CHAPTER 20
Leveraging Powerful Panels
To be good is expected. To be better is the challenge.
— CHRISTI PEDRA
Every now and then, you may attend a terrific panel where sparks fly because of great content and great personalities, but just as often, panels tend to be a Frankenstein’s monster of great people, nice sponsors, industry big shots, and disparate content stapled together by the personality of the moderator.
How effective, on average, would you say that these panel presentations are? Most people would say that most panels are not great, even when they have great people, so let’s look at why that is and how to improve it.
Panels often start with redundancy. Even though we already have all the panelists’ bios in front of us in a nice brochure or folder or handout, the moderator is compelled, by a normal human instinct, to add value. She offers a creative introduction for each person on the panel, even though the panelists have already been praised by their own (self-written) bios. Then, after this nice welcome by the moderator, what do most panelists tend to do?
They introduce themselves again and offer more credentials.
Why?
We’re human. Maybe some psychologist could help us understand this. I do know that when I was in my early twenties and first started speaking, I was the very same way or probably worse. I would pretend not to care, but the truth is, I did. I would try to make sure that the moderator mentioned certain things about me in his introduction. We all have a strong need to build ourselves up. (Realizing that this is healthy and normal helps you understand even more deeply why, when you make the audience the star, you’ve got it. People are happy when they are recognized.)
As we have developed the Own the Room training system and created these techniques, there have been countless moments when I have realized, “Aw, man, I need to take our advice again.” The matter of being introduced was one of those breakthroughs. I had to stop caring about myself. I haven’t been introduced in years. When someone asks me how I want to be introduced, I say, “Here’s Bill.”
It’s not that I don’t want the people in the audience to know who I am, but I’ve learned that they will get to know me, little by little, as we go along. Forcing more information on an audience up front doesn’t make the people in it get to know me better, or even faster. It also does not enhance the effectiveness of my presentation. However, I need to know them. I need to make them the star. Knowing the people in my audience and making them the star is crucial to my presentation. So, whether I’m on a panel or moderating or doing a keynote, I almost always start with audience involvement techniques—a body poll, a pair-up, then setting a scene. A body poll, a pair-up, then a scene. This approach always works.
For better or for worse, the bar for panel presentations is not set very high. You can apply many of the techniques you’ve already learned to use in other settings to allow you to stand out from the crowd easily and make your contribution to the discussion memorable and effective.
Who Are You?
Sometimes I hear, okay, but the audience does need to know who I am, right? I agree. On the rare occasion when the audience, for whatever reason, does not already know who you are, you can just slip it in. Let’s say your name is Jacob, you’re on the panel, and you make a provocative statement. You follow the statement with a confused look on your face, and say, “All right, Jacob, what does that mean exactly?”
You just did a few things at once. You slipped in your own name as if the audience were talking to you. You pre-raised a question that you knew was on people’s minds already, and you used some body language to connect with the audience.
Every once in a while, slip in your name and ask yourself a question, as if you were the audience.
Similarly, let’s say you have a relevant and also impressive credential or life experience—a master’s or doctoral degree in a related topic. If you give that credential up front, it can be perceived as bragging, or you may come across as insecure. Waiting for a relevant moment to share this information gives that biographical information more power. It’s called a “reveal.” You just slip it in.
“I once spent a few years in Los Angeles, Westwood actually, studying until UCLA said, ‘Okay, you have enough credits, here’s your doctorate; you can get out of here now.’ I loved my time there, and one of the things (pivoting toward a more serious tone) I learned was that …,” and you slip in your fact that’s relevant to the topic.
Be Different
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has done many things in his life that you could say no one else has done in business and philanthropy. One of them has been to put significant resources into global health issues, including an initiative to fight the spread of malaria in poor countries. Malaria is carried and spread by mosquitoes, and several years ago, when Bill was discussing the disease before a large audience at a TED conference, he released a jar of mosquitoes into the audience. (He later assured the audience that they did not carry the malaria virus.)
Do you think he got the audience’s attention? Do you think he made his point? Do you think the people in his audience remembered his presentation?
I am always asked to give “just my number one tip” for delivering a great presentation. And I always answer, “Easy. Identify and eliminate weak language. Nothing else will have as great an impact on improving your communication.” At that point, eyes start to roll, and I am asked, “Okay, so what is number two?”
My answer: “Something almost as powerful: be different.”
Do something different that no one else has done.
Each time.
This alone brings tremendous results. Just ask yourself what you can do that no one else has done. That’s it. Reach for those three centimeters to access all kinds of crazy ideas. Just pick one and do it. Reach up and break through the clutter. To be memorable and effective and to have an impact, you have to be a little more outrageous and creative than the other guy.
When you do come up with your unusual and creative idea, think of it like triage. About 10 percent of the time, it will work. Gold. Magic. Wow. Where did that come from? A rush. Another 10 percent of the time, it will be bronze. Not great, but give yourself a pat on the back for having had the courage to try it.
The other 80 percent of the time? Silver. It will sort of work. You’ll get some good feedback. A few tweaks here and there, and it can become gold next time.
