Life After PowerPoint!

March is Listening Awareness Month according to the International Listening Association, and since I believe listening is by far the most important part of communicating I offer these comments…

Speakers and presenters do most of the talking during a program. Sometimes — during keynote addresses to huge audiences, for example — they may do all of the talking. But, if you’re a masterful speaker, you actually do an equal amount of listening. Maybe even more.

First, you listen before you speak. It’s called research or speech preparation. You speak to the meeting planner. You reach out to prospective audience members. And you ask questions. Then you listen, not to confirm what you already believe but to uncover something new and to begin forging a bond with some of the people you’ll be addressing. (That’s what listening does — at least in part: it exposes you to the thoughts and feelings of others, and in the process it creates a relationship.)

Second, you listen as you’re speaking. This is difficult to do when you’re just starting out. Usually, you’re so nervous that you spend most of your energy focusing on yourself. You’re trying to avoid panic, to remember what you’re going to say next, and to slow down. You can’t imagine what it might mean to listen to your audience as you’re speaking. But if you get beyond all that and tune in to what your audience is saying to you — what they’re telling you in a thousand different ways through their body language, through the way they’re looking at you, through the quality and nature of their silence — you’ll become a much more powerful speaker.

Third, you listen during the Q&A portions of your talk, if you’re taking questions. (With a few exceptions, you should always, in my not so humble opinion, take questions.) The ability to understand what people are really asking and to respond in an appropriate way is what sets great speakers apart from all the rest. Listen on as many levels as possible: listen for the factual basis of the question, for the emotions underneath the question, and for the intent of the question. And then decide which level to respond to.

Finally, you listen after you’ve spoken. Listen to what people say about what you’ve said. Don’t just listen for praise or criticism. Listen to find out how people understood your presentation. Did they get the main point? If someone says, “I really liked your speech,” don’t go fishing for more compliments. Ask, “What’s the main thing that you remember about it?” Don’t try to correct them. (You’ll often be surprised — I know I am — when they attach to some relatively minor point you made, and loved it.) Just listen.

(You might want to take the listening quiz I created and posted here.)

Are there other times or ways you listen, as a speaker or presenter?

Photo courtesy of Ky Olsen at Flickr.

You can plan, create, and deliver a great speech, and still bomb. I’ve done it. I’ve seen other professional speakers do it. And it’s not pretty.

Here’s how I went wrong: I put too much energy into creating a great speech, and not enough into making the event a success.

If you’re not careful the event itself — the schedule, physical setting, technical logistics, and room layout — can sabotage the best planned speech.

A couple of war stories from my past, which taught me this painful lesson:

1. I was brought on at 9:45 PM (not at 7:30 PM, as I had been told) to address a group of physicians. They were exhausted from already having attended three days of a conference. Their day had begun with a 7 AM breakfast meeting. And they were inebriated, having just enjoyed a free happy hour and a 5-course dinner with wine pairings.
2. I spoke at the Anaheim Convention Center in a hall the size of three airplane hangers. There were 15 other break-out presentations, separated only by curtains, going on at the same time. All the presenters spoke louder and louder, trying to make themselves heard. I’ve been in lumber mills that were quieter.
3. I was introduced to give the keynote address after the audience had already endured almost two hours of (a) announcements, (b) the recognition of honored guests who felt compelled to “say a few words,” and (c) awards to people who promised (but failed) to keep their remarks brief.

I could — sadly — tell more war stories.

I finally stopped complaining about the crazy set-ups and scheduling glitches I’ve had to endure. And I started anticipating and addressing them. These days I want to know as much as possible about the event. And I want to have some say in its scheduling and staging.

I used to be scrupulous about analyzing the audience. Now I’m equally fanatical about analyzing and shaping the event.

In tomorrow’s post I’ll look at some of the issues that need to be addressed.

How about you? Have your best efforts been stymied by the event? Care to share any of your war stories?

I’ve always thought — and told other people — that it’s almost impossible to know too much about your audience.

Who they are. Why they’re gathering. What they have in common. Their education level and their knowledge of your topic. Their sex, age, economic status. Their expectations. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But just this morning I read something that made me rethink all of that. The piece that got me thinking is a chapter called “The Audience” in William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well. In answer to the question, “Who am I writing for?” he says,

You are writing primarily to entertain yourself, and if you go about it with confidence you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for.

The same, I think, is true for speakers. To paraphrase Zinsser, “You are speaking primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with confidence and competence you will also please your audience.”

