What Steve Martin could teach us all about presenting training

Facing large audiences on your own, with no place to hide... trying to get their attention when they were wishing they were somewhere else... wondering if there is an agent in the audience who might be able to get you booked on to the Graham Norton show as the C-list act next to Tom Jones and that guy from Sherlock...

Image via Wikipedia

Steve stretching his act

Ok, so stand up comedy and presenting on training courses do not necessarily share all of the same traits and pitfalls – and, despite your best efforts, it is unlikely you will end up on prime time Friday TV for your groundbreaking application of Kolb’s Learning Theory you did in a seminar last week (though I would love to see you prove me wrong!).

But I was struck when reading Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up about some of the similarities between the two fields, as well as some of the things that we could apply when presenting in front of audiences. So with this in mind here are three quotes from the book that I think are food for thought for any other L and D professionals (I use the term
“professional” loosely in my case):


"Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naivete... that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do".

I think if we all knew how poorly we were to perform the first time we presented in a new setting, covered a brand new topic or subject we might become paralysed with fear. Rather than let that over take you just accept it as part of the process - you have to start somewhere so why not right here, right now?
If you are going to take on a new skill or approach you will be racked with doubts – ‘Does this make sense? Am I making progress? Will anyone actually care about the end result?’  Embrace the uncertainty as part of the learning process – after taking part in it you will be better informed about what works and what needs tinkering in future instances.

They say the best place to get run over is in the middle of the road, so don't be afraid to get out there to places where your experience makes you naive and make you have to apply what you have been learning. A litmus test of your experiences is no bad thing.  Also bear in mind that if it is the first time no one will have seen it before to draw a comparison and what are the changes of someone going on the same course twice that you will lead on? Even if they do you will be better prepared for when it occurs, so look forward to that returning client not as a critic to fear but a partner in your development process.

"(I) never let them know I was bombing... make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered"


This, if mishandled, could come off as being really insincere if you go over the top. However, people need to buy in to you and that you are confident in what you are presenting.

At the same time this can reinforce your own confidence – as Prop Joe said in the Wire when asked why he was wearing a suit when coaching the East side during the West-East Basketball game, his reply was “Look the part, be the part” (with a couple expletives thrown in to boot).


In terms of leading courses and presenting in general remember: no one has seen the rehearsal, no one knows about the great one liner you forgot to include - so no need to draw any attention to it.

"In psychoanalysis, you try to retain a discovery; in art, once the thing is made you let it go."


This is not one of Martin’s quotes but came from a conversation in the book with, as you might have already guessed, a pschoanalysist.

I have included it here as I think it is important to remember at some point you need to let yourself go with the flow of critiques and criticism that might come your way. Keep in mind anything that does is a review about one point in time of your skills  - it is not a permanent condition, use it as a means to move forward.

It worked for Steve!

Talent Mismanagement?

Well, well that was quite a 24 hours in the British football transfer Market.

This past week the Premier League in England had its January transfer window come to a close,In amongst all this were two transfers that caught the attention for their combined value being in the region of £85 million. There was the £50M sale of Fernando ‘El Nino’ Torres to Chelsea and Liverpool replacing him with Andy ‘El Geordie Ponytail’ Carroll at a cool £35 million.

Putting aside the Carroll transfer for one moment, I was fascinated about what sort of insight the Torres deal gave to the ethos of Chelsea and how these seemed to run counter to their previous communications that they wanted to invest in youth development.
What I imagine the initial aim was to produce individuals of the calibre of La Masia (as described in previous posts on this blog) but it does not seem to have been the case.

Approaching the matter from a HR Talent Management perspective, what can we learn from what occurred?

1. Have a clear assessment of potential star performers and how they met your requirements
If you are going to implement a talent management process, you need to have a clear idea of the competencies required moving forward and any skills gap you can envisage. In some ways sports organisations are very sensitive to rapid change in this regard – Jonah Lomu’s career in Rugby Union is testament to how fragile some careers can be.

The sad fate that awaits all former Rugby players - they are magiced in to chairs when they hang up their boots! Image by Velvet Android via Flickr

However there is some room for manoeuvre. Outflows from the organisation can be identified . Using retirees as an example, we all have prospective ones on our books that are only more likely to be allowed more time in roles given the trend current legislation (and the longer we are all living) but that is not to say you cannot prepare for them leaving. Likewise, footballers do well to last beyond their late thirties, meaning you can identify those areas that might prove problematic and when they might start being an issue.

