Harvard Business Review Guides Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books)

Develop the Middle

The middle is, in many ways, the most compelling part of your presentation, because that’s where most of the “action” takes place.

People in your audience now realize their world is off-kilter—you’ve brought that to their attention and at least hinted at a solution at the beginning of your presentation. Now continue to emphasize the contrast between what is and what could be, moving back and forth between them, and the audience will start to find the former unappealing and the latter alluring.

Let’s go back to that Q3 financial update example from “Craft the Beginning.” Revenues are down, but you want to motivate employees to make up for it. Table 3-1 shows one way you could approach the middle of your presentation.

Earlier, ...