The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters - Lifecycle Performance ...

Make It Memorable, Actionable, and Transferable / 141
Conflict.” On the morning of the second day, the participants are given
20 minutes to decide how they will present the material in their article
to the class as a whole. They are instructed to make their presentations
so interesting that when the other participants go home, they will want
to read that particular article before doing anything else.
Brad: I have never been disappointed using this technique. The presentations
are terrific, and the participants knew their material
on a much deeper level and were much more likely to
remember it than if the course facilitator had made the presentations.
Just out of curiosity, I asked the participants how
much more effectively they remembered the material from
their presentations than if they had only read the articles—
the average answer: 90 percent.
3. Increasing Audience Attentiveness
Two techniques that are guaranteed to raise the level of attentiveness
in your audience are humor, novelty, and surprise. This is important
because increasing attentiveness will help to move your material
into the participants’ long-term memory.
Humor. Humor is a sure-fire way to get an audience to pay attention.
Why? Because everybody likes to laugh. So an audience will listen
more attentively if they think the speaker is likely to say something
funny. They will pay attention in anticipation of the next good laugh.
That’s how it works for the audience—they will listen more attentively
just because they don’t want to miss “any of the good stuff.”
But Master Presenters know that humor has a greater purpose.
They know that when we laugh, we relax; when we relax, we learn. In
short, there is nothing more powerful than a message that entertains.
That’s why humor is considered an indispensable tool.
Of course, all speakers must be careful with their choice of jokes
and/or stories because what is politically correct today can be totally
unacceptable tomorrow. As times change, so do standards of acceptability.
Also, what is acceptable in one place can be completely inappropriate
in another. In the United States, for example, it is usually
considered acceptable to joke about the President. That is permissible
as a result of the constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech.
In other countries, though, where individual rights and liberties are