How To Have An Interesting And
Effective Safety Meeting . . .
By Rehearsing
Practice is the best of all instructors.
--Publius Ovidus 43 BC-AD 17
It’s Monday morning and you’re looking over
your appointment schedule and "to-do" list. You see that
on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. you have to give a brief presentation to
a herd of managers on a new safety policy. So, you make a mental
note to take some time to prepare for it.
One thing leads to dozens of others and it’s
Thursday at 2:10 PM before you sit down to rehearse. Just as you
begin to look over the policy and try to think up a sharp introduction,
your pager goes off—it’s your boss. You give her a call
and after a 15 minute conversation you pack up and rush to give
an ill-prepared presentation that might mar your reputation.
Preparation and practice are crucial to effective
presentations. Actress Barbara Stanwyck was once asked what made
her a success in her profession. She said, "Just two things
I recommend that people do. Start on time and know your lines."
Similar to acting, "dress rehearsals" help presenters
become familiar with their role and anticipate the actions they’ll
take and the mistakes they’ll avoid.
"But I’m only going to give a five to ten
minute presentation at a meeting." All the more reason you
should rehearse. Woodrow Wilson was once asked how long he took
to prepare a ten-minute speech. He said, "Two weeks."
"How long for an hour speech?"
"One week."
"How long for a two-hour speech?
"I am ready now," Wilson replied.
Besides not getting your point across, an ill-prepared
presenter also sends a dramatic message to his or her audience:
"I don’t think you’re very important. If you were,
I’d be better prepared." Audiences are sensitive. They
pick up signals and react to them personally.
How Much Is Enough?
For a lengthy presentation (several hours or an all-day
program), it is almost impossible to practice the entire presentations
several times. However, you can practice your introductory comments
as well as your conclusion and your main points. Know these portions
of your program inside out. You should also know your main points,
examples, anecdotes, illustrations, and stories.
If you are giving a speech don’t write it out
word for word unless it is imperative that the wording be exact
(as a diplomatic or press release might require). Instead, write
an outline or use a mind-map format. You should write out any quotations,
information and statistics that need to be accurate. However, the
main text of your speech should sound conversational, not formal.
People can hear the difference between a written text and a more
natural conversational tone.
Rehearsing your presentation will give you the confidence
that comes from having done something before. The goal you want
to achieve is a comfortable rapport with your audience. This demands
a delivery that is a natural presentation of your material with
lots of eye contact with your listeners. If you have not rehearsed—if
you are not sure what you are going to say, and you have to switch
your brain into a deep think mode to think up what you’re going
to say next in front of the audience—then you cannot have good
eye contact with the audience. Your facial expressions, body language
and vocal qualities will also suffer while you’re grasping
at what to cover next.
The only way you can concentrate on your voice, your
facial expression, and have eye contact with the audience, is to
have a free mind to concentrate on those items. The only way you
can have a free mind is to know in advance what you are going to
say. The only way you can do that is to rehearse.
The best way to rehearse is to duplicate the conditions
of your presentations as best you can. That means rehearsing in
the actual room, using the actual visual aids, going through the
actual movements, gestures, and saying the actual words. There is
no substitute.
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