Nick Morgan, Public Words

Great Contemporary Business Speakers – 9: Marcus Buckingham

No top-ten list of great contemporary business speakers would be complete without Marcus Buckingham. Marcus is a phenomenon – a polished speaker able to project a poised, conversational, comfortable demeanor on small screens and in big halls, and a bestselling author several times over. You can see him speaking here: http://tinyurl.com/ycl2ts3 and here: http://tinyurl.com/55wuam.

Marcus comes out of the Gallup organization, and he bases his work on one simple claim from years of Gallup polling and research:  you’ll do better to focus on your strengths (and your employees’ strengths) rather than trying to fix your (and their) weaknesses.  He has that great skill possessed of a few:  the ability to take reams of data and complicated psychological insights and ruthlessly pare them down into a very few key concepts.

He’s pursued that goal in First Break All the Rules, Now Discover Your Strengths, The One Thing You Need to Know, and Go Put Your Strengths to Work.  The title of the third book in that series – The One Thing You Need to Know – sums up the Buckingham approach and the secret of his success.  If you believe that the Devil is in the details, Marcus is not for you.  But if you believe, like the hedgehog proverbially does, in one idea, Buckingham’s message will satisfy you perfectly.

Great Contemporary Business Speakers – 8: Steve Farber

For energy and passion on a subject that is important for everyone interested in the future of the human race to rally around, Steve Farber (http://www.stevefarber.com/)  is hard to beat. You can see Steve speaking in the two videos below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtaggvkgrm0 and: http://www.youtube.com/user/SteveFarber.  (Warning:  the first video contains a common 4-letter word.) 

In his earlier books, The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge, Steve worked to infuse love, energy, audacity, and proof into business leadership.  In his latest book, Greater Than Yourself, he urges people to give up traditional mentoring and instead take on one person that you’re going to help become…Greater Than Yourself. 

Steve gets his message across with parables, a much-abused format, usually full of cheese and penguins, but used in a sophisticated and grown-up way in Steve’s books.

Check out the message and get to work helping someone in your workplace or your life become greater than yourself.  The ripple effects will come back to you in unexpected and wonderful ways.  Steve’s message is a genuine, heartfelt, transformational gift to the world and it deserves a wide hearing. 

Great Contemporary Business Speakers - 7: Charlene Li

Called “One of the Most Influential Women in Technology” by Fast Company, Charlene Li is an accomplished speaker on the subject of social media -- the topic of her notable book Groundswell  (Harvard Business Press, 2008) and her research.  You can see her speaking on interactivity and social media here:  http://tinyurl.com/5pmsr8 and find her book here (co-written with Josh Bernoff):  http://tinyurl.com/yefzfxy.

Charlene was a V-P and analyst at Forrester Research and a Harvard Business School graduate before she launched her own company, the Altimeter Group, last year.  She is a thoughtful, engaging consultant and speaker and she practices what she preaches – interactivity – through Twitter, her blog, her research, and her speaking.

She’s currently hard at work on a new book about open leadership and organizations, due out next year, so stay tuned to  http://www.altimetergroup.com/ to keep up with her latest thinking.

After the speech -- 5 steps to take when it's done

 

Giving a speech yesterday I was reminded of the enormous psychic cost of standing up in front of a group of people to share your passion with them.  Yes, the adrenaline feels great while it’s there; yes, it’s a privilege; and yes, you’re the center of attention for a while.  But sooner or later after the speech the adrenaline is going to fade like the spotlight, and you’re going to be left with your self-critiques, your might-have-beens, and your fears. 

 

How did my speech go?  I had recently been working on the first half of the speech, setting up the problem statement, and I was trying something new, so I was not as comfortable as I normally am with stuff that I’ve delivered a number of times before.  That and a series of last-minute logistics challenges added to unusual stress at the start, and so it was a while before I settled into my normal jolly speech persona.  Set against that a great, involved audience that asked wonderful questions throughout, and I truly can say that the audience made the occasion fun for me.  The first comment came about 1.5 minutes into the talk, and we were off and running.  All the interactivity derailed my timing until I stopped fighting the flow and remembered that speeches are about audiences and not about speakers’ agendas.  Overall, I'd give myself a solid 'B' with thanks to a very lively audience. 

 

Then came the aftermath.  The adrenaline does leave you.  Fatigue mixes with self-criticism in equal measure, and the result is not necessarily a pretty picture.  So following are steps you can take to survive the inevitable letdown after the speech is over.

