Business meetings can be tough. With a myriad of different personalities that might take part during a meeting sometimes they can get a little bit out of hand with ideas flying about the room like paper airplanes and leading the meeting into disarray (or at least not going anywhere at all!). However if you think your audience is a tough crowd imagine presenting to a classroom full of primary school children excited and hyper on yellow colouring. Better yet think about articulating complex ideas to a group of hormonal and bored teenagers. Teachers have some of the toughest crowds in the presenting game but great teachers still manage to inspire their audience whilst conveying unfamiliar information. So how do teachers do it? We take a few leaves out of the big book of teacher presentation skills to see what can be applied to the business world.

Fight Short Attention Spans With Presentation Skills

Kids have short attention spans. Thanks to the nature of modern media everything is now truncated, instant and wrapped in short burst of information. Unsurprisingly the attention span of the average learner can be extremely short (around 20 mins) considering how much information the presenter might need to get through. However if you thought that a teacher’s audience is entirely separate in temperament to that of the average business meeting, then get ready for a shock. The business environment has even less time to digest than the average school leaver. It is suggested that the attention span of an average listener is around 5 – 10 minutes for any pure focused subject. This makes sense, especially when you consider how attention and concentration is split between various different activities.

So how do teachers sustain interest in lessons that can last on average 35-40 mins? Teachers are fantastic storytellers that can dissect information into not just points but a whole journey. They are able to involve their audience through audience participation, visual props and creative thinking. Rarely relying on a PowerPoint but rather on their own intrinsic knowledge of the subject they are speaking about, teachers are able to naturally guide the flow of a lesson through dissected content.

Teachers also use body language to illustrate points and use movement around the class room to ensure the audience is keeping attention. Preparation and confidence shown in this manner are integral to successful presentations.

When constructing your presentations consider how visual elements play into telling the story. Do not fill your presentation with data unless absolutely vital. A presentation should be a visual cue or aid that gives flow to your points. Presentations do not need to be static – by showing data visualisation, e.g. a growing graph or an animated timeline, one can illustrate a point without even having to say it. Visualisation is important in the class room and especially important in the boardroom. Another consideration is the use of bullet points. Bullet point teaching, whilst useful for distilling information, is considered an extremely ineffective method of inducing sustained attention. Always keep bullet points at the end of the presentation or section as a summary of points made. Finally another extremely powerful technique of teaching during presentation is the method of repetition. If you have something to say you need to repeat the point on multiple separate slides reiterating the point throughout the presentation.

Effective teaching always interacts the audience with the subject of the lesson. Good teachers don’t just talk at their audience but give them a variety of content, and different methods of delivery – and most importantly related activities. By breaking up the content so that no single item takes longer than a few minutes, the presenter is able to give a variation of information and keeps the audience attentive. Between points teachers use amusing or interesting anecdotes/props to keep their audience attentive – a picture, a quote, a bit of audience interaction. For long presentations this method of breaking up information is vital to keeping the audience interested in the content and mentally alert. In the business world quotes can be used to stimulate emotions and feelings, and of course quotes can be used to illustrate and emphasise just about any point or concept you can imagine. Staying too long on the same subject in the same mode of delivery will send people into a listless “eyes glazed over” state.

Staying Confident

Whilst you could argue that business environments such as huge conference venues or intimate meeting rooms might require a certain type of confidence, confidence is an integral trait of many good teachers and vital to their lessons. If there is no conviction in their subject then their audience simply will not take up any information. However confidence is certainly a difficult trait to simply grow especially in public speaking. A lot of people do not take to public speaking very well, which is a common occurrence in business. So how do teachers become confident? Teachers use vigorous amounts of preparation, planning and practice for lessons and those in business situations should do the same.

Being confident in your content also adds perceived integrity to a presentation. For many teachers this confidence in your content follows deep knowledge of a subject or even a specialist knowledge. However even then teachers need to remind themselves of the core points of a given subject and plan their lesson accordingly. Preparation is often the best way of ensuring you are confident in your content. Reading over presentation notes and becoming knowledgeable about the subject will naturally lead to confidence being shown during presentations. Similarly when answering questions be as sure as you can in the answer and rather than relying on uncertainties simply admit when you do not know something. Waiting too long undermines your confidence, and the audience’s respect for you.

Another way of asserting your authority in a meeting (and maintaining your own confidence) is by sticking to the timelines set. A teaching lesson has to run by the allotted time slots set by the teaching timetable and again asserts the authority of the teacher. In much the same way starting a meeting or presentation on time is essential for showing the audience that the presentation is under control. Don’t start with an apology unless you’ve really made a serious error, or it’s part of your plans and an intentional humorous device.

Finally, during your meeting audience members might become enthused about a particular point or engulfed in a prop such that the presentation or meeting has lost focus slightly. This planned chaos is actually a very useful way of keeping people involved in the content of your presentation and enjoying themselves. Teachers often find themselves in this very excitable situation however their solution is very simple. To get the audience back to focusing on the presentation simply catch their attention by clapping your hands a couple of times and say calmly “Okay now – let’s continue”. Doing so confident and un-phased will bring the meeting back in your control with the audience refreshed for another 5-10 minutes. Unsurprisingly this technique is also a staple found in many vocational training centers!

Whilst good teachers excel in presentation environments everyday they often have to overcome problems faced by most people who have to present a large body of information to a potentially difficult audience. By becoming more confident in the content and preparing a visual and light presentation you can become as natural to presentations as teaching is to a teacher.

Jonathan is a freelance writer who currently writes for De Vere Venues – a meeting rooms, conference venues and training venue specialist with properties around the UK.