It’s been nearly three months since I made my decision and I’m finally in my first week of business school. You may be wondering how it’s going. I’m having a blast! I mean, the schedule is pretty intense, but I’m more than half way through the week and so far my experience has been overwhelmingly positive.
The very first class includes a workshop on persuasive speaking. By the end of the week, my teammates and I will have to deliver an 8 minute presentation (including time for questions & answers) on any topic we want.
The presentation follows a simple formula. It starts with a hook to get the audience’s attention, makes three basic points, and then ends with a call to action. I’m oversimplifying a bit, but that’s the gist. There are five team members and five sections (beginning, three points, end), so it was easy to divide up the presentation. I wanted to give the hook.
We did a dry run based on our outline and we loved it. Also, candidly, I loved it. My teammates complimented me on the gripping story I used for the hook and everything just flowed from there, each team member picking up a part of the narrative. Were other teams having this much fun? With a bit of practice, our delivery would be seamless. I was starting to imagine the class congratulating us on our outstanding performance.
There’s just one problem. It’s not supposed to be a performance.
“Including Q&A”
A key detail I had forgotten from the assignment was that the questions and answers should happen throughout the presentation, not just saved for the end. This means that we should expect that at any point during our presentation, someone in the audience could stop us to ask a question. This can kill the flow of the talk and any notion that we’re delivering a performance gets thrown out the window.
But that’s the point. When you’re presenting in a business context, it’s not about you, it’s about your audience. What do they want? Are you leaving room for their story or just performing your own?
We’ll get another chance to practice tomorrow morning. This time, we’ll interrupt our own performance to put ourself in the audience’s shoes and ask questions.