How Do You Explain Something No One Has Ever Thought About Before?

Just do it.

--Nike advertisement

Many times we are asked to express ideas that no one has thought about before. What's a good way to do this?

Story tellers rely on letting people use their imagination. To do that, they often start with phrases like "Once upon a time . . ." that empower us to sit back and dream a bit.

For a nonfiction subject, it's good to bring forth people who have done extraordinary things that others can apply to their lives. While they are dreaming about improvements, they will want to learn more about your ideas.

As you prepare to speak, however, sense the mood in the room and be prepared to go with the flow rather than a prepared talk from which you don't vary your words.

Here's how that worked for me as I got ready to introduce the 400 Year Project to a group of the world's leading executives. During the day, I had asked global trendsetters to describe their most effective practices. This was the context for talking about going way beyond today's best practices:

Sometime after lunch that day, I had a disquieting thought. While my clients had obviously put enormous effort into their presentations and talks, I hadn't prepared very much beyond some bare bones slides about how much progress would normally occur in 400 years. Yikes!

I also realized that I still hadn't any idea of how I would work on or organize the project I had been inspired to pursue. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had much experience in extemporaneous speaking so I knew I would come up with something to say. If you haven't developed that skill, I highly recommend that you do.

So as the speakers continued to wow the audience, I found myself beginning to jot down a few notes by interviewing myself. Rather than tell the answers, why didn't I ask for involvement? What about asking for help?

That seemed like a good place to start. I could clearly hope to accomplish more on this project if these great executives were working with me. Why not have a steering committee consisting of outstanding executives as each of our learning organizations did?

What about how to work on the project? Having meetings to discuss research plans and results had worked well for the various learning organizations I led. Perhaps we needed another organization for this purpose. Why not call it Twenty Times Progress and invite all of our clients to participate at no charge?

How often should we meet? Well, there are two equinoxes each year. Why not meet on each date? That would make it easy to remember the dates.

What should I tell people about how the results would be gained? Since I had no clue, it seemed best to be candid and tell them that I didn't know what the next step was.

Why should anyone care? I needed to explain about how the generations that follow us would be deprived of their potential to live fuller lives unless we figured out how to capture the unemployed potential that was waiting to be implemented.

With those thoughts in place, I sat back and enjoyed more presentations after an excellent lunch. I knew I was ready.

You, too, can be prepared to speak in powerful ways on novel subjects by interrogating yourself about what you have to say . . . as though you were an audience member. Then smooth out your answers a bit, and you have the outline for a meaningful talk.