Episode #225: Preparing For This Year's Most Important Presentation – Your Town Hall

Year Two of the pandemic puts a lot of stress on organisations. I was watching a television news report last night on an Inn that is closing. This particular Inn is well known in Japan, because it featured in the hit comedy movie series “Otoko wa tsurai yo!” – “It is hard being a man”. This “Otoko wa tsurai yo!” series reached 46 movie releases, so it is a legendary franchise here in Japan. The Inn has been running for 231 years and the owner is the 8th generation of his family to run the Inn. The pandemic has finished them off and all the staff are out of a job, through no fault of their own. My wife was crying watching this news report because in Japan longevity, continuity, loyalty, predictability are highly respected. I am sure many people shed a tear to see 231 years of history end. There will be many working in other companies who are also worried whether their firm will suffer a similar fate. This is the time to have that Town Hall to assure everyone the firm will make it out the other side of Covid-19 and there is a plan.

Get them altogether, if you can, with social distancing or do it online if you can’t, but do it. Now busy bosses may be inclined to not put in the time preparing for this presentation, thinking it will be okay if they just wing it. If you are a staff member watching the presentation and you feel your President couldn’t be bothered to prepare properly and is just winging it, how are you going to feel about the stability of the company or the quality of the plan?

We have a long way to go with this pandemic and there are many tough months ahead. This is the time to assure everyone it is going to be okay, that we can come out the other side of this mess. Why are we going to be okay? That would have to be the central question. It is on that basis of making it clear that the whole presentation should be designed. We need to take this conclusion and prepare two closes, one for the initial end of the presentation and another for the end of the Q&A.

Now that we have the central thesis fixed, what is the evidence that it is true. We need to assemble the data, facts, evidence and proof that we will survive Covid-19. There will be various elements of the business that will drive the outcome so we need to talk about those. We also need to play the Devil’s Advocate and explain how we are going to deal with the problems that may arise. We need to present a strong Plan B ready to go.

Finally, we need a powerful opening for the talk. We won’t have a problem with getting people’s attention, as we may do with a public talk to an unknown audience. The team are all ears to find out what their future holds. What comes out of our mouth has to be reassuring, positive, credible and convincing. This needs very careful design because this is where we grab or lose our audience. If we don’t get this right then what follows may be ignored, discounted or silently mocked.

Having done all of this design work we are now ready for the next stage. Now we start assembling the visuals to support our contention, that we are going to be okay. We have to choose only the most powerful pieces of proof, because we have limited time to be able to maintain everyone’s full attention. Make sure the visuals are zen like in their clarity and simplicity. Resist the temptation to pile everything on to one slide.

We need to think through what are some of the likely questions which will be asked, to make sure we are ready to handle those well. Trying to think of an answer to a tough question on the fly is not recommended. We can pretty much guess what people will ask and be ready with our answers. We are going to listen to the question, apply a cushion – a short statement that says I heard you, without agreeing or disagreeing with the question. We are buying valuable thinking time now, so that what comes out of our mouth next is considered and articulate, rather than a bumbling series of ums and ahs, as we struggle to compose an answer.

Once we have pulled our talk and the Q&A answers together, we need to allocate the time to rehearse it. We need to know how it sounds when we explain it and how the elements link together to bolster our arguments. We need to measure how long it will take to get through it, to make sure we are keeping on time. We need to practice handling some of those hot questions before we get them for real.

This is probably the most important talk anyone of us will give in our careers and this is why the professional basics for giving presentations are so important. If you are fumbling, if you are struggling, then that is your fault. You should have already completed proper presentation training. The best time for this was yesterday and the second best time is today. When the stakes are high, you have to be able to rise to the occasion. Preparation is everything.