For any presentation that you deliver, you have an objective in mind. Your objective might be to get their buy-in, or to impress a new client, or to confirm next steps. Without a clear objective, why spend the time and energy, and perhaps anxiety, preparing and delivering a presentation?
But an objective is not enough – this is just the ‘what’. You need to focus on the ‘how’ – the individual tasks that will get you to your objective. Your task might be to persuade them that your plan drives growth. Your task might be to amaze them with your company’s technology. Your task might be to update them on project progress and subsequent plans.
However, as we stand to present, it is all too easy to instantly forget about the task at hand. To be distracted by our nerves, our content, and our delivery. Yet for us to reach our objective, our task is everything.
I could take the following pages to share too many tips on how to focus on your task. But I can do it far better by sharing a story.
It is April 2025, and I am standing in the wings of Leeds Grand Theatre, dressed as an early nineteenth-century French bishop. In six seconds’ time I am to step out onto an open stage to be observed by an audience of over a thousand people. I am nervous.
It is not a lack of experience. I have performed in amateur shows for over thirty years. Musical theatre, operetta, opera. Sometimes performing to ten people in a small church hall, often to two hundred people in a small theatre, and occasionally to more than a thousand people in a Leeds city theatre.
I am five seconds from stepping onto the stage, dressed as a Bishop, in the musical Les Miserable, or Les Mis as it is known. This is a mega-musical; it has run in the West End as a professional show for over forty years. In 2025, eleven sets of amateur societies got to put on the full show in their main city theatres.
This is biggest show I will ever be in. I don’t just mean in terms of the popularity of the show, although few are bigger than Les Mis. I mean biggest in terms of budget, production complexity, and number of people in the full team. It is four amateur Leeds societies coming together; more than fifty costumed characters on stage and a twenty-person offstage choir; a seventeen-person orchestra in the pit; more than twenty people offstage managing lighting, scene changes, costumes, and more.
At least a thousand people will be watching each performance. There is a few hundred thousand pounds of show budget at stake. I will never be in a bigger show. Team, audience, budget on the line, the whole shebang!
Here I stand, in the wings, four seconds from the moment when I must step onto stage to be the Bishop. Anyone who knows Les Mis knows the Bishop is a small role but an important character in the story. The Bishop is onstage for only a few minutes, but he acts as the catalyst for the epic story to come.
I am to play the Bishop and my objective in the story is clear: I must command the main hero, Jean Valjean, to follow a life of kindness and benefaction.
To achieve this I have three clear tasks. One, to show mercy for Jean Valjean at his hour of need. Two, to protect him from the rough hands of the law. Three, to command him to embrace a life of God.
I am three seconds from walking into the story. All I can think about is my fear.
Have you ever stood in the wings about to step onto stage? You are very much aware of the show happening in front of you, yet you are separate from it. You are in the dark, safely hidden from view, not yet part of the action. It is a sort of limbo – not fully offstage and not yet onstage. Here feels safe, but here I cannot stay.
In two seconds I will be basked in theatre lights, thrown into the whirlwind of the story and the music and the characters and a watching audience.
You can imagine how I feel, with one second left before the tornado starts. I am very, VERY, VERY scared. What if I forget my lines? What if I miss my cue? What if I trip over my costume? What if I sing nothing but incorrect notes? What if I drop the candlesticks? This could be a moment when I totally embarrass myself in front of more than a thousand people.
Time is up! It is time to enter the stage. How do I muster the courage to step forward?
The honest answer is, at a basic level, it takes mettle. Mettle as in bravery, resolve, determination. The mettle to acknowledge the risks, but to choose to act anyway. The mettle to realise not stepping forward, not taking my part in the story, would be to let myself down, to let the audience down, and to let down all the people on the team putting on this show. Falling flat on my face is nothing compared to the disaster if I fail to play my part.
I step onto the stage.
All of us recognise this feeling of anxiety, and perhaps fear, from the many business presentations that we make. Whether you present to a few people, or to a hundred, or even to over a thousand, when your reputation is on the line, we feel anxiety. When there is a team relying on us to deliver a message with impact, there is anxiety. When there is an audience expecting to be engaged and informed, there is anxiety. It takes a level of mettle to step forward and speak.
