Corporate learning shouldn’t make participants feel like they are in a boring conference meeting that lasts for three hours. Many people zone out when staring at a speaker with a droning voice who is practically reading from the slides.
The audience mirrors the learning environment. When a subject is dull and the speaker is only there because they have to be, the participants notice. So, how do you create an engaging atmosphere for corporate presentations?
1. Get to the Point
Meandering thoughts aren’t going to keep participants interested. Don’t water down your information to fill an hour, especially when the average person has the attention span of a goldfish. How can you say what you need to say in just a few words? Condense the information in a way that makes sense and is memorable.
A short and sweet presentation will be more informative and useful than one that confuses everyone. It also leaves time for questions, discussions and feedback.
2. Impart Inspiration by Relating
Why is it important and necessary for participants to learn this information or technology? How is it useful and why? What cool stuff will it do for employee productivity or clients? People find value in personal relevance and sincerity, which also invokes curiosity.
Invest yourself in the information personally, and take it for a test drive. Place yourself in the participants’ everyday shoes and approach the presentation from that angle.
Can you use everyday situations at work and outside of work to get participants to understand the subject? Storytelling is a wonderful skillset that enables your audience to visualize the information you’re presenting and relate back. In business, people build emotional bonds with storytellers.
3. Break the Ice and Get Interactive
Icebreakers can be great, but only use them when appropriate. No one likes icebreakers that are used just to fill up the time or are forced with false enthusiasm. That’s not teambuilding.
Icebreakers should be honest and relative. Open up by sharing a personal or somewhat humiliating story that relates to the topic.
Perhaps the training topic relates to management, and there are participants with four to 20 years of managerial experience in the room. How do you bring these people together? Remember, varying perspectives are often surprising.
Icebreakers may also be group activities, where participants take center stage to share their wisdom and how it relates to the topic. Group together tables of four individuals where everyone has varying years of experience, and ask them to share the best management wisdom they have heard or learned. Set a time limit. Participants discuss within the group and then briefly aloud. Such icebreakers get participants involved with each other and the speaker, while getting them into the right training mindset.
4. Be Comfortable With the Presentation Room
Speakers and participants should feel comfortable in the presentation room. Choose furniture, colors and technology that are appropriate for the company’s learning environment.
The room shouldn’t be so loudly designed with furniture and technology that the focus is taken away from the presentation. Uncomfortable seats make for restless learners. Gray rooms with a boring palette make for an uninspired audience, no matter how enthusiastic the speaker is.
If the presentation room is lifeless, bring in a little creativity. People stare at screens all day, both at home and at work. A projector is still a preferred and classic choice for sharing information in presentations. Consider an alternative screen – one that you can paint on the wall. Screen paint covers a larger projection area more cheaply than purchasing a screen. It can even be applied to old screens to improve luster. Such innovations make for a unique presentation room and grab the attention of everyone.
Enjoying a presentation can be difficult when you have sat through boring lectures since childhood. Creating an engaging environment allows participants to hold interest and retain information during a presentation.
Participants should be comfortable and familiar with their space, the speaker and each other. A speaker must be a storyteller who is able to relate to and stir their audience. When the physical space is interesting, but lets the speaker and participants move around and engage, functional space is maximized and corporate learning can be more successful. When these elements come together, it makes for a memorable presentation.
Sarah Landrum is a freelance writer and blogger who writes about career and education opportunities.
