Episode #286: Impromptu Terror

If you are called upon at an internal meeting with the big bosses, or during an external public event, to suddenly speak on a topic, do you say, “whoopee, here is my lucky day, it is time for me to shine” or do you find you are suffering from instant whiteout of the brain? Not being prepared for a presentation at any time is bad. What about when all those beady eyes are focused on you and you are panicking? You don’t know what to say and you are thinking “Uh, Oh, here comes humiliation”. You make a mess of it and your personal and professional brands both just got sunk mid-ships.

Knowing your subject is one thing, being able to get up on your feet and speak about it with no warning is a completely different thing. “Oh, this would never happen to me”, you say. Big bosses can be very nasty people sometimes and they can be rude and seek your opinion on the project or the idea without any warning. “Um, um, um, ah, ah, I, er, er, um,…” is not a brilliant career building response.

It could be at a public event, it might be a panel discussion and you are attending as a member of the audience, safely ensconced in your seat down the back, away from harm’s way. The moderator, trying to appear super cool, decides to call upon you for a comment, knowing you are an expert in your field. Some helpful functionary thrusts the hand microphone into your sweaty palm, you reluctantly stand up and offer “Um, um, um, ah, ah, I, er, er, um,….” Not a brilliant personal brand building response.

Obviously the degree of difficulty of this type of talk is a lot harder than when the day has been set in advance, the notices have gone out, you are fully prepared and ready to go for your formal presentation. What can we do when impromptu speaker Armageddon beckons?

If you are an expert in an area under discussion, you can always mentally assume that you will called upon to speak. You are never caught flat footed in this case. While listening to the discussions you have ruminated a little on what you could say, were you forced to do so. That unwarranted jab with the hand microphone feels a lot less threatening when you have composed yourself beforehand.

One good practice is to always have a question ready for the speaker. Even if you don’t actually ask it, think of a very good question you could ask. If you are called upon to make a comment, you can then talk about a question you had and then answer it yourself. “Thank you for asking me to say a few words. A question I have been asking myself is…. Now, as far as I understand it, it seems that….”. This shows that you are tuned into the topic and that you have your own views on the subject. The answer doesn’t need to become your own full blown speech displacing the actual speaker, but it will allow you to make some well thought through comments. The audience will be impressed that you actually have expertise in this area and your personal brand gets elevated.

Another formula is using WHO, WHY, WHAT. The WHO refers to the people in the audience. If it is a business audience, we can say something like, “I was chatting with a few people before the talk and a common concern which surfaced was about XYZ. This is an important consideration and my own views on the subject are that….” Or we could say, “I guess one of the reasons we are all here today is to find out more about some of the key issues. One that interests me is about….”.

The WHY are our comments on the importance of the topic. We can put the topic in context with the current situation in the industry or the economy more broadly. “FinTech is occupying the minds of a lot of people in the banking industry. This is the age of disruption, as we have seen in many big industries already and this FinTech area has all the potential to be a big disruptor to the way we do business. My own feeling is…”.

The WHAT could be picking up something the speaker has said already and making a comment on that. “Our speaker mentioned that FinTech is only relevant in certain economies at the moment and I agree with that. What we have seen though with technologies like the mobile phone is certain nations have skipped the infrastructure investment in land lines stage and gone straight to mobile networks. FinTech could be a disrupter that puts access to credit into the hands of third world citizens, much faster than we currently think is possible”.

The secret is to be ready to go if called upon. It happens. I was comfortably seated next to my wife at a pleasant Ikebana International event in Osaka. At that time I was representing my country as the Consul General for Australia. Suddenly without a “bye your leave”, the speaker called me up to the stage to say a few words.

Naturally those few words would have to be in Japanese. The distance from my chair to the podium was about ten steps. I wasn’t prepared to say anything. It wasn’t an occasion I could ask the speaker a question, given the context and I had the distinct feeling my heart rate was racing at around 190 beats per minute.

I looked to my environment around me for salvation. What could I draw from that to say a few words. It had been raining earlier that day, so I connected that idea to the cut flowers coming into Osaka from Australia. I mentioned about these cut flowers arriving into the Osaka Flower Market earlier that morning, with the soil and water still in their stems from Australia. I told them how each flower was like an Ambassador to Japan from the land Downunder, bringing a little piece of Australian beauty to Osaka. I thanked everyone for supporting Australian flowers and got off that stage lickety-split.

That was a lucky escape. I realised I had dodged a bullet there and I had better be ready in future to be called upon to speak. So ever since then, I am always thinking of a question I can ask the speaker. I know I can either use it as a legitimate question or as a crutch, if I am called upon to say a few words. I also have the Who, Why, What formula at hand, ready to roll if need be. What about when it’s your turn - will you be you ready to roll?