You’ve chosen a speaker. The date is in the diary, the room is booked and someone has asked you for a briefing call.
What do you actually tell them?
“We want people to feel inspired” is a perfectly understandable answer. You’ve put a lot of work into this event. You want it to mean something. But it leaves an important question unanswered: what do you want people to do with that feeling?
A useful brief connects the session to a situation your audience recognises. It gives the speaker enough context to make the ideas relevant, without handing over every strategy document your organisation has ever produced.
Whether you’re planning a leadership day in Sydney or bringing a national team together, here’s a practical place to start.
Describe what is happening at work
Start with the conversation behind the event theme.
If the theme is “leading through change”, what is changing? A new system? A different structure? A shift in customer expectations? Are people uncertain about their responsibilities, or frustrated because the last change wasn’t followed through?
Those are different situations. They deserve more than the same paragraph about embracing change.
Try completing this sentence: “At the moment, our people are dealing with ___, and the part they’re finding difficult is ___.”
You don’t need to diagnose the whole organisation. Give a fair account of what you know, and be clear about what you’re still trying to understand. If you’re calling people resistant, for example, what have they actually said or done? A concern about workload may need a different response from a preference for the familiar.
Choose one behaviour worth exploring
An event can have several objectives. A single keynote still needs a clear centre.
“Better leadership” is broad. “We want managers to ask a question before assuming another team doesn’t care” gives us something to work with.
Other possible starting points might be checking assumptions before a decision, responding more thoughtfully to customer frustration, or taking ownership of a next step instead of waiting for someone else.
These are examples, not promises about what one session will achieve. Choose a behaviour that fits your actual situation and sits within the audience’s influence.
Then ask: where would we notice someone trying this at work? In a team meeting? A handover? A difficult conversation? That helps keep the brief grounded.
Tell the speaker who is in the room
Job titles help, but they aren’t the whole picture.
Explain whether people know one another, how much authority they have, and what they already understand about the topic. A room of new managers may need a different starting point from a senior team working through a specific decision.
Include anything that affects participation: language needs, accessibility requirements, room layout, or whether people will be joining remotely. Don’t assume everyone will be comfortable speaking in front of the group.
One useful question is: “What would make this audience think, ‘That sounds nice, but it wouldn’t work here’?” Share that objection. It’s often more helpful than another list of organisational values.
Bring examples without putting people on the spot
A short, anonymised example can make the brief much clearer. Imagine a team describing a missed handover as “they never take responsibility”. The observable issue is the missed handover. The wider judgement is an interpretation. That difference gives us something practical to explore.
You can share situations like this without naming the colleague or customer involved. Agree what can be used on stage, what is background only and what should stay out of the session altogether. A briefing conversation is not permission to turn someone’s difficult moment into an audience story.
Confirm the shape of the session
Content and production need to fit together. Confirm the allocated speaking time, whether questions are included, the session before and after, and the role the keynote is meant to play in the day.
Then work through the latest run sheet with your speaker and AV contact: arrival, sound check, performance start, stage layout, microphones, screens and any participation requirements. Treat provisional timings as provisional. Don’t let an older agenda quietly become the final instruction.
For my sessions, the event planner resources are a useful starting point. The actual requirements still need to be agreed for your event.
Use this short briefing outline
- Our audience is ___, and they are currently dealing with ___.
- The situation we want the session to explore is ___.
- One behaviour we would like people to try afterwards is ___.
- A typical example, cleared for use or anonymised, is ___.
- The session’s role in the programme is ___, with ___ minutes available.
- Our confirmed run sheet and production contact are ___.
- After the event, ___ will help the team revisit the idea.
If you can answer those questions, you have the beginnings of a useful brief. If a few answers are missing, mark them as questions for the call rather than filling the gaps with confident guesses.
In The Human Advantage, I use mentalism, psychology and practical frameworks to explore assumptions, teamwork and leadership. A good brief helps connect that experience to the decisions your people are facing.
Planning a session? Tell me about your event, including the audience and the situation you want to explore. We can start there.