Didier Drogba at 28 is not an issue – Drogba four or five years older? Might be time to start to start drafting a succession plan, no? Examine the skills and experience that this individual brought to a role and then see how your culture can foster the development of this.

2 . Accept when priorities compromise your values - but admit it
What is interesting is Chelsea made a point of letting a collection of experienced employees with a record of previous seasons of success (Ballack, Carvalho, Shevchenko – ok I am pushing it with that last example!) stating they were going to rely on their youth set up to provide squad support over the coming season; with Daniel Sturridge, Gael Kakuta and Josh McEachran were held up as being standard bearers for this policy moving forward.

Following the latest transfer window the first two have been loaned out to other clubs to gain experience, with McEachran looking as though he might be given a chance in coming months. The last instance aside, what does it say about the value the club place on these employees ability that they are not willing to let them fill positions that are vacant? And, more pointedly, does it suggest that they need to have a rethink of their talent pipelines?

If the problem is identifying the talent at source (i.e. at academies etc) then examine this and how this can be addressed. Would most organisations accept under performing staff coming through their graduate recruitment programme? Unlikely – they would address the sources or nature of the programme to see why they were not being equipped with the necessary competencies and how this could be rectified.

If the issue is that you do not think the policy will generate a return soon enough (i.e. youth team players of enough ability for sustained success) then react, as Chelsea did, by making changes – but don’t suggest that there are not issues that need to be addressed in how you manage your recruitment and selection. It sends confusing messages to those staff you attracted under the previous policy - ask Sturridge whether he knows where he stands and how it has affected his motivation.

It is not something unique to football clubs, or sports for that matter. Shawn Murphy talks on the matter quite eloquently in this blog post - imbedding culture and accepted practices (expecations, performance management etc) starts from your induction and on boarding. Hell some might even say it starts when you advertise to prospective recruits!

Finding it all a bit dispiriting? Don’t worry, I am sure the individuals concerned in this post received in one weeks worth of salary more than most of us might see in a life time, so no danger of being below the poverty line yet. Not sure about what sort of state it has left their long term career goals and development mind.

Still down? Well, there is always the 6 Nations…

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Enjoy the Silence

It happens to all of us. Fuelled by on our own self worth and esteem we crash in to handing out opinions and advice to people left, right and centre.

Reading My Hell is other People recently it seems this guy has had too much of it – and had responded in a passionate and fair way I would say. Yet, in some ways, I was grateful someone had provided an opinion or advice to prompt such a response – no matter how irritating it clearly was to the writer!

It made me think about all of the opportunities that social media offers to not just HR but professionals across industries to share and impart knowledge, are we sometimes swamped by the social media sin of blah blab blah?

When being advised on the delivery of my first training sessions, it was suggested to not always feel uncomfortable with (nor underestimate the value of) silence. Sometimes information needs to  settle, in order to allow for a period of reflection and analysis; the idea being to then feedback, maybe look at things with a fresh perspective and see how things could be moved forward (either in the context of the schedule for the session or the discussion being had).

How might the opposite be illustrated in everyday social media life? Well a good example is the recent figures that came to light about the total tribunal costs for the BBC in 2010.  This story was re-circulated on Twitter lots – I had it in most of the status updates on my timeline on the day it came to light; all just re-circulating the same information, a link to the story.

But what did it tell me about that person who was trying to share the information? It acted as evidence that they read People Management; or maybe they have a colleague who tweeted it and they re-tweeted, hence we both follow their details and it ended up in my timeline. So perhaps in a (tenuously) Kevin Bacon style five steps of separation we are of a similar mindset in terms of information resources ... but beyond this?

Do you know this man? In fairness, who does not feel like they did not after seeing Tremors? Image via Wikipedia

We are all guilty of it (anyone else guilty of resending the top 10 most used profile words on Linkedin? Why did we do that?!) and no issue with people trying to spread the good news but perhaps we all need to check what the purpose of sharing the information is. If it is relevant it will have no problem reaching the top of the information tree on its own – just ask the guys at Domino's when this story broke.

But maybe try thinking of doing this - for every one professional tweet or status update when you wish to resend information of a story someone else is sending round in the echo chamber, why not try and put your own spin on it? Maybe not just share the information but show how you would have approached the situation differently or why this solution occurred in this field but might not be applicable in others - some insight if you will. Suddenly you have moved from being a data manager to a bit of a problem solver.

Then just sit back, relax, and watch as it goes round the world - who knows? You might even find it more rewarding/productive than forwarding on the same information as everyone else.