1. Presentation Inspiration
KineticFuture: Leadership Communications Coaching
How To Respond To The Audience
It’s happened to us all. You’re giving that presentation your best shot but the audience is looking
blank or worse, looking negative. You have two choices. Which do you choose?
Choice 1: talk faster to get off ‘the stage’ as quickly as possible (tempting!)
Choice 2: engage with the audience and try to make it work.
Assuming you are going for choice 2, what can you do to turn the situation around? It is a matter
of judgment but all these ideas do work.
Maintain your Confidence & Energy: Do not be dragged down into the mud. You may be
misreading the signals. The audience may be agreeing, shocked or simply reflecting upon what
you’re saying. Even if they hate it, you will gain nothing by losing energy and status. Sometimes
your best strategy is simply to keep going.
Ask An Open Question: Throw out a question or ask them what they think so far. You could also
try to get their concerns out in the open by saying “I can see that not everyone agrees. What’s
your view? Do you think this is correct? Completely wrong? Or is there something we’ve missed?
Let’s stop for a moment and discuss this”. Then make sure you host the debate without being
defensive. You could also acknowledge that not everyone agrees, ask them to hear the case
through and tell them that you want to debate it at the end.
Listen Hard & Adapt: If you are presenting to your boss and they’ve just told you they don’t
want to hear all the detail or about x but they do want to hear about y – change! Do not plough
on. Talk to the points they need. The exception to this is if you feel that you can’t get the
decision you need without them seeing some of the evidence. Say so. Ask permission to continue
but do stick to the point.
Read The Room Fast: Your style of presenting may not be appropriate so change fast. You may
need to be more low key and serious or increase your energy and enthusiasm. You may need to
raise or lower your status. Or it could just be that you need to make any change to shake up the
dynamic in the room.
Adapt Your Pace or Style: Raise the energy or lower the energy. Raise the volume or lower the
volume. Mix it up. Change your presenting style – move from ‘presenting’ to a more
conversational approach. Or turn off the projector, sit down and talk or turn it into a brainstorm. If
you’ve been sitting down and talking informally, stand up, write on the flip chart, and bang the
slide screen on the key points. Just change the dynamic.