When you combine the courage to keep trying new things with demanding and being open to feedback, you create an almost unstoppable trajectory of growth. Adopting a mindset in which you are fearless about trying your own new ideas and tweaking them until they work is the secret in the secret sauce. Since we are “revealing” secrets, perhaps you are realizing one of mine now. Everyone thinks that my training makes people better speakers and presenters. That’s not actually what I do. I am teaching you how to be your own professional public speaking coach, to be able to teach yourself what works and why it works, piece by piece. Your improvement is just a symptom of your becoming a coach. You are a professional speaking coach right now—you don’t even have to wait until you’ve finished the book and all the exercises. It’s true. If you had to teach a class on how to give powerful presentations, you could do it right now. As a coach, your number one client is always yourself. Coach yourself to try your own ideas, and the magic will happen.
Use Your Bag of Tricks
Whether you are speaking on a panel, delivering a keynote address, or moderating the panel, the same techniques you have learned that make you effective in other situations apply to these settings. Open with a scene or a story; eliminate weak language; use strong language to paint pictures and evoke emotion; engage the audience members with audience involvement techniques. Some of these techniques are particularly helpful to you as a panelist or moderator when you have very limited time to connect with your audience.
Openings
Using the imagine technique to pull your audience into a scene helps you connect with your audience very quickly. Whether you set a scene, tell a story, or open with a question or a statistic, make sure the opening connects the audience to your topic and points the audience in the direction you want it to go.
Involving the Audience
Audience involvement techniques, like body polls and pair-up, can be especially effective in helping moderators elevate their panel to a higher level. It’s almost like they are made for panels. If you are moderating a panel, and you do a quick but different audience involvement technique—maybe take one minute before each speaker—you elevate the whole event, and your audience and your panelists will be impressed.
For example, suppose you are moderating a panel on digital media, and the first speaker has just wrapped up his discussion of the latest trend in Internet advertising. Before you give the floor to the second speaker, you conduct a quick body poll of the audience:
“Show me, using thumbs up or thumbs down, if you think this trend is going to continue for the next year.”
Or:
“Show me, using your fingers, on a scale from zero to ten, how concerned you are about your company being able to keep up with the changing digital environment.”
Not only do you see the results, but so does everyone else. People can look around and see what everyone else is thinking. The answers give you information, which is like clay. Do something with the clay. Comment on what you’re noticing in people’s answers, or ask them what they’ve noticed in others’ answers. Make a serious comment, make a joke, or ask the audience to comment. Ask the outliers to explain to the group why they feel the way they do.
If, as a panelist or moderator, you were to opt for a pair-up or pair-and-share technique, you would pair audiences into teams of two, assign a simple task, and then ask the small teams to share their results with the whole group.
For example, you would say:
“When I say, ‘Go,’ turn to your partner. You have 30 seconds to …”
Closing Thought or Commitment
One of the strongest closings you have available to you, as a panel moderator or keynote speaker, is to ask the audience members to say out loud what action they will commit to take on the topic you have been discussing. If the group is small, you can go around the room and ask each person to say what he is going to do. If it is a large group, like a conference, you can use the pair-and-share technique and ask the audience members to tell the person next to them what action they are committing to take. It doesn’t matter whether one person hears them or the whole group does. Saying the commitment out loud makes it more likely that someone will follow through.
Like all of these techniques, this is rather simple to do, and it will feel easy after you do it a couple of times, so the art becomes the actual question itself.
The Possibilities of Social Media
The integration of social media into our culture provides you with a range of audience involvement techniques that we did not have only a few years ago. Imagine that you are moderating a panel at a large conference and you wrap up the event this way:
“Okay, when I say, ‘Go,’ and not until I say, ‘Go,’ I want everyone to stand up and pick a partner that you already know. At least one of you must have a smartphone. Let me repeat. Pick someone you already know, but make sure that one of you has a smartphone. Ready, go.”
Now for part two:
“Now, this is going to be a gentle competition. When I say, ‘Begin’—and do not start until I say, ‘Begin’—you are going to, one, take your partner’s photo; two, title it with one sentence, no more, on the topic of the day; and three, post it on any social media platform, I don’t care which. I will ask in a moment what you said and where you posted it. As soon as you are both done, have a seat. We’ll see who finishes first and last. Ready, begin!”
What would happen? It would be pure pandemonium, but it would be memorable. Everyone would be thinking about the topic. Everyone would get to be the star, producer, writer, and director, and it would work no matter how many people are in the audience.
SUMMARY
Let’s try it for real. Take out your smartphone and go to Facebook. Enter “Own the Room” and find the group with thousands of likes. Press like. Then add a comment about this book.
Be different. You can use all the techniques you have learned for openings, closings, and audience involvement as a panel member or moderator.
Refrain from introducing yourself in the first sentence. You have probably been introduced to the panel audience several times by the time you get your chance to speak.
Build relationships with other members of the panel by including them in your segment. The more you make others the star, the more you shine.