Share screen, share shame

You’d think by now we’d have cracked it. After all, we’ve had years of practice. Endless Teams calls. Countless Zoom meetings. Surely, by 2025, everyone in the workplace should know how to present a document on screen. And yet, here we are – stuck behind the same awkward silences, the same ‘Hang on… where’s that file?’ moments, and the ever-reliable ‘Can you see my screen?’

Apparently, no. No, we can’t. For a generation raised on smartphones and social feeds, the inability to navigate a simple screen share is oddly persistent. We fumble between tabs, present the wrong deck, scroll past the point, or worse – forget to share anything at all. Occasionally, we share the desktop, inviting everyone into our digital chaos: 47 open windows, five WhatsApp pop-ups, and a glimpse of your holiday countdown spreadsheet.

It’s not just embarrassing. It’s expensive. Multiply one clumsy presenter by a dozen colleagues, each with 30 minutes to spare, and the wasted hours start to add up. Projects stall, decisions drift, and meetings turn into muddles. The irony? Most of the time, we’re trying to share information. But instead, we share confusion.

What’s going wrong? It’s not the tools. The platforms are robust enough. What’s missing is care. Preparation. A basic rehearsal. The same common sense you’d apply if you were presenting to a room of real people. Because here’s the thing: you are. Somewhere along the way, we assumed digital meant casual. But your colleagues still need clarity. They still need you to guide them through a document, explain what matters, and stick to time. Winging it doesn’t work just because you’re behind a webcam. And it’s not just junior staff. Senior leaders, too, routinely derail meetings by flailing about with multiple versions of the same file, or asking a colleague to “just find that slide for me.” As if someone else should carry their point for them.

The solution? A return to the basics. Before the meeting, open the right document. Share only what’s relevant. Know what you want to say. If you must scroll, do so with purpose. And please – close your inbox. We don’t need more training. We need more intention. Because clarity is a leadership act – even in a spreadsheet.

So the next time someone says “Over to you, can you take us through the deck?”, remember: what you’re really sharing isn’t just your screen. It’s your credibility.