Your message and other things you say

Had a student suggest a fourth ‘F’ when we were discussing the question, “What do you do when something out of the ordinary or bad happens while you are speaking?” (see last post for the other three Fs answer).

He responded, “Freak out!”

Of course, I don’t advocate that course of action, but it helped to underscore just how important scripted responses and templates are to helping us convert high-pressure situations into wins for us personally and the organizations we represent. When you can respond with knowledge and close the gap between what we as speakers feel is proper and what our listeners think is proper, we have a great chance of connecting with them and getting the responses we desire.

Don’t have a cow, man! There are better ways to deal with the stress of speaking.

Got a bad haircut yesterday. It looks pretty weird. But in my world, the difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is about 2 weeks. It’ll be fine.

But I hate it. It bothers me. I want so much to make sure everyone knows I hate it. That way I can make all the bad haircut jokes, and not have to endure such heat from them. But as I teach and speak, my audience who sees me for the first time (and probably those who already know me) likely don’t care — most won’t even know it’s bad, they’ll just assume I normally look like a wet rat by choice.

So I’m faced with three things to do about it as a speaker:

1. Feature it. Make note of it. Build it in to my content. Make it part of my routine. I can’t imagine why I’d do this over a marginal haircut.
2. Fix it. If it’s something that can be changed, then change it. If you drop the whiteboard marker, don’t draw attention to it, just bend over and pick it up. In the haircut case, unless I want to be bald or close to it (I don’t), this is not an option.
3. Forget it. This is the hardest thing for a speaker to do, because it is on our conscience. But incessant apologies or comments about something that don’t matter to our audiences is just distracting (remember Rule #1!). This seems like the best option for prickly hair, no matter how hard it is for me, the speaker.

When faced with something that is wrong, bad, annoying, or on our conscience,

Feature it, fix it, or forget it.

With the folks I coach, it seems that many believe looking at notes is a bad thing for a speaker to do. People try all sorts of sly ways to get around pausing to look at their notes: from furtive glances to drive bys to strategic placement of cue cards.

I’ve found that it really isn’t an issue. There are very few instances when a speaker won’t be given a pass for taking a second or two to collect his/her thoughts. The audience WANTS the material to be clear and organized well. And most appreciate the pause and a chance to collect their thoughts.

The problem is compound by the notes that people take on stage. People try to write War and Peace on notecards and pages. This becomes a huge issue on stage because they can’t find their place. The solution for experienced speakers (those who do it regularly) is to adopt a standard structure to your notes, so the same things (like major points, examples, quotes) are in the same place and look the same. For folks who speak infrequently, it’s about keying thoughts. Use trigger words — something to get your mind going.

The rookie mistake is to write out sentences and whole thoughts. In the moment of truth, you WILL try to read them, and it WON’T come across natural. Find the thought; formulate the sentence; deliver the words.

When it’s time to look at the notes, pause and don’t speak to the notes — EVER. Read what you have to read, then reconnect with the audience and deliver. Amazingly enough, you’ll have more attention that way than if you read your notes. People want to connect with a speaker, not be read to.

Use notes. Use them effectively.

I heard a speaker the other day open his talk with a joke. Jokes aren’t inherently bad, but I definitely counsel my clients to avoid them when natural humor or stories are available. But here it came. The punchline of the joke involved a disgraced public figure. Not only does she have a tarnished image, but significant legal headaches and criminal accusations to go along with it.

But wait, there’s more. The punchline also involved a racial stereotype. Not necessarily a bad, demeaning stereotype, but still…

Ordinarily when I’m an unknown in the audience, I keep my mouth shut (those who know me well doubt my ability to do that) and I have come to overlook communication faux pas rather easily. But this one stuck with me, because I had some insight into the heart of the communicator as well as the image he wished to portray.

So I called him on it. His position afforded me (and Google) the luxury of finding his email, and I reread my composition several times before sending it. Its tone was very “you may wish to consider“. I’ve done this a handful of times and usually been sent a defensive reply. Or worse.

I was surprised to read the open of his very quick response: “You are absolutely right, and I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to help me improve.” He went on to offer a defense, but his overall tone was one of acceptance and thanks. And this from a guy who is a professional speaker who has attained more public success than I’ll probably ever have.

