Vinnie self-identified as the world’s worst presenter.
When it came time to deliver a talk he froze.
The prospect of facing his peers and fielding their questions filled him with dread. So much so that he actively avoided people and situations likely to raise push-back or conflict.
Today was the worst day ever.
It had started like any other. It was Friday, with the prospect of a relaxing weekend on he way, Vinnie had left home with a spring in his step.
Everything was normal…
…Until he stepped in to the office. The first words out of his boss’s mouth were, “Conference room. 2 minutes.”
Vinnie dropped his bag, picked up his laptop, and rushed into the meeting room. The rest of the team were already there, looking expectantly at him as he walked in the door.
Panic! A flurry of doomsday thoughts sped through Vinnie’s mind.
What was about to happen? Was he about to be sacked in front of the entire team? He didn’t enjoy a strong relationship with his boss, but he didn’t think things were that bad…
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Vinnie…” He followed the voice and saw his boss sitting at the back of the room. “You weren’t in the office yesterday so I couldn’t give you a heads-up. As you’re the project manager, I’d like you to present an update on the Fordholm project at this morning’s meeting.”
Vinnie struggled to breathe. He gulped and managed to whimper, “When?”
“Now, please.”
Vinnie’s worst fears realized! Not only a requirement to do a presentation in front of the entire team, but an impromptu one at that. What was he going to say? He had nothing prepared… No slides!
He felt his shoulders sag and heard some tittering from the team. He sat his laptop on the conference room table and made his way to the front of the room.
Body shaking, Vinnie started to speak.
*
It doesn’t need to be like this.
Presentations are tough. Impromptu presentations can feel like a nightmare. You’ve got nothing prepared or worse, you don’t know much, or anything, about the topic.
Here’s a way that you can do a speech on any business topic with zero preparation.
You can use the As Far As approach. Literally, “as far as I can go with this topic.”
Accept
The first step is to simply accept that with no planning or preparation time there are things you are not going to know. With no advance thought on the topic there will be bumps in the road and you will make mistakes. Once you accept this, everything else becomes a whole lot easier.
Facilitate
Don’t treat an impromptu presentation as a lecture. Treating it as a one way conversation will bring you closer to disaster. Treating it as a lecture invites mistakes.
Instead of lecturing, facilitate.
To facilitate, what we are going to do is open the topic up to the audience by asking lots of questions. The answers you get from the audience will determine the direction of the presentation and/or buy you time to collect your thoughts.
First, tell the audience they are going to be involved. In the case of Vinnie’s project update, he might start with:
“I’d like to give you an update on the Fordholm project. As I do that, I’d like to ask you for some feedback.”
Next, talk about the topic and start to involve the audience. For Vinnie’s project update, he could say:
“As project manager I can tell you our deadline is very tight. However, as you know we’ve worked very hard, so almost all of the project will be delivered by the deadline. The only outstanding item will be the finalization of the fulfilment system. Jerry, could you give us a brief update on the fulfillment system please?… Great! Max, could you please let us know how the budget is checking out?…” Etc.
Action
Finally, wrap-up with some action setting as you would at the end of a meeting.
In Vinnie’s case he could try something like:
“This was a good opportunity to update everyone on the Fordholm Project. I’d like to nominate two people to do a full update at next week’s meeting. Jon and Mary could you take care of this please? Thank you.”
But, what about an impromptu presentation where you are not knowledgeable about the topic? That’s why the facilitate step is so great… It’s got you covered!
Okay, let’s imagine your boss asks for a presentation about your thoughts on the weak sales over the last year. You work in accounting and don’t really know. You have your opinions, but that’s it.
You can use the AFA approach:
“Let’s work together today and decide what the problem with our sales has been and how we can overcome it.”
“John, as sales manager, if you could change anything right now, what would it be?… Great! Brian, what about you? Would you like to add anything to the list?”
“Now that we have a pretty good list here, let’s rank them and work out what our 3 biggest issues are.”
This method can be used in any kind of presentation.
It is especially useful for impromptu speeches. Being able to “push” to the audience gives you time. Time to collect your thoughts, time to breathe, time to take the pressure off.
Shiv Shenoy says
Great points, Dave!
Most of us can recall at least one instance where we were in Vinnie’s shoes. Now we have the strategy in hand – and as with anything, the execution decides our success. Execution in this case would be a challenge, and knowing the blueprint to manage the situation is a relief in itself. Thanks again.
Libby Gill says
Great ideas. I wondered how you were going to pull off a prez with no prep, but you aced it!
Garry Harbulot says
I have been in the position where the presenter for a meeting has phoned in sick 30 min before the meeting and I was required to step in as I was his team leader. I stumbled through most of it. I wish I had known about AFA then. I will be using this approach next time.
BTW you need to fix the first line of the last paragraph above. ‘on the Gordholm Project. ‘ it started as the Fordholm Project. One way to confuse your audience. 🙂
Dave Mac says
Thanks very much for the feedback, Garry!
Cathy Reilly says
Very helpful tips. Eases my concerns about being tapped last minute to get up and present. Tools like the AFA are invaluable for many meeting situations and will help build confidence. That will be what you can rely on when it’s a senior level management meeting where pure AFA may not be applicable. Thank you!
Amal says
Thanks for very much . It is very beneficial to overcome one’ s fearness and go on while you are holding your presentation.
Samir Roger Makarem says
The AFA is a great and easy to remember technique indeed. Learned something new today 🙂
Thanks Dave…
Lisa Taddeo says
I like this technique and have used it. You need a flexible audience though and it can’t be done at a high level meeting where some of those stakeholders are not present. Still you can mix this facilitate approach into any type of meeting, it’s collaborative.
Thanks for the article.
Dave Mac says
Thanks for your comment, Lisa!
I agree you need an audience who will be flexible. When you do have that kind of audience the results can be excellent… Not only does it take the pressure off the presenter, it’s also collaborative, as you say, so it builds rapport and more readily gets buy-in from participants.
Thanks again for your feedback!