The first five minutes of a high-stakes meeting are the most expensive. Everyone is leaning in with peak curiosity, ready to hear the "so what."
Most presentations use that initial window to build a bridge of context—agendas, history, and methodology. This approach is logical and thorough; it’s the safe path, and usually, it’s just fine. It works.
But what if you don’t always need the bridge?
What if you skip the chronological build-up and jump right to the climax?
This is in media res. A technique that bypasses the preamble and drops your audience directly into the middle of the action, aligning your most critical point with the moment of highest engagement.
Let's dive in.
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The psychology of the open loop
In media res literally translates to "in the midst of things." It’s a narrative technique where you skip the preamble and drop your audience directly into the most critical point of the story or the data.
In a presentation context, it’s a structural choice. Instead of a chronological sequence (Past → Present → Future), you’re reordering the timeline to start at the climax. You’re essentially grabbing the "so what" and moving it to the first sentence.
We see this a lot in TED Talks and keynotes. A speaker might start with, "I was standing on the edge of a cliff in 2014..." without telling you how they got to the mountain or why they were there. It’s an emotional hook designed to create immediate curiosity.
But while it's popular in storytelling, it is incredibly powerful in high-stakes strategic meetings—specifically when you’re dealing with limited time and high-level decision-makers.
How it works exactly
The technique works by creating an immediate "information gap." In a standard presentation, you give the audience all the tools (the context) before you show them the problem. By the time the problem arrives, they already have the answers, so the tension is low.
With in media res, you present the "problem" or the "result" before they have the context. This forces the brain to work backward. If you start a meeting by saying, "We have a 40% churn risk in our enterprise segment that starts next quarter," you’ve dropped them into the middle of the action.
Now, the audience is actively searching for the "how" and the "why." Their engagement isn't passive anymore; it’s investigative. You spend the rest of the meeting "backfilling"—providing the data and the history that explains how you got to that 40% and what the path forward looks like.
The psychology of in media res works because of something called The Zeigarnik Effect. Our brains are hardwired to hate unfinished business. When you start a story in the middle of a crisis, you open a "cognitive loop." The audience’s brain becomes obsessed with closing that loop, which forces a level of focus that a slow build-up simply can’t achieve.
Movies are the masters of this. It’s why you almost never see a James Bond film start with him getting his briefing at the office. It starts with a motorcycle chase or a fight on a train. You don’t know why he’s there or who he’s fighting, but you are instantly locked in. The movie then uses the next 20 minutes to "backfill" the context while you’re already hooked.
Your playbook for going In Media Res
Deploying this in a presentation is simpler than you think. It’s a four-step process.
Step 1: Find Your narrative epicenter. Look at your entire presentation. Find the single most dramatic, consequential, or surprising moment. This is your new opening. It could be:
- A shocking data point: "Our user churn spiked to 40% last Tuesday."
- A critical failure: "The server migration failed, and it took the entire platform down for six hours."
- A surprising success: "We hit our annual revenue target on September 30th."
- A tough decision: "We have two candidates for the VP role. One has the perfect resume, the other has the passion. We can only choose one."
Step 2: Open cold. Delete your agenda slide. Delete your "About Me" slide. Walk in, pause, and deliver your opening line.
- Instead of: "Good morning. Today I'll review our Q3 marketing performance and discuss our Q4 plan."
- Try: "Last quarter, we spent $500,000 on a campaign that generated exactly zero qualified leads. Today, I want to show you why it failed, and how we're going to make sure that never happens again."
The entire energy in the room just changed. You have their undivided attention.
Step 3: Bridge to the "why." Once you have them hooked, you must immediately orient them. Acknowledge the gap you've created and promise to fill it.
- "I know that's a shocking number. To understand what happened, we need to rewind to July..."
- "This was the best result in our company's history. Let's break down how the team made it possible."
Step 4: Tell the story in flashback. Now, you present your context, your data, and your analysis. But it's no longer just a series of points; it's the backstory to the dramatic event you opened with. It’s the evidence that explains the shocking result.
Wrap-Up
This strategy isn't for every situation. To decide if it’s the right tool for the job, run your presentation through this simple decision framework by asking three questions:
1. What is my primary goal? If you need to persuade an audience or drive a decision, the urgency created by this technique is your strongest tool. If your primary goal is to inform or train, stick to a clear chronological path where clarity is more important than drama.
2. Who is my audience?In media res works best with an informed audience that can appreciate the significance of your opening (think executives or existing clients). If your audience is new to the topic, they will benefit more from a traditional structure that builds context from the ground up.
3. Does my content support it? Look for a "moment of narrative gravity" in your story—a shocking result, a critical failure, or a breakthrough success. If you have a clear, dramatic epicenter, you have the perfect catalyst for an in media res opening. If the story's value lies in its step-by-step process, don't force it.
When you get a room of leaders on the edge of their seats instantly, you change the dynamic of the entire meeting. In most presentations, the presenter is a servant to the information, slowly walking people through a timeline. By starting in the middle of a high-stakes situation, you become the director of the solution.
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