 

1.  Leave the scene.  As soon as you can politely and politically manage it, leave the scene for a quieter place where you can let your hair down, preferably in the company of a close companion or two.  You’re going to be vulnerable, and the last thing you need is the well-intentioned critiques of people who have attended the event and who want to tell you how adding in their particular issue will strengthen your talk. 

 

2.  Don’t ask for critiques for at least 24 hours.  Don’t fall for the “while it’s fresh in my mind” trap.  It’s too fresh in your mind.  You need to get a little distance so that you can hear the suggestions for improvement with dispassion and clarity. 

 

3.  Don’t rewrite the speech for at least 48 hours.  Again, you need a little distance.  The urge to fix all the moments that felt awkward need to be set against a better understanding of what happened with the particular audience and setting.  Will the speech (for good and ill) go the same way again, or was it something special to the evening?  You can’t effectively make that judgment for at least 48 hours.

 

4.  Change the subject.  Watch a movie, a favorite TV show, read a book, go for a walk in tranquil – or distracting – surroundings.  Whatever appeals to you most, do it, as long as it doesn’t involve The Topic or The Instant Replay. 

 

5.  Let it go.  If you’re a frequent speaker, get ready for the next speech by going over the critiques and necessary changes once enough time has gone by, but let go of the event itself.  There’s nothing to do at this point about the past except celebrate and take your next opportunity with all the energy and optimism you’ve got. 

Getting ready to give a speech: 5 Essential Steps

I’m giving a speech tonight on my favorite topic, “The Two Conversations,” so I’m spending the day getting prepared.  What do you do the day of a speech to get ready?  Following are five steps to ramping up for your big moment. 

 

1.  Go over your speech several times.  This is a speech I’ve given before – for the most part – so it’s one I’ve rehearsed thoroughly.  Now, I’m looking through my notes, focusing on the parts where I’m less than perfect and trying to get all of it in my head. 

 

2.  Have a light workout.  You want some adrenaline during the speech so that you can do your best, but not too much.  Exercising beforehand is a great way to get rid of some of the adrenaline so that it doesn’t come out during the speech in ‘happy feet’ or some other distracting way.  Don’t run a marathon – you want to unload some of the adrenaline, not lay yourself out cold.  I’ve just come back from some easy stretching and lifting.  I’m saving the aerobics for the speech itself. 

 

3.  Breathe.  Breathing is a little thing to most of us most of the time, but it accomplishes so much.  It grounds us, focuses us, makes our voice nice to listen to, and – oh, by the way – keeps us alive.  When you’re in adrenaline mode – i.e., nervous before a speech – you’re likely to take shallow breaths.  This autonomic response is not most effective for delivering a sonorous, elegant, grounded speech.  So force yourself to breathe.  Slowly, deeply, throughout the day.

 

4.  Engage in positive self-talk.  All of us have moments of self-doubt, and adrenaline magnifies those fears into mountains of worry.  Instead of climbing, cut the mental chatter with positive self-talk.  “I know the material.  I don’t have to be perfect, just show up and do my best.  I’m going to be fine.”  Whatever your fear is, take the positive side.  Mine is going blank – forgetting what I’m about to say, a holdover from my acting days, so I’m saying to myself, “I know the material, I am clear-headed and feeling good.  I’m going to remember everything.” 

 

5.  Get to the room early and get comfortable in it.  I can’t stress this one enough.  You don’t want last-minute surprises.  So get there early, check out the room, and find your beginning spot.  Run over the speech in your mind in the space, figuring out where you’re going to stand, move, and so on.  Be present in the moment!

 

By the way, the speech is on the Harvard campus, at the Kennedy School, Taubman Building, NYE – B, and it’s open to the public.  If you’re in the area, and have a free evening, drop by to hear the talk – it begins at 6:30. 

Great Contemporary Business Speakers – 6: David Meerman Scott

For my sixth pick of great contemporary business speakers, I’m going with David Meerman Scott.  You can check him out at:  http://www.webinknow.com/.  There are links to his blog, which is consistently interesting, as well as video to watch of him speaking.  Particularly note the book launch speech at SXSW 2009 for his new book, The World Wide Rave.  His previous book, The New Rules of PR and Marketing continues to be a bestseller and it was that book that first propelled David onto the national and international stage as a speaker on a ‘must-have’ subject, the new social media and viral marketing.

