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

Make It Memorable, Actionable, and Transferable / 161
of war (POW), and missing in action (MIA). The study demonstrated
that the women who were married to men who
were MIAs experienced the greatest uncertainty and, hence,
the greatest degree of stress. At the end of the presentation,
I divided the participants into groups and asked them to
make a bumper sticker to help summarize what they had
learned.
The group that impressed me the most was a group that
turned the letters POW into “Positive Opportunity Waiting.”
Other groups have turned the letters of their organization
into a powerful motto: for example, “ATV” as standing
for “Attitude, Teamwork, and Vision.” After explaining the
exercise, divide the participants into groups of four. Give each
group 15 minutes to develop their bumper sticker and debrief.
Pantomime. Pantomime is a great way to make the end of your
presentation fun, creative, and memorable. It is perfect for the end of
the day when the participants are tired; you want to raise the energy
and fun level.
Brad: In my Advanced Negotiation Course, the participants work
very hard, so at the end of a long day I often divide the
participants into small groups. Each group is asked to develop
a pantomime to represent the most essential element of
the day’s learning. One of the most effective was where two
of the men took off and exchanged their shoes to represent
looking at the issue from their counterpart’s perspective.
Acronyms. Acronyms are somewhat similar to bumper stickers,
only in this case the participants have to take a word, such as “presenter”
and match each letter to an element of the presentation process
to help the participants remember the course material. One that
the Harvard Program on Negotiation uses is BATNA to help the participants
in their negotiation courses remember “Best Alternative to
a Negotiated Agreement” and I used the acronym TRAP to remember
that one’s audience is composed of theorists, reflectors, activists,
and pragmatic learners.