How to Ensure Your Phys­i­cal Space Works For You, Not Against You

Have you ever felt that something’s just not work­ing right, no mat­ter how well you know your mate­r­ial, how con­fi­dent you came in, or how much you prac­ticed? Have you ever felt, through­out your pre­sen­ta­tion, that some­thing keeps push­ing back or drag­ging you down?

You may be expe­ri­enc­ing an attempted “Death by Room.” This mal­ady has knocked many a trainer and pre­sen­ter to their knees—and kept them there. The dis­ease is pre­ventable. But to over­come it, you must dra­mat­i­cally increase your aware­ness, long before the first par­tic­i­pant walks into the room. Here’s how.

3 Tips to Ensure Your Phys­i­cal Space Works For You, Not Against You

1. Ask your­self: What do I want?

Do you want a dia­logue or a mono­logue? Is one-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion most appro­pri­ate for your mes­sage, or would inter­ac­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion work best? Many pre­sen­ters espouse one the­ory (for exam­ple, “par­tic­i­pa­tion is good,”) but every­thing they do com­mu­ni­cates a dif­fer­ent mes­sage (like “sit down and shut up!”)

It’s impor­tant to be clear on your phi­los­o­phy of teach­ing and learn­ing, and to ensure that your actions sup­port it. The seat­ing arrange­ment in par­tic­u­lar gives a strong state­ment about your phi­los­o­phy and your expec­ta­tions of the par­tic­i­pants, from the minute they walk in the door.

TIP: When all chairs point at the pre­sen­ter, (an arrange­ment often called “the­ater” or “class­room” style) the mes­sage if clear: you are the only source of infor­ma­tion. You may find it dif­fi­cult to stim­u­late inter­ac­tion between par­tic­i­pants when they are look­ing at each other’s backs. Yet this set-up may be appro­pri­ate if you actu­ally do want to deliver a mes­sage one-way.

If you desire inter­ac­tion, you must pro­vide a seat­ing arrange­ment that allows par­tic­i­pants to talk eas­ily with one another, as well as with you. This may involve round tables, a “U” shaped set-up, or rec­tan­gle tables pushed together to accom­mo­date 6–8 peo­ple. If you are forced to use a “the­ater style” set-up, ensure that par­tic­i­pants can move their chairs into small work­ing groups of 3–5.

Make sure that your room set-up sup­ports, not con­tra­dicts, your goals.

2. Don’t make assumptions.

Here are a few com­mon assump­tions that kill trainers/presenters:

• “I sent a diagram—I know the room will be set up just like that.”
• The space doesn’t mat­ter. Content’s the thing.
• I don’t need to see the room until it’s time for me to start.

TIP: When pos­si­ble, set up the room your­self (with help, if nec­es­sary.) View the room the night before. If this isn’t pos­si­ble, arrive at least one hour early. Remem­ber, the way your space is set up can impact your pre­sen­ta­tion as much as your con­tent knowledge.

Find out: Where are the elec­tri­cal out­lets? How will their loca­tion affect your set-up? Is the room long and nar­row? (If so, try to set it up width-wise instead of length­wise.) Where is the screen? What hap­pens when you turn on/off the lights? Are you able to change room tem­per­a­ture? If using a micro­phone or speaker sys­tem, famil­iar­ize your­self with how they work.

By elim­i­nat­ing your assump­tions, you’ll sleep bet­ter the night before an impor­tant event.

3. Rehearse in the room.

There is no way that a pro­fes­sional actor would work in a space in which he or she had not prac­ticed. Pro­fes­sional train­ers and pre­sen­ters make the room their own by vis­it­ing it, test­ing it, and prac­tic­ing in it.

TIP: Deliver the first 3–5 min­utes of your pre­sen­ta­tion. Check the acoustics. Does the room absorb your voice, or can it carry with ease? Walk around the area from which you will present. What parts of the room could be blocked from view? Remem­ber that all par­tic­i­pants must be able to see you at all times.

Hum in the room, sing in the room, do jump­ing jacks in the room…make it your own, so that you feel 100% com­fort­able, both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally, long before the first par­tic­i­pant appears.

Can a room kill you as a pre­sen­ter? YES—but only if you allow it to. You can pre­vent “Death by Room” by attend­ing to these three easy steps.

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Read more arti­cles about Train­ing Devel­op­ment. Learn about Guila Muir’s Trainer Devel­op­ment Workshops.

Guila Muir is the pre­miere trainer of train­ers, facil­i­ta­tors, and pre­sen­ters on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1994, she has helped thou­sands of pro­fes­sion­als improve their train­ing, facil­i­ta­tion, and pre­sen­ta­tion skills. Find out how she can help trans­form you from a bor­ing expert to a great pre­sen­ter: www.guilamuir.com

© 2007 Guila Muir. All rights reserved.
You may make copies of this arti­cle and dis­trib­ute in any media so long as you change noth­ing, credit the author, and include this copy­right notice and web address.

Related posts:

1. The Power of the HOOK
2. How Do You Know They Know? Design­ing in-Class Assessment
3. Meet­ings, Bloody Meetings!
4. How to Blow Your Cred­i­bil­ity From The “Get-Go”
5. What Is a Trainer? What Is a Facilitator?

Tags: Facilitation Skills, facilitator training, group facilitation, instructional design, meeting facilitation, Presentation Skills, presentation skills workshop, public speaking, Train the trainer, train the trainer training, train the trainer workshops, trainer development, trainer training, training courses, workshop facilitation

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