David Meerman Scott keynote at BMA 2009 national conference from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.

What makes David such fun to watch is his enthusiasm and passion for the topic of social media.  He begins right at the start challenging his audiences to grapple with the new reality, asking them how many have used Google in the past 12 months vs the Yellow Pages.  When an audience sees the people around them all raising their hands for Google and sitting on them for the Yellow Pages, it’s a quick, simple, visceral reality check on the importance of online marketing.  You can try this test yourself in your office right now, and I guarantee you you’ll get the same answer.

Anyone who isn’t thinking about social media and the Internet in marketing isn’t thinking.  Its that simple.  David is riding an extraordinary wave of change, and he’s worth hearing for the intelligence and energy he brings to the subject.

Great Contemporary Business Speakers - 5: Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki epitomizes Silicon Valley cool – he’s a former Apple employee, now a venture capitalist.  He’s written books on entrepreneurship that eschew grand theories in favor of practical advice:  The Art of the Start (http://tinyurl.com/kqozzl) and Reality Check (http://tinyurl.com/nosjt4).  I recommend both highly if you’re an entrepreneur or you have those cravings.  Wearing my own entrepreneur’s hat for a moment, as the President of Public Words Inc, a communications company, I can vouch for the good advice in Guy’s writings. 

You can see Guy speak here: http://tinyurl.com/nbbnsv.  Guy is warm, unpretentious, straightforward and funny.  He warms up slowly in this particular speech, but once he’s cranking, he’s got the audience, he’s dishing out insight after insight, and cracking jokes as he goes.  It’s a great performance. 

 

In that speech, Kawasaki makes one minor mistake that I urge you to avoid.  He draws attention to the speech itself by giving a brief rant on how so many CEO speeches ‘suck’.  Not only that, he says, but sometimes you don’t know how long they’re going to go on – making the whole experience much worse.  So, Guy concludes, I’m going to let you know where we are in my speech at all times, so at least if you think I suck, you’ll know for how long. 

 

Funny, and self-deprecating, yes, but it also sends your audience down the road toward thinking about whether or not they like your speech rather than just paying attention to it.  Now, Guy gets the audience back with some well-timed, well-delivered jokes after that, but why take the chance?  Don’t tell your audience it might not like you.  Don’t tell your audience that you’re sick.  Don’t tell your audience members that if they weren’t here they could be watching Monday Night Football.  Don’t do any of that unless you’ve got an overwhelming reason to start your audience thinking about all the ways it could decide to check out, dislike you, or wish it were somewhere else. 

 

 

Great Contemporary Business Speakers – 4: Seth Godin

No list of great contemporary business speakers would be complete without Seth Godin.  You can see him here, talking about marketing to Google a few years ago: http://tinyurl.com/nswcwx.  

Seth has an extraordinary ability to take complex topics and break them down, explain them clearly, and make them appear simple.  That’s the essence of great marketing, and it’s why so many of Seth’s books have been bestsellers, from The Purple Cow http://tinyurl.com/m3scm8 to Tribes http://tinyurl.com/nltgt9. 

As a speaker, Seth has the persona of an approachable, down-to-earth academic, very smart and savvy.  He’s a gifted teacher, in short, and his strength is the strength of all such individuals – a passion for transmitting his clear understanding of a topic into the minds of his listeners.  A classic example is his talk on TED about how to market in an era of too many choices:  figure out who cares and offer them something remarkable – i.e. a purple cow.  http://tinyurl.com/aeuaf9.  The talk is from 2003 and feels a bit dated in our current economic moment, but the ideas are still as powerful as ever.  They’ll come back when the market does.  In the meantime, check out Seth’s blog, which is brilliantly shaped for modern readers on the go (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/).  It always limits itself to one idea, makes the point quickly, and moves on.  Many blogs, and speakers, could benefit from Godin’s economy, simplicity, and style. 

Great contemporary business speakers - 3: Susan Ershler

Few of us have climbed a mountain or won a top sales prize, so those that have done so are worth paying attention to for what they have to say.  Fewer still have climbed a really big mountain, like, say, McKinley, or won a President’s Club award – the kind that go out to the very best salespeople.  But I can only think of one person who has climbed the highest mountains on each of the 7 continents (yes, that includes Everest), and won 11 President’s Club awards over a 23-year corporate career:  Susan Ershler. 

