The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

One thing that you gotta hand it to is Steve Jobs' presentation style, a lot have been talked about it and its now condensed in this simple book. Click on the link for business week's round up.

Berkowitz vs Kowalski

There's just something about Jewish names and court cases. It makes it sound horrendously expensive like some KKR leverage buyout. The same should apply with how Dark Managers name their departments. Lobbing your foreskin doesn't cut it anymore, you gotta have the kippah and curly sideburns to earn the credibility.

Most Dark Managers make the mistake of naming the department as per it's intention. So here's some suggestions to lend a little false sense of grandeur:-

Objective:The lame ass grind of PC Support and answering phone calls from wankers.
Potential Names: Office Automation, End Computing Support
Better: Corporate Computing Services

Objective:The collection of reports that will eventually be fudged to make the ugly look good, and the good look beautiful.
Potential Names: Corporate Governance, Corporate Planning
Better: Corporate Strategic Intelligence

I mean, some rules of thumb apply;

1. If it works out to a 3 letter Acronym that sounds like a grander organization, CSI, FBI, NSA etc then the better it gets.
2. 2 Letter Acronyms are lame
3. 4 Letter ones better sound like a cool misspelled profanity e.g FCUK
4. When all else fails, don't ask an engineer or a geek. They tend to come up with horrendous puns and snicker away at their supposed ingenuity.
5. If you're adventurous enough to invent a nonsense word e.g. Accenture or Avanade; you better have a killer 30 second spiel or be already famous to begin with. (Well; being the Board of Director's nephew works as well)
   

Greetings & Conversation Openers

How someone greets you tells you a lot about the person. There’s roughly the following unspoken objectives/statements when they see you for the first time in the morning based on their voice timber, tone, eye contact, body posture and facial expression (Not necessarily in any specific order):-

• 1. A genuine greeting, no intentions
  
• 2. “Hey, you’re so cute, I so love talking to you every morning”
• 3. “Duuudee… wasssuuup… did you watch the ball game yesterday….?”
• 4. “Asshole! Hope you die mauled by rabid dogs!!!’
• 5. “What a putz , you’re so dumb you couldn’t tell a vulva from an anus”
• 6. “You mensch! Worship me or die”
• 7. “I am better than you, so I'll just mess with you a little”
• 8. “Urgh… not another irrelevant person that I need to make eye contact…”
• 9. “Hmm… he/she could be useful, I’ll be civil and chat a little”
• 10. “I wonder if he/she knows some juicy secret that’s happening with the boss…”
• 11. “Asshole, you don’t even deserve to be in your position, but wtf, I gotta kiss ass… so I’ll just greet you with a sarcasm laced opener”
• 12. “oh shit.. .this guy won’t stop talking…”
• 13. “I see high level ass... must kiss, must kiss... nose not brown enough”

As part of the advance dark manager technique, you have to master, Greeting 1); Greeting 2) even if he/she reeks like the toilet; Greeting 3) to be part of a gang and Greeting 9). All of this while sounding like Greeting 1)

Tough… but you’ll need it to succeed!

The Halo Effect

If you're Caucasian, try working in Asia, folks will look at you like you're the personification of Zeus himself. Not that they know who's Zeus anyway, but you know what I mean.

The 80s have pretty much brainwashed Asians into believing that any mustached American is Magnum P.I. and any white haired older gentleman as John Hannibal Smith from the A-Team.

The 60s and 70s were worst, older Asians think of you as either the six million dollar man, Bruce Banner (if you're smart) or Vic Morrow playing Sergeant Saunders in Combat.

Where as those who remembers the 40s and 50s grew up as secretaries or drivers to white westerners holding positions as regional or banking officers. Needless to say, they carry a position of immense power. Well; relative to the Asian, but for all you know he was probably shipped to the West Indies for being caught shagging the Duke's daughter.
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The Halo effect, more importantly, persona and the voice of Power by virtue of an accent still affects deeply the psyche of a plain Asian. So here's how you take advantage of it:-

• Always bring a westerner along to any meeting where a Top Asian needs to make decision from a proposal. All the westerner needs to say is "I propose such and such..." and it typically gets endorsed. Never mind that the proposal has been submitted 3x previously.
  
