By Robert Garmston

Journal of Staff Development, Spring 2000 (Vol. 21, No. 2)

Several years ago, Suzanne Bailey and I were about to do our first presentation together. Snow had blocked a mountain pass, causing us to change our route, drive all night, and reach the training site at 6 a.m. We were exhausted and yet, miraculously, it was a great presentation. On the ride back, we tried to figure out why the session had gone so well (Garmston and Bailey, 1988).

Here are some highlights of what we discovered then — and have learned since — from working with lots of copresenters, with different backgrounds and skills, in lots of settings (Garmston, 1997).

Copresenting improves almost any training effort in several ways. It adds to the energy in presentations. It lets each presenter to come to the other’s rescue when necessary. Payoffs for participants include better training designs, increased diversity, more focused attention, and witnessing collaborative relationships.

Solo presenters manage many tasks at the same time — monitoring audience reaction, preparing visuals, keeping track of content, managing time. Because copresenters share these tasks, they conserve personal energy. Neither person is "on" all the time. While one speaks, the other can perform important presentation functions such as assessing the audience or planning modifications in the lesson.

Copresenters also rescue one another. Presenters tell me that one of their biggest fears is going blank in the middle of a presentation. But when one copresenter goes blank or gets off track, the partner can come in with needed support.

First, get alignment on key principles about teaching, learning, and working together. Effective copresenters share common values and beliefs concerning adults as learners, teaching philosophy, an approach to the topic, strategies for coplanning, and approaches to resolving problems together (Garmston, 1997). Some common repertoire of presentation strategies is helpful, but not essential to getting started. Both partners expand presentation repertoire as a result of working together.

Initiate a conversation about mutual responsibilities. Since the ability to maintain personal composure is so important, make it clear that each copresenter is responsible for his or her own emotional state. No matter how compatible the team, eventually something will threaten, annoy, or embarrass one or both members. I have unintentionally taught a section assigned to my partner, I’ve had partners unconsciously interrupt me in the middle of a sentence, and each of us has occasionally lost our sense of time and talked on and on, into our partner’s allotted part of the agenda. On such occasions, it is normal to feel temporarily annoyed, or undervalued. But I have a responsibility to my partner to stay centered, present, and resourceful. I know my partner is doing the same for me.

Each presenter is also responsible for making the other look good. I do this by giving rapt attention when my partner speaks, by publicly acknowledging items I’ve learned from my partner, by referring to earlier comments made by my partner ("as Sara said earlier. . . ."), and by providing, when necessary, tactful content corrections by saying, ("Sara has just offered one point of view we would like you to have. Now here is another we invite you to consider. . . .") In this way, you can eliminate the sense of conflicting viewpoints and offer instead the wider perspectives that are possible from two presenters.

Trust is an essential component to a successful partnership. Trust includes depending on the other person’s judgment, trust that he or she intends no harm, trust that he or she can respond to the unexpected. It means trusting that each will submerge his or her own ego and share the disposition that participant learning is the most important goal, regardless of who is on stage or doing what. In most cases, copresenter trust develops over time and is subject to occasional interruptions. People with a natural affinity for one another probably develop that trust fairly rapidly. Ultimately, though, copresenters develop trust in one another just as they do in other relationships: from experiences together in which consistency, confidentiality, crisis survi-val, risk taking, understanding, and honest communication occur.

Presenters offer variety and richness to audiences when they use five main forms for copresenting — tag-team, speak-and-comment, speak-and-chart, perform-and-comment, and duet. Partners in a beginning working relationship can use just two or three of these forms and offer the impression of an experienced team.

1. Tag-team. In this form of copresenting, presenters take turns. One is on, while the other is off. Many find this method the best for beginning a partnership. It also works well for delivering new material that one or both presenters have not yet internalized.

2. Speak-and-comment. This form puts both presenters on stage at the same time. One makes a statement and the other adds to it. One leads; the other supports. The "lead" is in charge of the content and makes process decisions — when to move on, end discussions, or proceed to the next content area. The support person does whatever is necessary to achieve this segment’s outcomes. He or she may add humor if the person gets too dry, give an example, cite some research, or pose a question for audience reflection. This is the beginning — and the easiest — level of spontaneous broadcasting. Speak-and-comment lets copresenters capitalize on their different perspectives and experiences.

3. Speak-and-chart. The lead presents content and elicits participant comments, while the support person records participant or copresenter ideas on a flip chart or overhead transparency. The support copresenter acts as the session’s neutral and invisible scribe. Successful speak-and-chart presentations demand the following critical attributes:

• Both presenters must clearly understand who plays which role.
• The lead must monitor the accuracy and speed with which the support person records.
• The recorder must remain silent and neutral.
• The speak-and-chart method works powerfully because 40 percent of the people report that they best absorb information visually. In contrast, only 20 percent report auditory processing as their preferred method of learning — and when audiences get tired, auditory processing is the first resource lost.

4. Perform-and-comment. Audiences will sometimes focus on what is irrelevant in skills demonstrations unless we help them. By assigning observation roles to pairs or trios, we can assist participants to not only see and hear greater details, but also examine interactions and relationships.

For example: One partner models an interaction with a participant. The second partner provides a "voice over" function, drawing the audience’s attention to particularly relevant transactions occurring before them.

5. Duet. This is the Mercedes-Benz of copresenting. This form carefully blends several ingredients to produce maximum effect with minimum display of effort. Both presenters are on stage at the same time. The following are some ways you can recognize copresenters operating as a duet:

• Presenters employ brief content chunks. One talks for a minute or so; the other speaks for a similar amount of time.
• They finish sentences for each other. First presenter: "And you should know that..." Second presenter: "...the first consideration is trust."
• They use physical proximity. Copresenter duets do best when they stand three to seven feet apart.
• They subtly cue each other to take a turn with looks, body shifts, hand gestures, voice tempo, and intonation.
• They stay focused all the time, each attentive to the other and the audience.
• They use a synchronistic style — the mutual telling of a story, exchanging speaker roles every other line or so, sometimes speaking together at the same time.

Garmston, R. (1997). The presenter’s fieldbook: A practical guide. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.

Garmston, R. and Bailey, S. (1988, January). Paddling together: A copresenting primer. Training and Development Journal, 42 (1), 52-57.

Garmston, R. and Wellman, B. (1999). The adaptive school: A sourcebook for developing collaborative groups. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.

1. Each presenter has permission to do whatever is necessary to meet session outcomes and maintain audience rapport and resourcefulness. Both rapport and resourcefulness are essential to learning. Rapport exists when the audience remains responsive to you. Audiences are resourceful when they are energetic, capable, and receptive. Each presenter has permission to monitor and intervene with spontaneous interventions. It’s OK, for example, to tell a joke when your partner has gotten too serious.

2. You don’t have to understand each of your partner’s suggestions to support it. Sometimes when planning time is limited, trust your partner’s intuition.

3. Know that each person will do whatever it takes to achieve desired outcomes, whether that means interrupting each other, running dittos, fixing the furniture, planning during breaks, prospecting with trainees before the session begins, or working with trainees at lunchtime to help resolve problems.

4. Develop signals. For "your turn," copresenters can use vocal intonation shifts, incomplete sentences, and/or palms turned up. They can use physical proximity or eye contact for "I want to add something." Or a finger on the wristwatch could signal, "We are running out of time."

5. The best copresentation teams signal that we are all learners. And that’s an important message no matter what the topic.

Robert J. Garmston is co-director of the Institute for Intelligent Behavior and professor emeritus of the School of Education, California State University-Sacramento, 337 Guadalupe Drive, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762-3560, (916) 933-2727,

fax (916) 933-2756.