How to screw up an important presentation

My friend Kunal and I recently gave an important presentation to a group of senior leaders at Abbott. This presentation marked the culmination of several weeks worth of furious work, and was designed to get buy-in from upper-management for an initiative our teams had been working on. There were several reasons that this presentation was critical:

1. The project promised to bring attractive revenue to Abbott, and as such was a topic of interest to upper-management - one that had to be presented in a precise, methodical, and detailed manner.
2. The collaboration between our two teams (mine and Kunal's) had yielded great results, and we wanted to highlight the potential to work on future projects in the same manner.
   
3. This was an opportunity for Kunal and I to shine, impressing our seniors with the thoroughness of our work, and thereby enhancing our visibility within the circles we moved in.

So this is how the presentation unfolded:

• On the elevator ride down to the meeting room Kunal turned to me and wondered if there was going to be a projector in the room. I realized I had not bothered to check.
• Kunal and I arrived late to the presentation. All senior leaders were already present and seated around the table, waiting for us. Our tardiness was a result of getting pulled-in at the last minute to make changes to our presentation slides. Changes that we should have reviewed with our immediate managers hours (if not days) before the meeting.
• There was no projector in the room. We did not have printouts for our slides.
• Upon seeing the assembled management team, I decided to busy myself with introductions, as Kunal agreed to go hunt for a projector. Before the door closed behind him, I saw him run frantically in a circle outside the meeting room, before sprinting towards the elevator. Where he was going, I had no idea, but I now had to stall until he returned.
  
• I decided to introduce myself to everyone in the room, but this didn't take long. Naturally, I then decided to introduce everyone to everyone else, not thinking how many of these individuals already knew each other.
• With introductions complete, I started to wonder if I should break out into an interpretive dance routine when I was mercifully saved - one of the managers asked if anyone else had heard about Abbott's"greening initiative and the drive to cut down on printer paper waste."
  
• For the next ten minutes I became the most inquisitive student of the environmental impact of Abbott's printing output. I passionately wanted to understand why such an initiative had not been implemented earlier. I asked questions both simple and complex. I took notes. I brought up philosophical and political objections. I think I started losing people when I made the topic a metaphor for the search for extraterrestrial life.
• We were now fifteen minutes past the meeting start time, when God took mercy on my soul, and in ran Kunal, sweaty, out of breath, and with shirt untucked. Who he had killed to obtain the projector, I did not know, and did not care. My life depended on getting the presentation going.
• The power cord for the projector now had to be snaked under the table, between the legs of the assembled party, and into the outlet that lay embedded in the floor, positioned conveniently under the exact center of the table. I think I tackled aside the Alliance Management Director for Oncology in my eagerness to get that cord plugged in.
• As I wove my way, on hands and knees, between the legs of people that could fire me without skipping a beat, I had a sickening realization. The power cord was not long enough to make it to the outlet
• I re-emerged from beneath the table, dust bunnies hanging from my face, only to see Kunal's hopeful face turn despondent as I shook my head.
• Kunal and I then scrambled to reposition the projector precariously on the side of the table closest to a wall outlet. This meant pushing aside the Director of International Business Development and stretching the power cord taut so that it just made it to the wall. With the projector supported on the table in a Rube Goldberg-esque manner, and with its power cord stretched at waist-high level to the wall outlet, we had succeeded in effectively blocking all exit from the room.
• All attention now moved to powering on the projector. In our hurry, we pressed the On/Off button multiple times, so that the projector kept powering on and powering down. Kunal and I glared at each other as our hands performed kung-fu techniques on the projector in a vain attempt to get it turned on. Being the more gracious person, I decided to cede and sat down - no sooner had I done so than Kunal succeeded in turning on the infernal device.
  
• We had never hooked up our laptops to the version of projector in front of us, so another five minutes ticked off the clock as we attempted to bring the slides up on the screen in the room. A picture would appear on the projection screen for a fleeting second, vanish, then reappear, all as Kunal pressed the correct key combination, followed immediately by the wrong key combination in an attempt to get things started.
  
• Just as I began to mentally calculate how many months of savings I had stashed away, and what non-essential expenses my wife and I could cut away to stretch until I found a new job, Kunal's face lit up. The presentation was on the screen, and we were ready to roll.

Trying our best to ignore all that had happened up to that point, Kunal and I launched into a scripted delivery that ... was irrelevant. We realized that we had changed just enough information in the half hour before the presentation that each slide kept throwing us off our intended message.

I honestly don't know how we made it through that hour. However, despite our miserable start we must have said something right, because as we sat slumped in our chairs, exhausted and relieved that we had finished, our managers congratulated us on a job well done. It was all I could do not to break out into tears right there and then. As I wiped at the welling moisture in my eyes I silently thanked God for continuing to provide a few more weeks worth of paychecks. Thank you God. Thank you.

Awkward medical issues

*gasp*

Ah, fresh air.

Man, what a set of two weeks it's been. Work has been crazy - Abbott is finally getting a return on what they pay me. I say "finally" because my sales rotation didn't really count as work. Sure, I was away from home 9-5, but I never really put my MBA-honed skills to work. Business development (my current rotation that started three weeks ago), is completely different. 10-12 hour days, the constant burden of meetings and email, spreadsheet analyses, analyst reports, powerpoint hell - the whole nine yards.

On my current team, I'm the least accomplished (as well as the most recent) addition. I'm the rookie that knows diddly squat, and the Directors around me are fully aware of this fact. Their way of remedying my lack of knowledge is to hand me a project and let me sink or swim. These past two weeks I felt like I'd been haplessly treading water, barely breaking the surface enough to grab a lung-full of air before going back under. But I made it. With some much needed support from fellow newbies, I finally turned in a deliverable that did a half-way decent job of explaining why Abbott should pursue a certain business opportunity in the prostrate market. Reflecting back, I find certain things a little awkward. Like the fact that I now consider "prostrate" to be a market.

