HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations (HBR Guide Series)

Craft the Beginning

Begin by describing life as the audience knows it. People should be nodding their heads in recognition because you’re articulating what they already understand. This creates a bond between you and them and opens them up to hear your ideas for change.

After you set that baseline of what is, introduce your ideas of what could be. The gap between the two will throw the audience a bit off balance, and that’s a good thing—because it creates tension that needs to be resolved (figure 3-2).

If you proposed what could be without first establishing what is, you’d fail to connect with the audience before swooping in with your ideas, ...