 

Fortunately for the rest of us, Susan is back at sea level telling us how she did it – and how we can achieve our own personal ‘Everests’ through the same combination of vision and application that she used to get her to the top of Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, McKinley, Cerro Aconcagua, Vinson, Kosciuszko, and Everest, along with top sales achievements at US West, United Technologies, FedExKinko’s, and Verizon.  You can check out Susan’s career and accomplishments at http://www.susanershler.com.  There’s video of her speaking, but the best way to experience her story is to see her in person -- or read her book on the subject, Together on the Top of the World. 

What Susan understands is that you don’t get to the top of a mountain, or reach a personal goal, by just thinking about it.  Any quest starts there, but what counts is the execution.  On the mountain, that means putting one foot in front of the other even when you don’t think you can muster the strength to go on.  Back down here, it’s something similar:  putting in the time in meaningful practice of your expertise.  If you’re a speaker, you don’t get to be as good as Susan until and unless you put in the hours and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.  To achieve excellence in anything, there are no easy routes, no born geniuses, no overnight successes.  There’s only hard work. 

 

For a fascinating angle on achieving this kind of excellence, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful new book, Outliers.  His how-to on acquiring expertise?  It takes 10,000 hours.  That’s the amount of time Bill Gates spent coding computers, Robert Oppenheimer spent studying science, and the Beatles spent playing small clubs in Hamburg, Germany before they hit it big.  I’m willing to bet that Susan’s logged in her 10,000 in sales and on the tallest mountains in the world. 

Great contemporary business speakers - 2: Jim Collins

Jim Collins, author most famously of Good to Great and Built to Last, doesn’t speak in public all that often, but when he does, he’s worth hearing.  He’s a brilliant, charismatic speaker, because he embodies the 2 secrets of charisma:  focus and passion.  Most people think that charisma is something that’s innate, something you’re born with, as if there were charismatic babies. 

Well, guess what?  All babies are charismatic.  So the question you should be asking is how do adults reconnect with the charisma of their youth?  And the answer is:  find your focus and unleash your passion.  As Jim Collins does.  Let’s look at each one a little more. 

First of all, you have to have a relentless focus on what matters to you.  That means not thinking about a thousand things at once, like most of us do.  That means, when you’re getting up to speak, that you’re all there, not half there and half somewhere else, like at the bar at the end of the day having a drink to celebrate surviving your speech. 

Focus gets you there, in front of the audience.  Passion takes you home.  You have to care more about your subject than anything else – and anyone else.  Collins spends, oh, six years studying his topics, researching them, and working on the next book.  The results?  They prove the point.  In fact, I don’t agree with many of the things that Collins says, but that doesn’t take a jot away from his charisma. 

Collins perfectly demonstrates that charisma is learned, not innate, and it comes from focus and passion: http://tinyurl.com/lg2scw.

And btw, here’s one of his ideas I do agree with:  http://tinyurl.com/ldze58.

I talk a lot more about what charisma is and how to achieve it here:  Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma.  At heart what's important is finding your focus and passion.   

 

 

Great contemporary business speakers - 1: Tim Sanders

This is the first blog in a series about great contemporary business speakers. I often get asked who my favorites are, so here goes.

I’m starting with a certifiable rock star of the business speaking circuit: Tim Sanders. Check him out at http://tinyurl.com/bxn4lt telling a story about Timberland from his new book, Saving the World at Work (http://bit.ly/relaunch).

Tim’s the author of two very successful previous books: Love is the Killer App, and The Likeability Factor, and he’s an amazing speaker with tons of energy, enthusiasm, and, well, likeability.

What makes Tim a good speaker? First, he’s passionate about his subject, which is putting love back into any workplace where it’s lacking. That means taking care of your workers, taking care of your community, and taking care of the environment.

Second, he’s good at working a room.  He’s all about the audience. This quality doesn’t show up as well on the tiny screen, so try to catch Tim in person. He has that charisma that comes from a genuine focus on the audience and a real concern for how his listeners are doing.

Finally, Tim’s a consummate professional. He’s always prepared, always on time, always ready to connect with each new audience. His follow-up is stellar, too. He often maintains connections with people from his audiences for years afterwards, helping them with specific issues and responding to their questions and needs. That’s real customer service, and it’s something that few other speakers do as well.

While you’re checking Tim out, buy his new book. Tim launched it last year just before the financial meltdown, and the result was that – very unfairly – his book got buried in the news of AIG and the rest.  Then concern about the environment and doing good went away – temporarily – while we all obsessed about the economy.