Breakfast foods is a market. Athletic shoes is a market. A man's prostrate gland? When did that become a market? But in business, as I've come to realize, everything can be packaged in a way that creates a market around it. The market for casual underwear. The market for cool whip. Perhaps even the market for toilet flush-handles. However, what makes things especially awkward in the healthcare industry is that some medical conditions can be difficult to discuss without giggling (or sometimes wincing), in front of your boss. I came close to doing this several times recently, as it is hard to discuss a man's urination problems, or the invasive surgical procedures designed to correct these conditions, without wanting to cross your legs in empathetic pain. Ouch.

But this project wasn't as bad as some of the work I did while I was at Pfizer. I distinctly remember sitting down regularly with the Viagra marketing group to see how my consulting team could assist them with their information needs. Inevitably talk would move to how effective certain ED meds were in giving men the sexual satisfaction they needed, and what side effects turned these men off, and how to measure the happiness level of spouses. The problem was that the entire Viagra marketing team consisted of women. Seven women and Faisal would sit around a conference table, earnestly discussing the sexual advantage of taking a pill that lasted 36 hours vs 3 hours, or how the quality of the erection was paramount, or how useful it was that a specific pill could also boost urine flow.

Awkward. Really awkward.

The birthing pain equivalent - trying to negotiate a car deal

Saeeda went through a lot during the birthing process. Any wife will attest to the pain of pushing out a baby, and when I ask mine, she asks me to imagine squeezing a tennis ball out of my nostril. The painful analogy is apt - watching her struggle in the hospital made it clear that there was nothing as physically demanding and painful that I could ever do that would compare to her experience. But Saeeda, it turned out, had different ideas.

Soon after Nuha arrived, I was given a seemingly straightforward assignment: find us a new car. At the time I thought that this was a reasonable request - we haven't had a car in more than three years, and with Nuha's doctor's appointments and my job in the suburbs, we're going to need one. However, I didn't completely understand Saeeda's true intentions. She simply wanted to punish me for putting her through the labor process.

You see, car buying remains a process as pleasant as having a root canal. The players involved have not evolved much over the years, despite the fact that the internet has helped educate the average consumer to the point that there is little we cannot find out. Within seconds, we can learn the true price of a car, read reviews on experiences past customers have had with dealerships, or study common pitfalls to avoid.

But car salesmen don't seem to understand this. From the moment you enter a dealership you are marked, and are worked over by the sales person until you either give in and buy the car, or decide you've had enough and want to leave. Rarely are you ever able to make it in and out on your terms, which are usually to test drive the car and get a price quote. Instead you have to dance the dance.

I'm meticulous about my research, and throughout this car buying process I've tried to have the maximum amount of information at my fingertips. But yet I've still had to endure the sales person asking me what monthly payment I'm looking for (never negotiate the monthly payment), how much I'd like to put down (minimize the downpayment, especially when leasing), or if I was ready to buy today (absolutely not). I've still had to cool my heels while the salesperson handed me off to their manager, who always jovially asked me how he could help me, or what he needed to do to earn my business.

Any time I asked an intelligent question, I got responses along the lines of, "well, it's a complicated calculation, and the city tax only makes matters worse, but I can bump up the term of the deal and drive payments down ... but tell me, you like the car, right? It's a great car, isn't it?"

*sigh*

So often it's taken all my self-control not to be rude and tell them that guys, I've been in sales for the last year. I know all about soft-closes and getting buy-in. I studied this stuff in business school. I can tell when you're trying to get me to commit. I understand numbers - moving the term of the deal out will lower my monthly payments, but I'm just making lower payments for longer, which in the end adds up to a larger amount. Please, just tell me what price you're willing to sell the car for so that I can go to the next dealer and shop around.

After about four dealers, I decided I'd had enough, and I started making phone calls instead. This I'd highly recommend. Call up a dealership, ask for their Internet sales manager. Tell them exactly what you are looking for, and that you are going to buy within a week if you can get the right price. If you get the "come into the dealership, we'll talk then" song and dance, tell them you'll do so if you get the right price, and that you won't come in until you've shopped around. Find out the MSRP of the car they come back at you with, as well as their sale price. Don't bother with financing questions if you are looking to buy, or leasing questions if you are looking to lease. All you care about are those two numbers.

The MSRP is the number you will use when you call another dealer about the same car. You want them to quote you a car that has the same MSRP as that of the first dealer. That's the only way you'll be able to compare apples to apples - that way you know both dealers are quoting you prices for the same type of car with the same features. However, it's the sale price that will clue you into how good a deal you're getting. After three or so quotes, it's up to you - how much you enjoy bargaining and negotiating, and playing dealers against each other? Do you love it? Then keep shopping, otherwise go with the lowest sales price.

My entire paternity leave was consumed by this process. I swear I was at a breaking point towards the end. But finally, on Friday, it happened. The right dealer with the right price, with a decent sales rep - all of it came together wonderfully, and I walked out with a shiny new Lexus RX 350. A stretch for our budget, no doubt, but not having bought ourselves anything nice in three years has earned us the right to splurge a little (screw those student loan payments!). And we won't be driving long distances, given that we live in the city, so gas prices are not a concern. I can't tell you how much I've missed that wonderful new car smell!

It's almost like ... giving birth. You go through immense amounts of pain and curse at your spouse, but your baby, when it arrives, makes it all worthwhile. Thank you Saeeda, for making me understand.