How do we get our audiences to return their focus to the presenter when we’ve sent them off to engage in a game or exercise?

Interactivity is a hallmark of effective training. We can explain our strategies and success principles, and audiences will think and say they understand them, but it isn’t until we ask them to put them into practice that we or they find out whether or not actually do.

Now that we’ve gone over the StorySailing® system, take five minutes to write a paragraph that uses all four elements…

And this is where we lose them. If the exercise is engaging—like it should be—we’ve offered a valuable growing experience but we’re no longer the audience’s point of focus. When we ask them to come back, we’re interrupting them!

Before you send them off to do exercises, train your audience to switch gears.

Let’s have a little fun. In a moment, I’ll ask you to talk to your neighbor and make some noise.

When you hear me blow a long blast on my whistle that means you have 5 seconds left before I blow my three short ones.

On the third short blast, no matter who scintillating the conversation may be, break it off, face forward, and go completely quiet.

You may feel uncomfortable switching tracks while someone is talking to you but for today, that will be the new polite.

Okay, let’s try it. Lets see how quickly we can go from noisy to silent.

Try this two or three times at the beginning of your presentation, remind them about the noise-to-silence game at the beginning of each exercise, and you’ll have your audience trained to jump onto whichever track you want them on cue.