So many speeches and presentations are boring because the speakers are bored. They’re talking about something that doesn’t interest them. Or they’re talking about it in a way that is so unnatural (to them), so stilted and by the numbers and like the speeches they’ve heard everyone else give, that they’ve lost all interest in whatever it is they’re talking about.

Bored people give boring presentations.

Yes, yes, yes, you have to gear what you’re saying to the specific audience you’re addressing. But — and this is a big but — you are your first audience. If you’re not excited about what you’re saying, don’t say it. How can you possible expect your audience to get excited about what bores you?

Cultivate a sense of wonder. Be infinitely curious. Reclaim your delight and childlike enthusiasm. Ask endless questions, even if they sound — or especially if you’ve been told — your questions are nonsensical, impractical, or irrelevant. Don’t try to be original or creative. Just stop trying to be and to think and to act and to speak like everyone else.

Pleasing yourself when you speak isn’t everything. But if it’s not a part of what you’re about, something essential is missing.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

Photo courtesy of Pingu1963 at Flikr.

A speech is — or should be — a direct person-to-person communication. Even when you’re speaking to hundreds of people at one time, you’ve got to be personal and particular.

A five-year old taught me this lesson decades ago.

When I was eighteen, I got a job as a day camp counselor. Pow Wow Village Indian Day Camp — I didn’t make up the name, I just worked there — ran ten one-week sessions each summer. And three of those sessions were reserved for five- to seven-year olds.

Each counselor was in charge of 10 kids. If you’ve ever been in a similar situation — looking after 10 five-, six-, and seven-year olds all day — you know what I learned that summer. Much of your time is spent herding kids to and from the bathroom.

Before beginning any activity, I always asked, “Does anyone have to go to the bathroom?” I even repeated myself. No one ever did. Then we’d get into wherever we were doing, and someone would inevitably say, “I gotta pee.” And you could tell from the way they were shifting from one foot to the other or cupping their hands that they meant business.

Once in exasperation I asked one boy — his name was Jaime — why he didn’t tell me he had to use the bathroom when I asked him.

“But you didn’t ask me,” he said.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “I asked, ‘Does anyone have to go to the bathroom?’”

“But you didn’t ask me,” he said again, insistent. And then he added the line that was a revelation to me, “I’m not anyone. I’m me.”

From then on, I looked each kid in the eye and asked, “Do you need to use the bathroom?” I’d like to say my new technique eliminated unscheduled bathroom runs. It didn’t. But it did cut down their number.

We may be grown up and mature looking, but scratch us and you’ll find the five-year old in each of us. When we hear people talking about anyone or everyone, we don’t think they’re talking about or to us.

So here’s my takeaway for speakers. Don’t speak to anyone and everyone. No such person exists. Speak to the specific, particular individuals in your audience. Look them in the eye, one at a time, and say “you.”

Photo courtesy of gavinandrewstewart at Flickr.

Dale Carnegie started out teaching people how to give speeches. As a result of his teaching, he wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People, which may be the first self-help book ever published. (It’s still selling big time.) I just read a blog by Chris Brogan that made me think of Carnegie’s “Six Ways to Make People Like You.” They are:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in the terms of the other person’s interest.
6. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

I always like Carnegie’s advice, and I highly recommend his book to many of my clients. I just wish it didn’t sound so manipulative to me. “I’ll make you feel important,” it seems to say, “and I’ll do it sincerely so you’ll like me.”

Brogan’s posting echoes Carnegie’s rules 1, 4, and 5. Like Carnegie Brogan makes a point about focusing more on the other person in a conversation than on yourself. But he does it without sounding calculating, which I like.

In situations where you’re talking with others, do your best to talk more about them. Learn about them. Ask questions. The smartest people are those who plumb the depths of the other person, and come away knowing them deeply. We seem to fear, as humans, that the other person in a situation won’t hear us. We get worried that we’ll leave a conversation somehow unequally.

Strangely, the most “important” people (in at least the public business sense) I have ever met in my life have all asked me more about myself, and even with me trying hard to turn it around, they were gracious and interesting and still worked hard to know more about me than themselves.

chrisbrogan.com

The same advice applies to giving a speech. Which sounds strange I know, because a speech seems to be more like a monologue than a conversation.

But here’s what’s important to remember about giving a speech: It isn’t about you. It isn’t even about your expertise. It’s about your audience and how they can benefit from what you say.

As you prepare you speech, you have to listen to your audience, doing as much research as possible about them. Who are they? What do they already know and feel about your topic? What are their problems, concerns, interests, goals? What do they have in common? What makes them different? Why are they gathering? What do they want? It’s hard, in my opinion to find out too much about your audience.