So he’s re-launching the book now, since we’re slowly working our way back to recovery, and we are starting to think about the environment and other planetary needs once again.

Great message, great speaker – Tim Sanders.

5 Ways to Connect with a Large Audience

 

I often get asked about differences between large and small audiences.  How do you connect with the large audience?  Most speakers are reasonably comfortable in front of smaller audiences, but there’s something intimidating about the bright lights, huge stage, and row upon row of audience members all looking up at you waiting for you to be scintillating.  How do you pull that off?

 

On the whole, the same techniques work in front of large audiences as well as in front of small ones.  You’re still leading the audience on a decision-making journey, you’re still connecting with them on both intellectual and emotional levels, and you’re still telling stories.  That said, there are some crucial differences.

 

1.  Large audiences want to laugh.   If you’re a natural ham, this is the time to let it out.  Large audiences want to indulge in big group laughs.  You can still, of course, be serious, but give large audiences the opportunity for a guffaw or two.  They will reward you many times over with energy back.  If you want a standing ovation at the end, finish on an inspiring, serious note.  “Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry” said the old vaudevillian, and the words are still true today.  First go for the laugh, then the tears. 

 

2.  Large audiences need more time.  It takes longer for the sound of your voice to get to all the ears in a larger audience.  You have to slow down your tempo so that your message gets through.  You can’t be as complex or as rapid-fire with groups over 300 as you can with audiences of less than 100. 

 

3.  Large audiences demand and give back more energy.  As the physicists have noted, energy is conserved.  With a speech to a thousand people, that means that you have to crank up the energy double for every additional 100 people.  You have to be louder, with higher highs and lower lows, and stronger in all ways.  When you move, move faster, with more purpose and intention. Note that you can still go quiet, and that can be very effective, but it has to be strong – full of emotion, not just quiet. 

 

4.  Large audiences need simplicity.  When you get in front of really large audiences, some of the nuances and shadings need to be edited out.  The subtleties of the message will be lost on the 100^th row, so make it easy on yourself and the audience by anticipating that and keeping your overall presentation simple. 

 

5.  Large audiences need to be active, not passive.  All audiences want to give something back to a successful speaker, but especially large audiences.  That’s why politicians indulge in call and response chanting so often at the end of their rallies.  “Yes we can!” is a great recent example of a way a great political orator allowed his audiences to join in. 

 

President Obama's Health Care Speech: How did he do?

Last night, President Obama proved that he is still the master of rhetoric we saw during the campaign by delivering his first unambiguously excellent speech since those halcyon days on the stump. 

 

His weakest moment was at the beginning.  He began with a risky opening, risky because he nearly changed the subject before he’d properly started.  He brought up a topic as difficult and as contentious for Americans as health care – the economy:

 

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away. And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes. That is our ultimate goal. ….

But before the President and his audience wandered into another speech altogether, he provided an elegant transition to the real topic of the evening:

But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future - and that is the issue of health care.

The line cleverly appealed to the American can-do spirit, and brought us to the point – health care in America is a difficult subject, and one that has been difficult for a long time:

I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session. Our collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to a breaking point.

A very nice appeal to the history of the Congress, and the bi-partisan nature of the long effort, this was the real beginning of the speech and a brilliant way to open the debate.  It put us on notice that the task is a difficult one.

Then the President delved deep into the problem:

We are the only advanced democracy on Earth - the only wealthy nation - that allows such hardships (caused by lack of insurance) for millions of its people. There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem of the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today.

Health care has become a contentious subject, and what’s the best way to deal with contention?  By treating serious alternatives with respect. 

We know we must reform this system. The question is how.

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada's, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches.

The President then went on to detail at some length his solution, contrasting it with a variety of the other proposals, saying, “Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan….”

And he closed with an emotional appeal to the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s memory and our own collective will as a country:

I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road - to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.

But that's not what the moment calls for. That's not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.

Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character.

One good speech rarely ends discussion and there is still much legislative work to be done.  But the President accomplished as much as an address of this kind can, and his remarks deserve to be treated with the dignity and respect he showed all the other serious participants in the health care debate.  It was an excellent speech.  

 

5 ways to handle a hostile audience

Many speakers understand one of the great truths of public speaking:  the audience is on your side.  At least, to begin with.  The audience wants you to succeed.  That’s the good news.  They’ve voted with their feet, sat down in uncomfortable chairs, and are waiting for you to wow them.  They want success, because it means they won’t have wasted their time.  To begin with, an audience is yours to please.  Only if you let it down repeatedly will it start to get ornery. 

