❯ Reflections on Large Group Presentations: 150+ People

Knees weak. Arms heavy. Minus mom's spaghetti, the song perfectly matched the moment. I had a realization walking to the front of the room: this group was triple the size I had ever presented to before. One hundred and fifty people. The fact it was a fully physical event fed into my adrenaline and nerves. Every attendee was in the room, computers weren't allowed, and the spotlight was bright enough to burn a hole through the floor.

Thirty minutes. High pressure. One shot.

I waited for the host to finish, grabbed the microphone, and began.

The topic was on setting team culture and building effective teams. My goal was to develop the leaders and participants in the room, introducing them to new concepts and frameworks, so we could raise the water level on culture across the organization.

I'm writing down my reflections on everything but the content as a way to process and cement my learnings—and hopefully help others who might be preparing for large group trainings and presentations, too.

USE PHYSIOLOGY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

If the thought of presenting to a big group makes your palm's sweaty, that's called normal. Your body has specific, natural responses to highly intense moments like these. Interestingly, both fear and excitement trigger the exact same physiological response (namely a whopping heap of adrenaline). Andrew Hubermann's discussion with Stanford GSB was a Godsend and informed my main preparation methods. The gist of the discussion is your body can be trained to better tolerate adrenaline and natural anatomical processes can be leveraged to calm nerves.

Here are the physiological activities that I felt made a difference:

• Ahead of time: (1) Cold showers with 25-30 deep inhales and big, quick exhales. Be careful here, Huberman talks about the potential dangers of this activity. That said, it did most closely resemble the feeling of live presentation. (2) Out-loud practice of the presentation, and lots of it, to build confidence. (3) Exercise to burn off the energy and manage stress.

• Day of: (1) High intensity run to burn off energy. (2) A big meal a few hours before for physiological relaxation. (3) Huberman's breathing exercise.

• In the moment: (1) Huberman's breathing exercise. (2) Stepping forward. More on this below.

USE PSYCHOLOGY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Fear and excitement are the same physiological response. Knowing that, I reframed fear into excitement. I was excited to present. The nerves didn't go away but it is a neat mental trick. Very likely, how you perceive yourself internally will be different than others' external perception. I was nervous enough on the inside that I thought it was palpable to the crowd, but I received the complete opposite feedback: I seemed energetic, composed, confident, and communicated well.

Here are the psychological activities that I felt made a difference:

• Ahead of time: (1) Reframing of nerves into excitement. (2) Have a ritual. I like to practice in the space beforehand using the same planned opener.

• In the moment: (1) Taking a step forward towards the crowd. I noticed strong speakers unconsciously do this, and later learned there's legitimate psychology behind this. You're sending a positive signal to the crowd that you're ready to engage and the 'step forward' triggers neurochemicals responsible for motivation and drive to be released.

Along the way, there were a few phrases I learned that stuck with me: Trust yourself. Be okay with getting lost. Even experts have the jitters. Make the audience the winner.

FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE FOR FEEDBACK

After you step off the stage, feelings of vulnerability will be elevated. Adrenaline production drops, dopamine floods the body, and you'll be more sensitive than normal. I sought feedback from everyone at this stage—a mistake. I remember asking a friend in the crowd his thoughts and he joked that it was crappy. He was kidding, but it still stung and makes remembering the positive more challenging. Skip this step and find authentic feedback.

What I craved was honesty. The good and the bad. My external perception was knocked off-kilter and so I gravitated towards finding the people who gave genuine feedback. If you are the one giving the feedback, the most appreciated response is candor; you can still be empathetic and caring while delivering sincere feedback.

THE E3A PARADIGM

The post-event feedback was motivating. My session had the highest rating, particularly highlighted that it “introduced new thinking” and “made a complex topic simple”. That's rewarding as someone who values bringing insight and innovation. It was paired with constructive feedback: it was too much content for the timeframe. Participants didn't have a chance to digest each section before we moved on. It certainly wasn't the most talked about session in hallway chatter. Two sides of the same coin.

I've been ruminating on improvement and recognized a paradigm: Effort-Execution-Effectiveness versus Action.

Thinking that conforms to what's known is easy to discuss and do, but likely won't bring teams to new places. Making complexity simple and actionable is the goal of any communicator. We want our audience to be the winners, right?

I think of effort, execution, and effectiveness as opposing forces, with action in the center. If any singular force is too strong, action will be knocked out of center and not take place. This is why upskilling a large group is challenging: each piece of the paradigm changes based on the audience and individual. For sociologists, the effort to understand how to influence culture might be lower than for doctors. For team leaders, it's easier to execute on setting culture than for individual contributors.

Lower the effort to understand, increase the likelihood of execution, and share findings on effectiveness. The closer these forces are to the center, the more compelling and insightful a presentation will be.

WHAT'S NEXT

Physiology, psychology, feedback, and E3A. They were useful activities and mental models for my preparation and delivery. I hope they help you, too. These high stress moments are similar to strength training: perfect form is easy when the bar is light, but heavy weight highlights proficiency. This was my first rep in rallying the troops and teaching large groups.

Now that I've done it once, I would do it again. And I would be more selective about the why, how, what, and when. It shone new light on my leadership style, which more naturally connects with smaller group presentations and asynchronous communication.

It was a terrifying but worthwhile milestone. If you have the same opportunity, take it.

Snapshot:

Clark, you are:
Strong,
Smart,
Kind,
and Resilient.

Striving for better,

Justin Pichichero