1. Starting
The most precious commodity in today’s world is not gold or cryptocurrency, but attention. We are inundated with a tremendous amount of information vying for our focus. Why then would so many people squander away an opportunity to gain attention by starting presentations or meetings with: “Hi, my name is … and today I am going to talk about …” This is a lackluster, banal, disengaging way to begin. Not only does it lack originality, it is downright silly since most speakers start this way while standing in front of a slide displaying their name along with the title of their talk.
Rather than commence with a boring and routine start, kick off your presentation like a James Bond movie — with action: You can tell a story, take a poll, ask a provocative question, show a video clip. Starting in this manner captures your audience’s focus and pulls them away from other attention-grabbing ideas, people, or devices. This action-oriented approach works for meetings, too. On your agenda, have the first item be one or two questions to be answered when you start. In this way, participants get engaged from the moment the meeting begins.
2. Ending
Research in psychology teaches us that we tend to remember best what we hear first and last rather than what comes in the middle — aka primacy and recency effects. You would expect then that speakers would dedicate more time to how they conclude their talks and meetings. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t happen. The most common concluding lines I hear go something like “I guess we’re out of time and someone needs our conference room.” This type of ending is a missed opportunity! Take time to plan out and practice how your presentation and meeting will end. Be concise and clear because you don’t have a lot of time. Once you signal you are wrapping up (e.g., “In conclusion”), your audience disengages and begins to focus on what comes next.