Remind yourself of the reason you are there – your objective. Then focus on the tasks at hand. Presenting takes at least a modicum bravery. Take a breath, step forward.
I am now on stage. I feel bewildered. Time seems to stand still and also speed up. The stage lights blind me. Other actors are moving around, one is finishing singing their amazing line. One thousand pairs of eyes stare at me. The orchestra flows ever onwards to the moment I must start to sing. Fear is there but disappears into the background. The blast of the performance is all that there is.
How do I stay grounded? How do I stay on track? I focus on the mechanics of the scene. These are the movements I must make, the words I must deliver, and the actions I must take.
Walk to table, notice nun gesturing me to the doorway, notice Jean Valjean and move around to stage-right – ensure that he and I stay well lit.
Start my lines. “Come in sir for you are weary…”
Guide Jean Valjean back through the door into the church, and offer him a chair, food, and a drink.
Finish my sung words, “We’ve a bed to rest ‘till morning, rest from pain and rest from wrong.”
Leave stage-left; wait one minute.
Come back on to up-stage centre to meet two policemen hauling Jean Valjean to the floor in front of the church. They have caught him with my church silver, yet Jean Valjean claims it was a gift.
Explain my agreement, “That is right…” Take two silver candlesticks from a nun standing nearby to offer as a further gift to Jean Valjean.
Sing more lines, usher policemen to leave.
Pull Jean Valjean diagonally down to front stage right, visibly place the two silver candlesticks into his bag.
Complete my lines, “… you must use this precious silver to become an honest man. By the witness of the martyrs, by the Passion and the Blood, God has raised you out of darkness, I have bought your soul for God.”
Leave slowly, off stage-right.
These mechanics are vital for the successful completion of the scene: timing interactions with characters, safely navigating through moving scenery, effectively fulfilling the story beats of the scene.
I cannot hope to spontaneously create each step in the sequence – there are too many moving parts. I must know each mechanical step and I do, because we have choreographed and drummed them all into me in the rehearsals. Everything is known. Everything is familiar.
Once I have forged the mettle to step onto the stage it is this familiarity with the mechanics of the scene that saves me. I move because I know where to move. I sing because I know the words to sing.
Again, this resonates with our experience in a business presentation. As long as we know the mechanics of the presentation – the sequence of the slides, the order of our messages, the timings of sections, the flow of the information, the answers to likely questions – we can fulfil our brief of delivering the presentation.
We position our webcam, we set our lighting, we practise how we will share our slides and the key video. We pre-align on who leads which section, how we will pass between presenters. We agree on how we will step onto stage, where we will stand, the way we will explain a concept, how we will pass the clicker between us. The mechanics of making a business presentation.
With mettle and mechanics we can complete any performance.
However, none of us believes that mettle and mechanics is sufficient. The mettle gives you the impetus to start and the mechanics creates the track that you will follow. Neither creates an engaging story. How do I deliver that?
I am on stage in front of one thousand people, and I am efficiently working through the mechanics of the scene. It is time to focus on musicality. When I say musicality, I mean more than the notes that I sing, I mean everything else about the articulation and form of the performance. The tone, the timing, the dynamics, and the emphasis. And the shapes of my body language – the facial expressions, the gestures, the gait, the walks, the everything.
In Les Mis, some of this has been written down for you. Words, music, dynamics. Some elements are agreed in partnership with the Musical Director – the phrasing and pacing. Some elements are set by the director – physical performance, characterisation. Much comes from you, the performer.
I start the scene singing softly as I introduce myself to Jean Valjean. Soon the music picks up pace as I encourage Jean Valjean into my church to revive himself with wine and bread. Later, when the police arrive, my singing lines are long with no breaks, as I strive to complete my story before either policeman can interject.
I need to sing with strong tone at the top of my vocal range, and hold firm to a grounded sound near the bottom of my range. This takes skill and vocal stamina. Anyone who tells you that singing is a talent that you are born with does not know what they are talking about. To do it well takes practise, repeated and focussed practise.
