The life of the entertainer
Chris | October 18, 2009I calculated (I’ll tell you why in a moment) that by the end of this year I will have presented to almost 7000 people in just under 100 workshops and presentations around the UK and Ireland.
The fact is that my presentation style and content are not universally loved – but then neither is anybody’s – I’m sure that all speakers and performers, from busy amateurs like myself, to full professionals – get their fair share of events that nose-dive.
I remember in 1985, attending a posh dinner at The Intercontinental – Hambro Life top producers – over 250 blokes in full black tie – wined and dined to excess, starting on the cigars and brandy – and…..
Out steps the cabaret for the night – Victoria Wood.
Never could a performance have been chosen more inappropriately.
To her credit, she knew in the first few minutes that it was “wrong time, wrong place” – and soldiered through to the end of her set, drowned by the noise of guests who were totally disinterested in her songs, stories and jokes.
At the end of the 60 minutes, she calmly closed the lid of her piano and walked graciously off stage.
The responsibility, of course, rests with the conference organisers who simply booked the wrong act.
Ms Wood goes on to an outstanding career.
Its with this story in mind that I comment on my recent workshops with Paddi Lund in Dublin and York and my marketing tour with Practice Plan – the feedback from which has been quite overwhelming.
I’ve been inundated with requests to read my ezine and blog – and also with invitations to visit practices and discuss business coaching.
Possibly the best feedback I’ve had since the Talking Points tour a few years ago.
All in the context that the team at Practice Plan always introduce me as “Marmite” – (you will love or hate him).
And then I arrive home from 10 days of travel to find a letter from the Northern Deanery which attaches two pieces of paper:
- Firstly, feedback from the delegates – 10% loved it, 60% liked it, 15% disliked it and 15% hated it.
Fair enough – I did question the sensibility of putting me in front of 70 first-year Foundation Dentists who had been out on the booze the night before.
Wrong time, wrong people, wrong message?
I did ask – but they said “come along anyway – we need to wake them up and shake them about” – that was the brief.
However, it was the second piece of paper that really amazed me.
Anonymous word-processed comments from tutors which I can only describe as vitriolic and personal.
Not so much feedback as a chance to voice deeply personal insults without any accountability.
I did what I was trained to do many years ago – straight in the shredder where it belongs – so don’t ask me to recount the attack in detail.
Normally I’d put it down to experience and suggest that a few ignorant tutors is a small percentage of a 7000 audience.
But then in York on Friday, a dentist who attended the Deanery gig explained to me that, in the bar of the hotel the night before I arrived, some of the tutors were announcing to all within earshot the arrival of “that jerk Chris Barrow who is going to tell us all how great he is again”.
It appears that a fair job of sabotage was done the night before.
Perhaps the only consolation is that I was invited to lunch after my presentation, ignorant of the slander that was to come – and listened to the same individuals back-stabbing others of their peer group in earshot of myself and other guests in the hotel.
I’m not going to keep my feelings to myself – I’m “over” the poor feedback – but I abhor hypocrisy in all its forms.
I hear that the Dean has ordered me banned from future work – he doesn’t need to bother – I won’t be back.
I look forward to continuing my relationship with other Deaneries around the country, with whom I have maintained an excellent relationship for a decade.
I’ll just get on with my career and offer a public “thank you” to the dentists in York on Friday (you know who you are) and Ian Gordon, who are the only individuals who emerge from this debacle with their integrity intact.
70% positive:30% negative is still an approval rating politicians would kill for.
Chris,
York was an absolute delight to be part of… Sean Fitzpatrick was inspiring and Paddi Lund (whilst being extraordinarily laid back) had some absolutely brilliant ideas that I will be implementing Monday morning.
Your presentation also challenged me, especially the issue of surgery branding which I hadn’t really looked in to too much.
I don’t agree with everything you say, but I am always challenged by what you say. What amazes me is that the education establishments that deride you aren’t able to see that taking a view on something is what starts a debate… and it’s the educated debate that is the real catalyst for change. If no-one ever stood up and said anything controversial there would never be any debate and we’d never move forwards.
Let them do what they always have and get what they always got; their comments belong firmly where you put them!
By your own definition you must now be an uber-guru?
cheers,
Mark
Chris, I have come to learn that the people of whom I was in awe as a graduate are often the worst people to have instructing new graduates. Those that can, do. Those that can’t, quite often but not always, flee to the safety of a salaried post from whence they can pontificate about denigrate those who choose to plough their own furrough.
The 15% who loved your message will act on it and have a great, challenging career but we must accept that there is a significant body of the population who never think and form their own opinions; they simply repeat the last opinion they heard.
“To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.” – Plutarch
I think it was you that told me to never wrestle with pigs in Shi*e. It’s always been a pretty good reference for me,
cheers
Dave
Chris that is fair enough but it is a real shame for the guys in the North East.
We get an awful lot of information from one side of the argument and it seems a shame not to hear the other.
From my limited experience being good at business makes you better not worse at dentistry. You value your product more, you value your customers more and you value your team more.
I’m just glad I got the chance to see you while you still giged up here as it has made a huge and positive influence on my career.
Well I better say no more as I’m still employed by the aforementioned deanery but what a shame
Chris O’Connor´s last blog ..Please help- Inci-Dental listings!
Chris Barrow tells the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts.
There are those that are alive, those that thrive, those that deny and those that survive.
Those that are alive progress in any market because they are alive and open to the belief that they will always give and receive value from all communication and if they can gain one thing of value from a presentation, they are happy.
Those that thrive are usually successful … to a point. Their results are up and down because they are addicted to survive. Thrive rimes with survive and the reason that they thrive is because they are always working. They are often angry about this and project their attack onto anyone that reaches out with a new message that could help them. They can’t hear the new message because they are overwhelmed and pissed off with the old message that keeps them addicted to survival.
Those that just try to survive do so by living each day just trying to get to the end of it almost hoping that the phone doesn’t ring because it could mean that they would have to get off their lazy ass and do something. They have signed off from most of their business lives because they are fed up as they tried to get their lack of approval, recognition, safety and worthiness through their work and now it is “what is the use”.
Then there are those that just plain deny. It is like the Hebrew proverb; ten percent of the people make things happen, eighty percent watch things happen and ten percent don’t have a clue that anything happened at all.
Life is about messages. If you get the message then you receive an attainment and you go onto the next level. If you don’t get the message, then you create a problem. If you don’t fix the problem, then you create a crisis, then you get the message.
Just remember, don’t shoot the messenger!
Simon Reilly´s last blog ..In Memory Of Chase