How To Question Your Audience

Presentations have become tediously monochrome.  The speaker speaks, the audience sit there passively taking it all in.  After the speaker’s peroration, they get to offer up a few questions for about 10 to 15 minutes or so and then that is the end of it. With the pivot to online presentations, the fabric of the presentation methodology hasn’t changed much.  We sit there peering at the little boxes on screen, hearing a monotone voice droning on. We listen to enquiries from others submitted beforehand or we may actually get an open mic opportunity to ask our questions directly, although that has been rather rare.  We may be directed to the chat to make our question known to the organisers.  The formula is basically the same and has been the same since our antediluvian origins.

Why can’t speakers vary their presentations to sometimes include more interaction?  Why does it always have to be the same format?  Obviously, we have to pick our moment to go off piste.  The audience composition, the topic of the talk and the organiser’s latitude for doing something different, will be factors for consideration.  One of the tricky aspects of asking questions of your audience is getting people to contribute and to do so in a way that they can be heard by everyone.  The obvious answer is to have a team of your people armed with handheld mics, which they can ferry at warp speed to the individual asking the question.  Here is a word to the wise.  You should choose who you want to question, but also allow some free styling as well. Events where the guests are seated at round tables are great for this and long rows of schoolroom type seating are not.

We are not switching the presentation to a continuous dialogue with the audience – that is a different type of presentation altogether.  I am talking about livening up a standard presentation with more interaction with the audience.  The reason you select the people is because it allows you to control the affair more closely.  It is also more surgical.  You know who is in the room and there may be some people who are very well informed, articulate and confident.  That type of individual would be a prime target.

We have five arrows in our question quiver.  If we want a yes or no answer then the Closed Question is ideal.  It might be regarding a fairly macro question, that would have relevancy for everyone in the audience.  “Should Tokyo continue to pursue the holding of the Olympic Games this year?”, would be an example. In this case, we can ask the entire audience the question.  We can ask for a show of hands as to whether they agree with the point or not?  I have been to some events where two sided paddles have been distributed to each seat beforehand, with one side saying “Yes” and the other “No”.   A simpler method is just ask those who agree to raise their hands, then after that, ask those who disagree to raise theirs. Everyone can clearly see the survey results immediately in real time. 

The Open Question cannot be answered by a “Yes” or a “No” and requires an actual answer. “What do you think about ….”, “How do you feel about …?”. This is why selecting your interlocutor is a good idea.  If you select one of the punters at random, you may be putting someone on the spot. Next thing they are spluttering away lost and wholly embarrassed. They will hate you for it forever.

If only you are selecting the people, then there is the suspicion you are using sakura or stooges in the audience, whom you have cunningly planted beforehand.  So it is also wise to open the floor up as well to those brave and informed enough to offer their opinion.  Don’t worry if no one goes for it, you have at least demonstrated your embrace of true democratic ideals of free speech.

If the opportunity presents itself, we can ask a Follow-Up Question to take the discussion down a few more layers for deeper insight.  Often people will give a high level answer and it is more interesting to get them to go further with their thinking, experience or detail.  We have to be careful this doesn’t become a dialogue though between some person in the audience and the presenter. The danger is everyone else is sitting there bored out of their minds and feeling excluded.   Probably one of those follow-up questions per talk is about the right distribution.

From within these dialogues, we can take a person’s viewpoint and Floodlight it to the entire audience.  We can ask those who have had a similar experience to raise their hands.  Now we have switched from the micro discussion between two people to a macro level of involvement of the whole audience.  This is a good way of overcoming the feeling of exclusion by those listening.

We can also go the other way and Spotlight a question.  Someone made a point and we can then call out someone else in the audience for their experiences.  We have to be careful we don’t ignite a war of words between the members of the audience.  Rather than call for their opinion or views or evaluation of the previous speaker’s comment, we should ask what has been their experience.  This will keep the potential fireworks contained for the most part.

One thing to note is when we ask people for their comment please have patience.  Once we ask the question, don’t expect an immediate answer.  People process these issues at different speeds and so if there is a silence, let it hang there for at least 15 seconds. Don’t jump in unless you have to, in order to allow that person to gather their thoughts and respond.  If they are obviously lost, then rescue them and give them a question which they can easily answer to save face.  We need to select people carefully and if it is not the best selection, then we have to have a Plan B.

Questions have potential to engage with our audience and create more interaction.  We must plan it carefully though, because it could lurch into a train wreck.  Planning and good preparation are the keys.