In reviewing a CD of a talk I gave for the U.S. Army in Atlanta years ago, I found that one of my points involved getting feedback. I took a half-filled water pitcher and a glass and I began filling the glass with water. When the water reached the top of the glass I went on slowly pouring. I asked, “How many noticed how once the glass is full, no matter how much I keep on pouring, the glass isn’t going to hold any more water.” The water had been running down on the stage and some onto the top of my shoes. The audience stirred some when I said, “Here, let me show you again.” I said, “Isn’t that amazing?” I poured some more slowly and more water ran down to the floor. Then I said, “I have done this in corporate meeting rooms and in some of our nation’s top hotels and it’s funny. I never get invited back again.” They laughed loud and long.
“Now,” I explained, “if I will interact with that glass and drink some of this water. watch what happens.” I took a good drink of water and stopped. Then I began pouring more water into the glass slowly and let it run over onto the floor.
I stopped and kicked some of the water off my shoe. I said, “I guess I have always been a slow learner but when I do learn, I learn. Ladies and Gentlemen, over the years I have discovered that, unfortunately, the ultimate result of most communication is misunderstanding. First of all many people just don’t get it and if they get it they soon forget it. The brain works just like that glass. It demands interaction. When you are trying to get an idea from your mind into someone else’s mind they require some interaction, like my swallowing some of that water from the glass. Get feedback.
OK, that was the message. And when there is an incident and someone gets hurt the instructor or the supervisor or the manager might say, “I told him not to do that.” Yes but did you tell him a dozen other things at the same time too? Did his mental memory cup runneth over?”
Now that isn’t what I wanted to talk about. What I want to know is “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WATER ON THE FLOOR STUPID?”
“Oh, sometimes I carried a bath towel in my briefcase and I’d mop it up with my foot while I talked on. Sometimes I’d just walk across the stage and continue.
And that still isn’t the story I wanted to tell you.”
Ta Da! Drumroll, Cymbal crash!!!
I was making a presentation at a local highschool. Five participants were seated behind a table on the stage, you know, the head of the PTA, the teachers representative and the School Principal had all spoken briefly and then the Principal introduced me. I came out and spoke in front of them facing the audience. It worked fine. I did that segment pouring the water from the pitcher to the glass, the water poured over to the floor, the point was made and when I finished that segment I just walked over further to the right and continued my speech. A few moments later I glanced back and there behind me was the school principal with a towel, down on her hands and knees mopping up the water.
I joined her.
A month later, the Principal of that high school, Mary Jane Fredericks received an invite from the White House to dine with the President of the United States of America. She had been selected as the best High School Principal in America.
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