 

But what about those rare audiences that really do want you to fail?  From the start?  The opposing camps, the hostile factions, the competitive parts of your universe?  How do you survive a hostile audience?

 

Following are some tips for getting through when the audience is nasty.

 

1.  Talk to the positive people in the room

 

This is counter-intuitive, but important, because if you can establish a positive relationship with a few people in the room, that positive feeling will ripple across the crowd.  We have these things called mirror neurons in our brains that give us essentially the same experience as we see the people around us having.  So if we see someone reacting positively, we will too.

 

2.  Confront the negative ideas in the room

 

If there are some obvious and big objections to what you’re saying, respectfully and thoughtfully talk them through, first presenting the opposing idea fairly and then saying why you disagree.  Most often, people with opposing points of view are disarmed simply by being recognized – fairly.

 

3.  Disarm the hostility with humor

 

The trick is not to be defensive.  Self-deprecating humor works well when you don’t overdo it and when you have some authority to deprecate.  Don’t take yourself and the situation too seriously; allow the humor of the situation to bubble to the surface.  If you're not good with humor, come armed with a slide of a cartoon or comic that comments on the situation. 

 

4.  Align yourself physically with the dissenters

 

This is the most counter-intuitive advice I give.  Sometimes, when you have a heckler, or a faction that is not supportive, and not giving up, the best way to handle the person or persons is to go into the crowd and stand alongside them.  This technique is disarming because it shows great confidence and openness to move toward people who are not your supporters.  Any discomfort you feel will be more than outweighed by the kudos you get from the crowd.

 

5.  Open the floor to Q and A – but save the last 5 minutes for your closing

 

A common mistake speakers make is to take Q and A at the end, closing on the last audience question.  But doing so means that you’re at the mercy of the last question and questioner.  Instead, save 5 minutes and hold your best rhetoric for the end.  People tend to remember the last words they hear, so make them your own. 

 

I talk more about all these techniques in my new book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, published in January. 

 

Did President Obama's Speech Make the Grade?

President Obama took on a tough challenge when he decided to speak to K – 12 students across the country for twenty minutes today on the subject of working hard, setting goals, and staying in school to achieve them.  The age range alone is daunting enough; to say something relevant to 12^th graders, he risked terrifying the Kindergarteners.  If he talked to the Kindergarteners mano a mano, then the 12^th graders would be bored out of their already cynical minds.  School assemblies are notorious of old – a time for the deadbeats in the back of the room to snicker and hurl spitballs at each other and the girls in front of them. 

None of this makes for a particularly promising set of conditions for public speaking.  But then there was the political fallout in advance of the talk – Obama’s political foes, led by a particularly egregious specimen from Florida, decided that the best thing to do was to accuse the President of socialism even before they had seen the speech.  As a result, parents and school administrators around the country scrambled to protect their children against communist mental infiltration or worse, vowing to keep the children home and safe, presumably watching television with its mindless commercials, murder, mayhem, and sexual innuendo. 

If I were still in school, I would find the example set by the adults more alarming than anything that the President could actually say.

But what about the actual speech?  Was it worth the fuss?  What did the President say and how did he say it?

He began by talking about his own early schooling – and it was early in a couple of senses of the word.  For his early schooling in Indonesia, he couldn’t afford the private schools most Americans went to, so instead his mother taught him – at 4:30 every morning. 

From these unprepossessing beginnings, President-to-be Obama suffered other setbacks: 

My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. 

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. 

From there, the speech becomes anodyne boilerplate urging all students to stay in school, work hard, and be all they can be.  The President even holds up the example of 3 students who had it much tougher than most and yet still managed to succeed: 

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. 

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

All credit to these estimable people; nonetheless the section reminded me of when my grandmother used to tell me that other people had it much worse, so I shouldn’t complain.  I never knew what to say.  I felt vaguely resentful of those people, and I still wanted to complain.  Maybe today’s youth are more emotionally mature; if not, Jazmin, Adoni, and Shantell are in for some hazing. 

Overall, the speech lacks punch and originality.  It lacks stories, real stories that take listeners somewhere and inspire them emotionally rather than preaching at them.  I’d give it a ‘B’.  President Obama should get full credit for doing the speech at all, and his opponents should let up on this one.  It won’t turn anyone into a socialist. 

