175: Dealing With Ambush Speaking Requests

<p>Suddenly you hear your name being called upon and you are being requested to make a few remarks.  Uh oh.  No preparation, no warning and no escape.  What do you do?  Extemporaneous speaking is one of the most difficult tasks for a presenter.  It could be during an internal meeting, a session with the big bosses in attendance or at a public venue.  One moment you are nice and comfy, sitting there in your chair, taking a mild interest in the proceedings going on around you and next you are the main event.</p> <p> </p> <p>Usually the time between your name being called and you actually being handed the microphone can be counted in milliseconds.  By the time you have heaved yourself out of your chair, your brain has well and truly started to panic.  A mental whiteout is probably fully underway and your face is going red, because of all the blood pressure of the moment.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here are a couple of things we can do in this situation.  Firstly, take a realistic look at the task at hand.  The length of your talk will not be expected to be long.  If you are a seasoned speaker, you could get up and wax lyrical for an hour without a problem.  For everyone else, we are talking two to three minutes.  Now two to three minutes seems rather short, except when you are suddenly thrust in front of a sea of expectant eyes of an audience.</p> <p> </p> <p>Once upon a time, I completely forgot my next sentence and discovered the pain of prolonged time. I was asked to give a brief talk and chose to speak in Mandarin to a crowd of around a thousand people, when I was Consul General in Osaka.  It was a special event for the departing Chinese Consul General Li, who was heading to New York.  Actually, I was going okay but I paused to allow some applause to die down – this turned out to be a major error on my part. </p> <p> </p> <p>I found when you suddenly go blank, a single microphone stand doesn’t provide much cover, up on a very big stage, with all the lights on you and everyone staring at you.  That 30 seconds or so of silen