• For better effect, bring an older Westerner, who's taller than 5 Eleven, the taller the better.
• For more impact, throw in an obscure accent. Well; in any case, American and British accents are getting all too common. The flavour of the month is either Australian or European for general IT.
• Afrikaan will do as well. Especially after the movie Blood Diamond and oddly enough in the Supply Chain and logistics line.
  
• Scottish and Irish accents works well in Shipping and Oil Drilling business.
• American works best in consulting
• British for insulting
• German for Enterprise Resource Planning systems (specific field in IT)
  
• Russian, if you need to display statistical numbers. (even if it's just a mean or common Arithmetic) -> Fyi, Most Dark Managers can't count...
  
• Finally, nothing beats a hot looking full chested tall blond wearing a shirt (jacket optional). There's just something about shirt buttons and wholesome mammary glands.
  

Pretty... Useless

I posted an entry earlier about how dark managers could just hire any pretty face as long as they can talk to manage customers.

We'll here's proof that a pretty face can only get you so far...

Presentation & Powerpoint

Presentation skills are one of the most important capabilities for a Dark Manager. You have Guy Kawasaki spewing the 10/20/30 rule. Clearly specifying that a presentation slide should typically be not more than 10 slides long, last no more than 20 minutes and have fonts no smaller than 30.

Then again, through horrendously bad presentation meetings, you have this. The clip below summarizes presentation hells that I go through on a daily basis.



Or as Ram Charan says it, if you have to put your points across via Powerpoint there’s something fundamentally wrong with your communication skills. Quite obvious considering the amount of lies a Dark Manager hides and having the viewer look at the slides avoids them from figuring you out through Neuro-linguistic Training your eye movements and body posture.

I’ve also personally attended training on presentation which teaches synchronicity in hand movements and speech, and the rule of not making analogous movements or in layman’s terms, moving your hands and arms the same way every time you come to a point.
And then you have this, a classic example of overdoing hand movements.



Anyhow, practice enough and you’ll be able to lie through your teeth without flinching.

Image to the Dark Practitioner

Image is everything to the dark practitioner. You have to look the act and talk the walk. Here's a few items in your cheat sheet.

The Look & Demeanor

• Wear a shirt with a cuffling if you're a man (no cheap plastic ones). For a lady always wear a power suit. Get a proper heavy silk tie, and make sure you change them daily. Don't wear the same tie twice a week.
• Never ever wear a short sleeve shirt unless you have burly hairy arms with a righteous scar on it.
  
• Keep your shoes cleaned, preferably shiny.
  
• Speak with even tones but place emphasis on key words. Manage a baritone.
  
• Make no sudden jerky movements, walk and move your hands with deliberate slowness. If even if you need to be in a hurry, space out your steps, but don't walk too fast that it's jerky. Think soar like an eagle.
• Wear a noticeable watch, its a good subject matter.
• Don't keep items in your pockets, especially in your pants as the bulginess make you look like a clown.
  
• Keep your face spotless, go to an executive facial, no eyebags or dark circles please. You must always look fresh.
• Keep a smile on your face at all times.
• When you talk to people, learn forward, keep eye contact and looked paternally concerned.
• Do not make any dumb jokes.
  

The Presentation

• If you don't know something, end a question with a question.
  
• Always interrupt a conversation with "If I may..."
• Quote a passage from a well known business book. The more learned you sound, the more people think that you are actually smart.
  
• Always present good news. Never ever present bad news. Nobody likes a whiner.
• The thickness of any report is proportionate to the value of the project. e.g if 100K is 10 pages then 1mil should be 100 pages

Meeting the CEO

• Always carry a pile of power point slides and paper when you meet the CEO. Never go there empty handed.
• Always have an interesting anecdote or story to tell
• Always have good news and achievements.