It's 19 minutes to three in the afternoon, and the current speaker, Mr Johnson ('... advancing good corporate governance... '), is due to finish his 30 minute stint in four minutes. There's one more speaker (Jack *) to go before afternoon tea at 3:15 pm.

At 2:45 pm our corporate governance advocate finishes dealing with the second of his five points and settles with feverish monotony into the next one. Groan! Around the room watches are checked with varying degrees of pointedness, the moderator looks uncomfortable and the seat-shifting ups its rate a couple of notches.

Our speaker ploughs on, oblivious to all around him.

Finally, at four minutes past three, he shuffles verbally to some sort of stop, receives no questions and, seemingly pleased with himself, departs the stage.

The applause for his efforts is less than laudatory. He has stolen 19 minutes of the following speaker's time.

'Jack' is introduced. He has a full 30-minute presentation to deliver. One hundred and sixty-six sets of tired eyes peer up at him. They have been bored - frankly - out of their tiny little minds (a turn of phrase only; no insult intended to internal auditors. OJS). Jack is aware of that fact, and now has just 10 minutes left for his talk.

What does he do?

Happily, Jack knows something (a lot, in fact) about speechmaking. This looked like being a 'Titanical' deck-chair moment; it wouldn't have mattered how good his presentation was - his audience was dying.
Here's what he did.

Jack had been sitting down the back of the room watching the events unfold. He had a plan. He took a thick file (not his speech notes) from his bag and, when he was introduced, strode to the lectern. Without looking at the audience he deliberately placed the file in plain view and thumbed through its many pages as slowly and dramatically as possible. A glance at the audience members showed him what he wanted. Their faces, reflecting the belief that he had a huge amount of information to get through, had now become almost despairing.

Jack formally looked up at the group. He paused, letting them drink him in. Then, he said, 'I don't think we need these notes' and threw the file over his shoulder (as it turned out, it broke and pages went everywhere. He hadn't planned on that).

His action took his audience completely by surprise. They were shocked, but their faces registered cheering delight when he went on, "My job is teaching people how to make first-class speeches. An unbreakable rule is never to go beyond your allocated time."

Jack looked at his watch, and said, "I always finish one minute early. There are now just eight minutes left. I'll tell you my two best points, and we'll go to afternoon tea - on schedule."

If there has ever been such a thing as a silent standing ovation, there was one in that room in that instant.

And the results? There were three:

1. The conference convenor - in tears - thanked him for getting her timetable back on track, 2. The audience members went from 'dead' to wide awake in a flash, and 3. One hundred and sixty-six people learned that - all other things being equal - the speaker who goes way over time ("... because it's really important they hear the whole message") will have far less impact than the speaker who doesn't.

The message? - stick to your time-slot, even if you have to cut your prepared material to ribbons.
You'll win in the end. If nothing else, they'll admire your bravery.

(* Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)