Category Archives: Models

Examples we can productively study

The Conversational Fire of Curiosity

Models, Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , ,

 A Vibrant Sense of Curiosity is Always in Short Supply.

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        Auguste Renoir, The Conversation

Over a lifetime we may be lucky enough to collect a wonderful mix of friends and family. The rewards are many and varied, but we are especially fortunate if they include persons who have the capacity to explore the revealing details of another’s experience. A person’s innate desire to know more about their interlocutor is an asset that means even more than the ability to listen accurately.

Most of us can often identify a person and a particular place when our connection with a genuinely curious person blossomed into a memorable moment. For me the rewards of this kind of conversational oasis were clearly evident when our family paid a routine visit to my sister’s future in-laws. I was just beginning high school, and had been advised by a parent that Faith was an “unusual” person, often with her head in a book and a penchant to talk about “strange” things like theology and philosophy. Those were considered exotic topics in our practical family.

She may have been my parent’s age, but spending time with Faith was a small but important revelation. For part of our visit of several hours she took a keen interest in what I was doing, what my classes in a new school were like, and what I wanted to do with my life. Then she listened and asked more questions. I’m not sure I ever felt the warm spotlight of someone else’s attention so completely before. I had the feeling that she found me fascinating. I simply had not encountered someone who so completely gave themselves over to the typically modest and confused existence of a middling high school student. In those few minutes Faith demonstrated the kind of intellectual curiosity that I still try to foster with my own students.

Think of conversational curiosity as a rare double-down: listening times two.  Most of us can engage in what is usually the mutual pretense of showing interest in another. That often registers as conversational responsiveness. And it’s a functional and useful courtesy in everyday life. We certainly understand that the reverse is more unpleasant: that stuck-alone-on-an-island feeling when we are on the receiving end of a person emptying their mind of too much accumulated baggage.  As everyone knows, the self-obsessed can suck all of the air out of a room.

By contrast, curiosity is a gift to another interlocutor. At its best it seems to spring from a heightened appreciation of things and events. Where most of us see a single subject, the curious see interwoven threads. When too many of us are dominated by the need to express or judge, the curious have an interest to know or discover.

Curiosity cannot be willed. It requires someone who is relatively secure with who they are.

If this sounds easy, it isn’t. This trait thrives on mental energy that too often gets drained away by insecurities that arise from the need for frequent affirmation. The withering of this impulse is also abetted by our preoccupation with the endless chatter of constant messaging that feeds mostly private fixations.

Effective teaching requires curious questioners who can function as surrogates for others less willing to engage. These kinds of active learners give needed energy to a classroom. Woe to the teacher when they are in short supply. The same applies in the boardroom as well. The CEO of a technology company recently noted that without curiosity “You’re dead.” With it “you’re more inclusive, you question more, and you listen.”[i]

[1] Tiger Tyagarajan, “If You’re Curious, You Hold the Keys,” New York Times, Sunday Business, July 11, 2014, 2.

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The PowerPoint Crutch

Models, Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , ,

-powerpoint-presentationPowerPoint, video and computer illustrations can help reinforce a presenter’s ideas.  But they can also create their own distractions and disrupt the flow of ideas.

None of us can attend a presentation these days without immediately noticing a nervous speaker double checking the computer, projector and screen that will be a part of what ever is about to unfold.  The equipment needed for a presentation to a group used to be simpler: little more than a podium and a glass of water.  Today even a routine request to a college student to lead a brief class discussion on a reading is apt to trigger on onslaught of unnecessary slides.

It’s usually a good idea to ward off this impulse. PowerPoints are not the salvation of every talk.  Indeed, its easier to argue that they are often the problem.  Given the natural nervousness that comes with making any presentation, its no surprise that we look to a computer application to bale us out.  But preparing an outline of a presentation for an audience to read is a weak strategy.  Your presence can be more interesting than any set of slides, and in at least one rare instance, less lethal.

After the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia during re-entry over Texas in 2003 a NASA investigation team looking at the accident cited, among other things, a PowerPoint slide prepared by Boeing that was supposed to summarize the risks posed by ice and foam hitting its wings during liftoff.  This was usually a routine occurrence.  Ice that had built up on the fuel tanks always fell off and hit the shuttle during a launch. The problem was the PowerPoint slide itself.  It was so unclear as to be meaningless, leaving decision-makers in a fog of confusion.  Had the risks been stated more clearly, a plan B might have been formulated to save the crew of that mission.

Facsimile slide from NASA Columbia Investigation Board Report, Vol. 1, August 2003.
An ambiguous slide cited by the NASA Columbia Investigation Board Report, Vol. 1, August 2003.

Fortunately, most presentations do not produce casualties. PowerPoint, video and computer illustrations can help reinforce main points. But they can also create their own distractions and disrupt the flow of ideas.  As anyone who has sat through someone else’s vacation pictures knows, we are usually less interesting to others when we try to convert our stories into slides.

There are a host of problems with most PowerPoints:

  • We use too many.
  • Slides often compete with speakers rather than complement their ideas.  Indeed, we are culturally addicted to screens.  Our attention moves to them even when they have nothing useful to show.
  • Slides can state something, but they don’t explain well.  And oral messages should be all about rich and detailed explanations.
  • Completing a set of slides gives us a false assurance that our presentational burdens have been met.  But that’s a false impression.  It’s the speaker’s obligation to be the center of attention, using all the resources of the voice and body.
  • Making other people read your ideas is settling for second best; it’s passive when what an audience truly needs is passion.
  • A presenter should not be the note-taker for an audience.  People usually get more out of a presentation if they are the ones converting the presenter’s ideas into notes.

I once advised a person who was about to address a business group to forgo PowerPoints in favor of a knockout face-to-face presentation.  When she told the executive that hired her she wouldn’t need to use computer and projection equipment, he hardly paused before insisting that she bring along something to show.  It’s funny that we don’t require stand-up comedians to travel with visual props . Comedy presenters understand that its their presence that needs to be the center of attention.  Even so, if a presenter feels like they will appear to be a Luddite without something to show, they should opt for the Ted Talk approach:  only one idea on the screen at time, thoroughly proved, explained and fully amplified.  Above all, slides must never compete with speakers.  They should simply state in a few words what a speaker is about to turn into a verbal rhapsody.