A presentation should be an (unfinshed) Cathedral.

Imagine you are sitting peacefully in the central square of an old town in Italy (sipping an espresso, of course).

At one end is the grand town hall, with ornate statues and a clock tower. On either side of the cobblestoned space are grand palazzos, still owned by the families that always ruled this countryside.

And sitting pride of place, at the top of the piazza centrale, proclaiming the importance and piety of the town, is an enormous church. But something is not quite right. The façade rough cut, with every second stone jutting out from the others - an ungainly, checkerboard look.

This scene is not uncommon in Italy. Most churches have beautiful marble or travertine facades, but you will regularly come across these unfinished churches. The reason not a mystery; cathedrals take generations to build, if the fortunes of a town change during that extended period, then maybe the final work is never completed.  The checkboard surface is intentional; the protruding key stones are there to provide anchors on which the later marble façade can be supported.

More poetically the builders are leaving something for future generations to finish, so that they can share in the satisfaction and devotion.

Why am I telling you all this? Because the unfinished cathedral is a great model for how to build a great presentation.

My instinct when putting together a presentation is to try and tie everything up as a complete, polished works, with every possible benefit and objection covered – to show everyone how well I have thought of everything.

But if you want to engage your audience then you should leave some empty spaces. When you get to the end of your presentation, to your ‘Thank you – Questions?’ slide, you should be at the unfinished cathedral stage. The audience is going to see the gaps and are going to want to know what goes there – they are going to ask questions! This is what every presenter should want – a series of questions from the audience that fill in the ideas or argument you have been delivering. If you have left the keystones in the right place then it will be easy for you, and the audience, to slot the final pieces in place.

In practice this is brutally simple, when you have put together your slide deck, or speaking notes, go through and remove the last bullet point from each slide. If a slide has 5 bullet points, then it is going to be just as effective with 4. You know where these gaps are, and at least one person in your audience will feel the absence of each one.

So when you get to the end you will know exactly the questions that are going to be raised, and each one will be a genuine “I’m glad you asked that question” opportunity for you to fill in the stonework.

If you do this well the audience will leave your presentation having experienced the full, polished splendour of your finished cathedral, but with the feeling of engagement that comes from having helped complete it.

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