A Fish In The Headlights
The audience is looking back at me blankly and silence fills the room.
I’m standing in front of them, frozen. I’m sunk. It’s a presenter’s worst-case scenario.
Most facilitators have run into this at some point: the dreaded “wall”, where an activity you’ve planned falls flat. This is never the fault of the audience, it’s always because something in the flow of your keynote or workshop isn’t calibrated quite right.
Normally, I’ve got a half a dozen tricks up my sleeve that can recover from this situation. But today, I’ve blanked.
Realistically, this is most people’s definition of a nightmare.
Today, we’re doing an introductory workshop on storytelling. It’s a powerful session that, in one hour, boosts people’s confidence in their ability to tell a story and how to spy good client testimonial stories. I’ve run it dozens of times.
But the stakes are higher today as the room is full of some of my best colleagues.
If I shine, they might consider bringing me into their organisations to do longer workshops.
Yet here I am – a goldfish in the headlights.
(A momentary aside here: yes, that analogy is intended. Picture it: a fishbowl sits in the middle of a darkened, lonely mountain road. A goldfish swims lazily in circles in the darkness… but then a car comes barrelling around a corner… the goldfish stares, eyes bulging, into the looming headlights with nowhere to deer-spring away to. That goldfish is me).
We’re staring at each other, the audience and me. Seconds go by and suddenly I’m not sure who feels more awkward: me or them.
“Okay” I say finally, “Something’s not working here – let’s see if we can figure out what’s just gone wrong”.
Bit by bit, we get back on track and get through to the end of the session. As I’m starting to wrap up, my brain skips again.
I’m referring back to a story about a guy I just met, “So back to that story about the tall blue haired, blond-eyed guy I was telling you about earlie…”
Everyone’s laughing now, and so am I: “Time to wrap up I think! Looks like the red eye flight has just caught up with me”.
Last night, I took the midnight, cross-country flight from Perth to Brisbane in order to be here.
Later, walking to lunch with a colleague, he tells me “That was incredible! So many actionable strategies in just an hour. We’re just about to rework our client testimonials and marketing, so it was timely!”
I start feeling better about things. By the time the fourth person has gone out of their way to say thanks, I’m good. But I’m still curious as to why an exercise I’ve used before stalled with this group.
Eventually, after chatting with several attendees, I find it. I’d missed a single part of the instructions that would have made the exercise clear right out of the gate.
Later that evening, I add a note to my session outline to never again miss that key sentence.
I also write up a “To break in case of emergency” index card, listing those half-dozen “recovering” techniques I would usually be able to pull out without prompting.
Every time you present is different and you truly never know what’s coming your way. It’s a great reminder for me.
Because preparation might be the difference between being a good or great presenter, but being ready for emergencies is the difference between being the car cruising up the mountain road… or being the fish in the headlights.
I’m standing in front of them, frozen. I’m sunk. It’s a presenter’s worst-case scenario.
Most facilitators have run into this at some point: the dreaded “wall”, where an activity you’ve planned falls flat. This is never the fault of the audience, it’s always because something in the flow of your keynote or workshop isn’t calibrated quite right.
Normally, I’ve got a half a dozen tricks up my sleeve that can recover from this situation. But today, I’ve blanked.
Realistically, this is most people’s definition of a nightmare.
Today, we’re doing an introductory workshop on storytelling. It’s a powerful session that, in one hour, boosts people’s confidence in their ability to tell a story and how to spy good client testimonial stories. I’ve run it dozens of times.
But the stakes are higher today as the room is full of some of my best colleagues.
If I shine, they might consider bringing me into their organisations to do longer workshops.
Yet here I am – a goldfish in the headlights.
(A momentary aside here: yes, that analogy is intended. Picture it: a fishbowl sits in the middle of a darkened, lonely mountain road. A goldfish swims lazily in circles in the darkness… but then a car comes barrelling around a corner… the goldfish stares, eyes bulging, into the looming headlights with nowhere to deer-spring away to. That goldfish is me).
We’re staring at each other, the audience and me. Seconds go by and suddenly I’m not sure who feels more awkward: me or them.
“Okay” I say finally, “Something’s not working here – let’s see if we can figure out what’s just gone wrong”.
Bit by bit, we get back on track and get through to the end of the session. As I’m starting to wrap up, my brain skips again.
I’m referring back to a story about a guy I just met, “So back to that story about the tall blue haired, blond-eyed guy I was telling you about earlie…”
Everyone’s laughing now, and so am I: “Time to wrap up I think! Looks like the red eye flight has just caught up with me”.
Last night, I took the midnight, cross-country flight from Perth to Brisbane in order to be here.
Later, walking to lunch with a colleague, he tells me “That was incredible! So many actionable strategies in just an hour. We’re just about to rework our client testimonials and marketing, so it was timely!”
I start feeling better about things. By the time the fourth person has gone out of their way to say thanks, I’m good. But I’m still curious as to why an exercise I’ve used before stalled with this group.
Eventually, after chatting with several attendees, I find it. I’d missed a single part of the instructions that would have made the exercise clear right out of the gate.
Later that evening, I add a note to my session outline to never again miss that key sentence.
I also write up a “To break in case of emergency” index card, listing those half-dozen “recovering” techniques I would usually be able to pull out without prompting.
- Jump to a story
- Move to a discussion exercise
- Back up to previous section and restate the connection to the exercise…
- Panic…
Every time you present is different and you truly never know what’s coming your way. It’s a great reminder for me.
Because preparation might be the difference between being a good or great presenter, but being ready for emergencies is the difference between being the car cruising up the mountain road… or being the fish in the headlights.
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