Episode 043 — Acknowledge your Elephants and Consider Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

2-Minute Tip: Acknowledge Your Elephants

 

An elephant in the room is a topic no one wants to talk about, but probably everyone should. They include:

  • Equipment failure
  • Fire alarm
  • Falling flowers
  • Folks who walk out
  • Medical emergency
  • Loud neighbors
  • A blown lamp
  • Major news event
  • Major corporate news
  • And more

 

As a speaker, it’s important to acknowledge them in an appropriate manner. If you don’t acknowledge them, the awkwardness will distract your audience and make the rest of your talk less effective.

 

Program Note

 

Personal friend and friend of 2-Minute Talk Tips, Tim Garber, recently appeared on the 12 Minute Convos podcast with Engel Jones. It’s fun interview. You can check it out here. You can find more of Tim’s appearances here.

 

Post Tip Discussion: Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

 

Analyzing the goal you are trying to achieve with a talk, and the arguments you plan to leverage through the lens of necessary and sufficient conditions can be enlightening. Doing so makes it easier to see why something works or doesn’t work, and it promotes cleaner and clearer thinking.

 

A necessary condition is one that is required to achieve a result, but does not guarantee a result.

 

A sufficient condition is one that will definitely bring about a specific result, but it is not required to achieve that result.

 

How do your programs and proposals fit in with this framework?

 

Call To Action:

 

  • Acknowledge your elephants.
  • Know the necessary and sufficient conditions around the topics you speak about.
  • Check out Tim’s conversation with Engel Jones on 12 Minute Convos.
  • Leave a rating or review for 2 Minute Talk Tips in iTunes
  • Have a great year
  • And don’t get best…get better

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