Verbal Aikido

 

 

One of the key ideas of Aikido is to deflect your opponent’s energy and momentum or use it against them. The same idea can apply to demos.

 

 

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”

– Winston Churchill

 

 

I was delivering a demo and halfway through the meeting a hostile audience member said, “How come your software sucks so bad and costs so much?” (This is verbatim!)

 

Clearly, this was not a Great Question or Good Question.

 

I responded, “This requires more development than I’d like to invest right now. I’m going to capture it here on the whiteboard, along with all the other questions. We’ll plan to address it later on or during our Q&A session.”

 

This was acceptable to everyone, but I hesitated before adding it to the list. The classic method of “parking” the topic would be to write it as it was expressed. However, I didn’t want the audience to stare at “How come your software sucks so bad and costs so much?” for the balance of the meeting. A slightly distilled version like, “software sucks, costs so much” wouldn’t improve things.

 

I recalled a lesson I’d learned in a training session that discussed reducing questions to their “Neutral Pillars,” which is a terrific method of capturing an idea with a positive spin.

 

I applied the Neutral Pillars approach and wrote down, “Quality and Value” on the whiteboard. Much better: a bit of verbal aikido!

 

 

Moral: Park hostile (and Stupid) questions and use Neutral Pillars!

 

Discussion: Note that if I had written down the question verbatim or distilled it, the audience would be seeing that text the balance of the demo. Instead, I identified two relevant Neutral Pillars, translating “software sucks so bad” to “Quality,” and “costs so much” to “Value.”

 

These were the words the audience saw on the whiteboard Parking Lot for the balance of the meeting. Much better!

 

 

Want more bitesize engaging stories and lessons learned? See my new book “Suspending Disbelief!”

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

 

And you’ll find more details on when and how to elegantly and effectively park questions in Chapter 8 “Managing Time and Questions” of Great Demo! here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/