He had red hair, a tightly groomed beard, a ponytail and I knew three minutes into the presentation he was going to be trouble if I let him. His name was Alex.
He was what I call The Disrupter: the person in the audience of a presentation who loves to interject himself into your presentation—not out of genuine interest and not with sincere questions, but with the full intent of establishing himself as a nuisance.
If you give enough presentations, you will eventually run into The Disrupter. At first you might think something is wrong. Why is this guy interrupting so often? Why does he want an answer to a question before I have even completed a sentence?
Well, it’s because that’s what Disrupters do. They play to the role. They feed on attention, and they are more than happy to wrestle the room’s attention away from you if you let them.
If The Disrupter strikes early enough, you may find yourself wondering how you will get through the entire presentation with this guy interrupting every few seconds. Here are a few strategies for dealing with the person who is the Disrupter in your next presentation.
First you have to identify The Disrupter.
He or she is different from the attendee who is genuinely interested but just likes to ask a lot of questions. The Disrupter usually gives himself away with body language: arms folded across his chest, feet crossed out in front of him, general smug feeling to him. He’s the know-it-all whose body language will let you know he thinks he’s above having to attend your presentation.
The second thing The Disrupter does is interrupt you mid-sentence. She won’t wait for a natural pause. While you are making your point, she is raising her hand—and sometimes interjecting without even the courtesy of raising her hand.
While The Disrupter can seem intimidating, putting your presentation at risk, there are a few simple, but effective, strategies that will neutralize this pest:
Identify The Disrupter by Name Early
Once you have identified The Disrupter, use his or her first name, frequently. It lets the rest of the room know that you know The Disrupter is in the house. Oddly enough, The Disrupter won’t figure it out at first. Hearing their name just feeds their ego at first.
Recruit them into Your Presentation
After you have identified The Disrupter, volunteer them to come to the front of the room and help you—whether that’s with an exercise, by writing things down for you on the flipchart, or by being the person you use to demonstrate something. You are essentially recruiting The Disrupter into your presentation. Without realizing it, she has now become part of your presentation. And this is where she will usually make the subtle connection that if she continues to interrupt and disrupt, if she takes down your presentation, then she’ll go down with you.
Ask The Disrupter for their Opinion
After The Disrupter has been to the front of the room, occasionally go back to them with interactions:
· “What strategies have you found useful in this situation?”
· “What would you do when facing this scenario?”
· “How would you handle X, Y, or Z?”
This feeds the Disrupter’s ego and keeps reminding him that he is no longer capable of blowing up your presentation and taking it down without going down with it! That’s where the disrupter becomes an ally instead of an assassin.
You will know immediately when The Disrupter gets the message because that is the exact moment he or she stops disrupting and interrupting, stops asking a series of questions that may or may not be on topic, stops being a pain the, well, you know.
My experience is most Disrupters aren’t bad people. Alex certainly wasn’t. Disrupters are usually quite smart but they crave a little attention, need a little ego stroke, like to create a little chaos.
You can’t control the Disrupter. If you confront them directly, you run the risk of them going full nuclear and blowing up the presentation in a way that makes you look bad. Remember, the rest of the room knows The Disrupter is in the wrong. If you handle The Disrupter with poise, you normally win over The Disrupter, and you definitely win the respect of the rest of the room.
Keep an eye out for The Disrupter. And as soon as you identify him or her follow the three steps I outlined:
1. Identify them by name frequently
2. Recruit them into your presentation
3. Ask them for their opinion
This approach turns The Disrupter into your wing man and by the end of the presentation her or she will usually be your biggest advocate—after all, you are the one who is making them look and feel important, which is all they wanted in the first place.
By the end of my presentation, Alex was actually going out of his way to help others in the group and tell them what I would do if I were them. He was more than a wingman. He was a disciple.
Now that’s a transformation.
I hope this helps your next presentation—and every one after that, too.
Looking for more suggestions on how to prepare, practice, and perform your presentations at a level you never thought possible? Check out our Presentation Transformation online course!
