry. When you realize you’ve told the other party all about your life, and don’t know a thing about them.

I thought of a few others, but this is probably a good opportunity to stop.