You know the saying in the telecom biz. You can have the greatest fiber optic network in the world, but if you don’t have the fiber running from the main pipe to every house on the block, you ain’t got nothin’. In other words, you gotta have the last mile.
Same thing with high stakes presentations. You can have the greatest speech or presentation you have ever been able to capture on slides or page. You can rehearse your butt off, be familiar with the room where you will present, have a dress rehearsal in that very space, and know exactly who is in the audience — and still you can have a nightmare experience.
It happened to a client of mine — a president of a university. We worked on his speech, pushed several drafts through his own recalcitrant communications office, rehearsed at the site of the big event, and then … and then …
On the night of the big event, someone put the pages of his speaking notes into plastic sleeves, and left them on the lectern for him. When he arrived at the lectern, and found his text sealed in plastic, and his audience waiting for him to begin, he faced two problems. One, he had difficulty seeing through the plastic because of the lighting, and two, the plastic was slippery, so the pages kept dropping to the bottom lip of the lectern, where he couldn’t read them.
As a result, he was unable to pick his eyes up and look at his audience. Worse, he had to lean over the lectern and run his finger along the lines of text so that he could decipher the words.
He did a yeoman’s job. He was good enough for the occasion. But he was not what he could have been, not what he was in rehearsal.
He didn’t have the last mile.