Energy Crisis…….What Energy Crisis?

As the days begin to lengthen (it may feel like at snail’s pace but trust me it is happening!), we’re all moving towards the time of year when Events Organisers traditionally begin to scratch their heads and wonder what they’re going to do to bring a spark at the company’s big get together. You all know the problem, you’ve all seen it play out in real time. A well-meaning senior leader, who’s obviously fantastic at the task of leading the organisation and is well respected by all, takes to the stage, PowerPoint clicker in hand. They go to the podium (why is it always a podium, by the way? I’m guessing it’s there to hide behind!), thank everyone for coming, begin to address the good people who have gathered….and somehow the seconds turn to minutes and the unreadable graphs appearing behind the speaker seamlessly meld into one another and……well, you get the picture!

Of course, I’m being grossly unfair here. Some leaders are fantastic, charismatic speakers. But for most….well, suffice to state that public speaking is just an entirely different and foreign skill set to heading up a large, successful organisation. You can be as practised as you want but the magic bit often missing is the pace, the wit and the natural pizzaz of a professional who can take large audiences with them on a journey around your chosen message. There are many tricks and techniques you can employ to take an audience with you – pace is one, changing tack regularly another, using humour a somewhat riskier third option – but essentially what I’m talking about here is energy.

Public speaking is easily in the top 5 list of most people’s phobias, along with spiders, snakes and falling from height. And if I’m going to be honest here, as a drama practitioner for decades now, there’s not an actor I know who hasn’t woken up at least once from a nightmare of standing on a stage and not knowing what they’re doing there or what they’re going to say next. Thankfully, we’re a strange enough breed to get past such actors’ horrors and we go on to thrive in those magic moments of carrying an audience with us through the workplace scenarios we play out in conference settings the world over.

And the one thing we thankfully have here at 2macs is energy. Boundless and, it turns out, renewable! There’s something re-energising about working with audiences in real time at large events, responding to their directions (if you’ve seen us working, you’ll know what I’m talking about) to deepen awareness of safety cultures and how to improve them. It really is magic stuff and when we’ve come off stage it does feel like we’ve kind of been, well, zapped! Energised in every sense of the word….and from audience feedback at every event we appear at, we know they all feel the same way.

Plug in, tune in and feel the power!

Harry is Head of Behavioural Safety and can be contacted on harry@2macs.com