Last Sunday, the Academy Awards had a major mishap in the final minutes of the live broadcast. While presenting the Oscar for the Best Picture category (the biggest award of the night), actors Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced incorrectly that the film, “La La Land” had won. In the hectic moments that followed, one of the producers for “La La Land” held up the correct envelope that showed the Oscar going to the film, “Moonlight” instead. You can watch it play out in the video below.
Being a presenter, mistakes can and will happen no matter how much practice you put into your presentation. Here’s some ways to recover during a major mess up.
Own Up:
Take Steve Harvey’s infamous 2015 Miss Universe crowning for example. Like the Oscars, the host Harvey read off the wrong name during the crowning of Miss Universe. And like the Oscars, Harvey immediately owned up to his mistake and corrected it. During your presentation, if you realized you have confused information from your deck or lost your place – own up, step back and move forward. Acknowledge that you need to clarify your point (without making yourself sound dumb, see next paragraph). It is important to go back and thoroughly explain you information the correct way before continuing your presentation.
Don’t Sell Yourself Short:
Too often when we make mistakes, we are quick to make comments about ourselves like, “how stupid of me,” or “how could I forget”. It is important to avoid making these comments during your presentation because you are the expert in what you are talking about, so don’t allow the audience to think any different. Instead, rephrase negative comments to something positive like, “I am so excited to tell you more about my product that I got ahead of myself, let me step back.” Or use this trick to review your previous points which will help you remind where you were going. “Let’s recap, we talked about X which was this… and we talked about Y which was that… Which brings us to Z.” It is never a bad idea to go over what you have already said, and it may just help your audience fully understand each of your points while helping you get back on track.
Keep Calm and Carry On:
This may be difficult when you’re in the hot seat, but try your best to remain calm. We tend to beat ourselves up and let our nerves take control. If you are suffering through a technical problem that’s holding up your presentation, remember to smile. Take deep breaths while the issue gets resolved. This moment could also become a great way to engage your audience with a few jokes or stories, or some icebreakers.
At the end of the day, we are all human and we all make mistakes. The good thing about mistakes is that we learn the most from them. So if you run into a major presentation mess-up, you will now know how to avoid it or recover from it next time.
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