Before your speech begins, talk with individuals in the audience. Don’t just stand off to the side of the room or sit quietly somewhere. Shake people’s hands as they come in. Introduce yourself. Ask them about themselves.

And as you’re speaking, listen to their body language. Invite their questions and really listen to them. (Don’t simply use their questions as a jumping off point for what you what you wanted to say anyway.)

Make your speech as much like a conversation as possible, listening as deeply and authentically as you can to the people you’re addressing, and I guarantee you’ll give a better speech.

The goal of a speech isn’t — or shouldn’t be — to make your audience marvel at what a great speaker you are. The goal of a great speech is to make them marvel at what they’re capable of.

Who are the speakers you admire most? Why?

“But do you have to like them?” That was the question the executive director of a social advocacy agency asked me. He often had to address audiences that were, in his words, “non-receptive, at best, actively hostile, at times” to his proposals.

He asked the question in response to something I had said earlier about love and the need to love your audiences.

In the corporate environment, which is where I do most of my work, I’m reluctant to use the word love. (In my dealings with engineers I can’t remember the word ever coming up in conversation.) That’s because people usually think of love as having something to do with romance or warm, fuzzy feelings. (Hence the teddy bear and hearts.)

But when I say you have to love your audience, it’s because I think love means, in part, seeking the welfare of the other person (or persons).

If you don’t want what’s good for your audience, you shouldn’t speak to them.

It’s always easier, of course, to speak to people you like. But that’s not always possible.

The people in your audience may not be the sort of people you’d want to hang out with. You may disagree strongly with their values, beliefs, opinions, or actions. You may need to confront them and challenge them to change what they’re thinking or doing. But you need to love them — to seek what’s good for them — and you need to let them know it.

Steve Farber, author of The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership, wrote a piece that caught my eye. As you read this passage substitute “listener” or “audience member” for “customer, “speaking” for “business,” and “speaker” for “extreme leader,” and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

I use the word, “love,” in the broadest sense. I’m not saying that you should fall in love with everyone you work with. That could get a bit complicated, to say the least. I am saying that you have to find something to care deeply about in your business and in each individual that touches your business. And it has to be real. And they have to know it.

The key, then, is to find a way to genuinely and sincerely love the customer and then act from that level of motivation. Great business relationships are won in ways analogous to romantic relationships: by paying nearly obsessive attention to the needs, desires, hopes and aspirations of the other person. By knowing not only when to stand firm on your own principles but also when to sacrifice your short-term needs for the long-term relationship. And by proving through your own actions that you really mean it, and that you’re not simply following the advice that you gleaned from the latest training program. The Extreme Leader — in other words — actually does love the customer and strives, therefore, to enhance the customer’s life.

Steve Farber: Read.

You may not always like the people in your audience, but until you figure out how your speech will do them some good, you shouldn’t speak to them.

To paraphrase Farber, the masterful speaker actually does love the audience and strives, therefore, to enhance the audience’s life.

Do you agree or disagree?

To be effective a speech or presentation has to be clear, relevant, and useful. To the audience, that is.

If you’re not clear — if your audience doesn’t understand what you’re talking about — you may as well sit down and stop wasting everyone’s time. Being clear won’t always gain you people’s cooperation. (They may actively oppose you once they understand what you’re proposing.) But confusing people will always shut them down. Each and every time.

If your idea isn’t relevant — if your audience can’t figure out how it applies to them — same thing. Just sit down and get it over with. It’s your responsibility to let your audience know right up front how your idea / product / service will benefit them. Don’t make them guess.

And your idea has to be something your listeners can use. Show your audience how they can use your idea / product / service to solve a problem, achieve, a goal, or fulfill a need.

All of this presumes you know your audience.

The strategies, techniques, principles, and rules of public speaking that we speech coaches talk about are only aids. They are how-tos, and their purpose is really only to help you create a presentation that is clear, relevant, and useful.

Here’s how Lisa Braithwaite says it:

We can talk all day about logistics, like notes or no notes, lectern or no lectern, PowerPoint or no PowerPoint, props or no props. We can talk all day about the fine points of delivery: authenticity, eye contact, crutch phrases, humor, stories and whatnot.

But if your content is not relevant to your audience, you are wasting their time.

If your content is not applicable to their lives, you are wasting their time.

If your content is not based on real, practical solutions and tools, you are wasting their time.

Speak Schmeak is the blog of public speaking coach Lisa Braithwaite

What do you think? Is there some other quality you look for in an effective presentation?