In the business world, to what extent do you think about the musicality of your performance? The language and phrasing of your main messages. Where you pause to emphasise and where you will move quickly to hold attention. When to use a louder voice to express passion and when a softer voice to deliver quiet certainty. Over time we learn to do a lot of this naturally, but a business presentation needs some planned musicality to it.
I complete my two scenes as the Bishop, and I step offstage. I showed the mettle to step into the theatre lights. I successfully navigated the mechanics of the scene. I delivered a performance with accurate musicality.
I escape back into the wings. No mistakes made. All my words spoken. No notes cracked. Success!
Success? What do I even mean by success? Is success having the mettle to step onto stage? Is success completing all of the mechanics of the scene? Is success singing with skilful musicality?
The stark truth is success is all three of these things and yet none of these things.
Success was the objective and the objective was about the story. Success, if we remember, was to share Jean Valjean’s transformational moment – to explain why he proceeds to do the things he does.
I need to be a story catalyst. In my scenes I have three core tasks: firstly, to show kindness and care in Valjean’s hour of need; secondly to protect him from the police; and then thirdly to command him to take the silver to fund a life as an honest man.
If I walk on stage with confidence, efficiently complete every move through the scene, and sing beautifully, but fail to be this catalyst to change, I have failed. However, if I walk on nervously, labour across the stage, sing some wrong notes, yet successfully convince the audience that I cared for Jean Valjean, that I protected him, and that I commanded him – I have succeeded.
If we only need to be effective presenters, we can rely on mettle, on mechanics and on musicality. If you bravely stand to speak, are clear on your words and slides, with skill developed in tone and emphasis – you will complete your presentation. But that completion will fail in its objective.
A powerful and authentic message only comes when you match all elements of your presentation with the tasks you have for the presentation.
The vital truth is you must imbue every part of your performance with the tasks you are there to undertake. Focus the mettle, the mechanics, and the musicality with each task. This is how you enrich, you heighten, the performance.
Six seconds before stepping on stage, when I feel most anxious and afraid, my courage is strengthened by focussing on the tasks that my character will complete: care for, protect, command. Simplifying everything down to a few tasks makes the step into the blinding stage lights so much easier.
As I work through the scene, when the mechanics can easily make my movements awkwardly mechanical, each task guides me towards authentic movements. When my task is to care, I slowly guide Jean Valjean to the table. When my task is to protect, I place myself between Jean Valjean and the police. When my task is to command, I firmly drag Jean Valjean forward.
As I sing through the scene, my focus could be only on the beauty in the musicality –fine tone throughout an impressive vocal range – yet leave only narrative confusion. When I focus my performance on each task I am accomplishing, I sing to care, sing to protect, sing to command. For each task my voice follows naturally with the intent of the task. As I care my singing softens. As I protect my voice shifts to appease the policemen. As I command, my voice transforms into vehement certainty, supported by a piercing stare into the very soul of Jean Valjean.
If we want to be an inspirational presenter, a versatile and skilled presenter, we must have mettle, mechanics, and musicality; but we must work to imbue each with the task.
For your most important business presentations, take the time to define the tasks that will move your towards your objective. Convince them that…, direct them to…, teach them to… inform them of… check their understanding for… encourage them to…
The mettle feels much easier when, rather than worrying about all the things that can go wrong, we focus in on the task for that business presentation.
The mechanics of the presentation - slides, key messages, content – only move into authentic movements when they are fuelled by each task.
We have a musicality in our delivery. For some of us this can become a great strength – enlivening our presentation with tone and pacing. But this virtuosity is valueless without tasks to focus them on. We heighten our delivery through the clear concentration on the task.
As a business presenter, in any big presentation, we need to have the mettle to stand up and talk. We need the mechanics of the presentation to feel familiar. And we absolutely need to make some choices on the musicality of pacing and dynamics and tone. But none of that matters unless you're absolutely, completely, totally clear on each task. Everything, and I mean everything, becomes simpler for you and your audience when you do.