Everything is ten times harder when it’s live. Teaching. Singing. Speaking. Dancing. Even something as seemingly trivial as moderating a 30-minute panel discussion.
At my company’s annual industry event, I watched such a discussion. Going in, I thought the host had the easiest job. Just introduce the guests and then make sure they piggyback well off one another, right? Ha! A few minutes in, it already became clear this is harder than it looks—and far from the whole job.
Do you introduce your guests? Or do you let them do that themselves? If so, for how long? Who do you call on first? How do you pass the baton? Can you adjust your prompts in real-time so you can move from one speaker to the next in a way that makes sense? When do you interrupt a guest because they are taking too much time? Where do you ask a follow-up question? It’s a Pandora’s box of questions, this moderation thing!
Clearly, the host in this panel struggled with it. He didn’t distribute time well between speakers. He called upon guests with questions they weren’t well-positioned to answer. And he frequently inserted his own talking points instead of maintaining the panel’s organic flow. All in all, the discussion could have been much more fruitful. Interesting. Substantial. Alas, our moderator was not ready for the live factor.
Preparation is “half the rent,” we say in Germany. For live events, the attention you put in before the spotlights go on is worth just as much as your presence on stage, perhaps more. Submit the challenge to your subconscious early on. Go and prepare and do it. Once the timer begins, all you can do is trust your intuition and let your training show its results.
Never underestimate the live factor.
