Page 33 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

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AVOIDING

DANGEROUS TRAPS

few years ago a vice president of a Fortune 10 company spent
A a solid month preparing for his fi rst big presentation to the
chairman. For thirty days he focused his concentration and produc-
tivity time into building something he wasn’t quite sure how to
build.
When the big day finally came, it was the second day of a long,

two-day marathon of presentations. The time was 4:50 Friday after-
noon. The vice president was so consumed with the moment and
the fast-approaching culmination of all his recent efforts that he
failed to correctly gauge the mood in the room. He did not notice,
for example, that some of the senior officers were stirring restlessly

and impatiently glancing at their watches. Even after a forgettable
start to his forty-minute-plus presentation and the chairman’s curt
interruption to request that he speed things up and get to the point
(because some people had to catch planes), the vice president marched

doggedly onward. Apparently fired by fear of failure and too rigor-
ously prepared to be flexible, he seemed not to have heard the chair-

man’s admonition.
Meanwhile, waves of thinly disguised impatience swept the
room. Soon it became apparent even to the hapless vice president

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