How do you connect with your audience? Part III

Third of three blogs on connecting with your audience.

 

What other ways are there to make the connection between people stronger? 

 

You can increase the connection with people by making eye contact and using facial gestures, most notably raised eyebrows, to ask for a response.  You can also signal your intent with your posture. Remember that people are unconsciously sizing you up all the time: reading your intent and figuring out important things like whether you are friend or foe. They derive a huge part of that intent from your posture.

 

Once again, this is something that I’ve demonstrated many times to audiences in talks on communications. You can try it yourself. Begin by noticing how people stand from the side, as if you were cutting a two-dimensional slice from top to bottom. You’ll see that people stand in one of three ways primarily. There’s a fourth, but it’s rare, and a combination of two of the others.

 

First, some people stand with their head leading, keeping it forward from the perpendicular. We read this posture as submissive, intellectual, uncertain, or deferential. Try it yourself by standing up straight, at attention, like a soldier.  Imagine that a string tied to the top of your head is pulling it up as high and straight as it will go. Then pitch your head forward and round your shoulders as you do so. That’s the head posture. You will notice that you begin to feel submissive, deferential, and uncertain if you adopt this posture near someone else.  It’s ingrained and affects your thinking inevitably and the thinking of everyone around you.

 

The second posture leads with the pelvis. Rock stars and teenagers adopt this posture all the time. Begin in the upright posture again, and then pitch your pelvis forward (it may help to play a little air guitar at the same time). This posture is highly sexual and will provoke a sexual reaction in the people you communicate with in this way.

 

I once worked with a high-powered consultant who had recently been promoted within her firm to take on the most important clients. She had a series of boardroom meetings with big companies, and they did not go well.  I was called in to advise her, and we role-played the meetings. It became instantly clear why she was not commanding the respect of the boards she was dealing with: she was standing in a highly pelvic posture. The result was that the board was seeing her as a sexual object, not a high-powered consultant. Interestingly, she was completely unaware of her posture. I videotaped her performance, and she could instantly see what was wrong.  She changed her posture, and her consulting work improved immediately. Sometimes solutions are simple.

 

The third, and best, posture if you’re trying to communicate authentically with people and build their trust is the heart posture. Adopting the upright posture again, with your head held high (imagining the string once more). Now throw your shoulders back even a little more, but try not to make them tense with the effort and don’t raise them up. Relax your shoulders down and back, and keep your head and neck high. Roll the small of your back forward, and tuck your stomach in.

 

That’s the heart posture, and it is the one that trustworthy people adopt unconsciously and the one that other people trust. If you use this posture, people more easily connect with you. They will be inclined to open up to you and let you in.

 

That’s how you make connection possible with audiences.  Posture and nearness.

 

I talk much more about connecting with your audience in my new book:  Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. 

 

(The fourth posture is a combination of the first two:  a pushed forward head and pelvis. It’s the posture of a self-conscious, sexualized teenager or an intellectual rocker. Don’t try it at home or anywhere else.)

 

 

 

 

How do you connect with your audience? -- Part II

Second of 3 blogs on connecting with your audience.

Everything significant in communication between people happens in personal or intimate space.  That’s the most important thing to remember about connection.  But there’s more.  There has been a historical change in this regard with the advent of television. What was once social or public between people now is personal.  In other words, seeing newscasters, celebrities, and politicians in our living rooms and bedrooms for all these years has created an expectation that we can have personal conversations with everyone who matters to us.

 

The head-and-shoulders framing of people on TV gives the appearance of that personal space closeness to us, and we’ve gotten used to it.  Your goal as a communicator is to make sure of a couple of things. First, you’re in the personal space of the person you’re communicating with when you’re saying the most important things, asking for what you really want, or closing the sale. Second, whenever you’re attempting to communicate with someone, you’re closing the distance between you rather than increasing it.

 

I see people move away from audiences all the time when they’re giving a speech for reasons of nerves, or self-protection, or something else. The result is that the second conversation says to the audience, “This is not important; you don’t need to pay attention,”  even while the poor speaker is trying to make some point he or she believes is  important.

 

In this instance, then, the two conversations are not supporting one another, and the audience believes the second every time.  So to connect nonverbally, you need to move toward people and use the four zones of space to make it personal.

 

When you want to cool the relationship down or punctuate your communication, say, by signaling that you’re changing the subject, you can move away at that point. That move will demonstrate more eloquently than anything you can say that a change has happened.