Break Mistake: [breyk mi-steyk] The voluntary adjournment of a presentation, enacted by the presenter, which often results in broad-scale pandemonium.
It made sense at the time: the pastry cart wheeled up sooner than expected. The aroma of fresh brewed coffee was wafting about. You caught a glimpse of a man out in the hallway who looked exactly like Kevin Bacon—it could BE Kevin Bacon, you thought at the time—and Apollo 13 is your favorite movie. Always has been.
So you called for a short break, even though you’d just finished introducing yourself to the audience. Slipping out a side door, you quickly discovered it was not Kevin Bacon at all. Not even close. You waited in line for coffee for ten minutes, and when you got to the front there wasn’t any left. The pastry cart lay in shambles, pastry-less.
But the worst implications of your break mistake were back in their chairs in the meeting room, shaking slightly but uncontrollably as sugar and caffeine coursed through their veins like an angry tornado. They looked bored. No, hostile. No, anarchical and seething with riotous destruction. It wasn’t just the tiny, explosive chemical reactions in their heads as sugar molecules collided with brain cells; it was what you told them when you called an early break. You thought you could just slide out and get Kevin Bacon’s John Hancock on an 8 x 10 glossy you happen to keep in your briefcase, but they thought you came unprepared and with little to nothing of value to say. Thus, they sat before you, shaking as aforementioned and ornery. Also, they were expecting you to be done in another five minutes, but you had to dive headlong into two hours of technical information about the new merger. You definitely made a break mistake.
The Takeaway: Build breaks into the presentation. The human brain is a frail instrument indeed. Give it latitude in a presentation environment, and pastry-seeking behavior will win every time. Breaks should be planned in a rational, pastry-less environment where you can put them in appropriate places, like between hours or intense, information-loaded segments.