Those kinds of folks make the greatest students. They are able to see past their strengths and take advice and coaching on how to get better. I can only hope that I could be as gracious when I receive a tip/advice/criticism the next time.

If someone is vulnerable enough to offer advice, we should…

Figure out what we can learn from others.

Talking with a friend yesterday and he made the comment, “Comfort is the kiss of death.“

While this might overstate the point a bit too much for my tastes, it underscores an important point — in ANYTHING we want to improve.

When we are comfortable:

• we don’t feel any great need
• we stop noticing things around us
• we stop concentrating on the little things
• we loosen up, and often say things we shouldn’t

There are certainly good things about comfort:

• the situation doesn’t add stress
• we are able to focus on other things
• we can make others around us comfortable

But comfort cannot be our goal. Today’s paper compares two runners.

One had all the comforts of suburban America. When faced with the greatest pain in her life on the greatest stage of her life, she mentally returned to the place where she was comfortable. It allowed her to press on and finish third — in the WORLD. Had she wanted to stay just comfortable, she never would have put herself in the position to hurt — and win.

The other trained in wartorn Iraq. Nothing about her training was easy. Bribing guards just to have a place to train is hardly comfortable. But that just drove her to focus on the ultimate dream.

In both cases, if the athlete sought only for comfort they would have fallen well-short of their goal.

The same is so true for speakers. I am faced all the time with presenters whose goal is apparently to be comfortable. They are only keeping themselves from achieving great things.

Don’t let comfort be your goal.

I attended a local Business Networking International meeting today as a guest of a new friend. Part of the meeting is giving everyone a chance to speak for 45 seconds about what they do. It’s a chance to practice the elevator speech among friends. Members repeat this every meeting (weekly). You’d think small business owners would value this opportunity and have it polished and ready.

You’d be wrong.

While about half the folks were extremely good, that leaves the other half. I saw folks read from paper. I heard ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. I saw folks stare at the ceiling. I heard people stumble over their practiced speech. I heard weak language like “I think I can help” and “I hope we get a chance…” I heard content with no close. I even heard one person forget their business name and start over.

Visitors get a chance as well, so I gave a new elevator speech a shot. When I finished, one person shouted, “He’s done that before!” (evidently the bar is pretty low for first-timers). They were wrong. I thought it up on the drive over — I had a chance to practice yesterday’s lesson, and I intended to use it.

The guy who invited me had asked me to critique him. He was solid, but there were some small adjustment that could make a big difference. I mentioned his gestures. He replied, “Yeah, I noticed your arms didn’t move except when you made a point.” Yep. Exactly. And I don’t do anything magical and I’ve got a world of room for improvement.

But the little things make a BIG difference.

Know your elevator speech cold. Do it well.

Just got off the phone with my friend Jeff. We have about a weekly discussion about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to presentations. The theme was present at my lunch, as well. My meeting with a sales guy discussed why folks don’t do things that make them stand out (in a good way).

The question is simple: why do people continue to parrot bad habits and ineffective presentations? At first glance, the explanation is easy, as well:

1. If we’re new to a company, the last thing we’re going to do is rock the boat. We’re going to do what everyone else does, even if it stinks.
2. Once we do something and survive, we’re most likely to do the same something, even if it’s not great.
3. There are very few direct penalties for doing a bad presentation.

These observable truths lead to pure death in presenting. We have GOT to continue to refine our craft and do new things. Some (many?!) may not work. But we’ll never know if we don’t try. So why is that so hard?

That answer is a little more complex. No one likes to fail. Some do it more gracefully than others, of course, but few people posses the fortitude and drive to set out with high risk when a safer alternative exists (albeit more boring as well). And yet that is what is needed. The question becomes HOW we can force ourselves to risk. More on that later.

But for now, I firmly believe…
Facing great risk leads to the greatest rewards.

Try something different. It may even work.

Was teaching today and came to the instruction on PowerPoint. Had a pretty interested group and was going through some more advanced things like the presenter’s view on a second monitor and some cheap tricks on using blank slides. Was (not) surprised that most of the folks hadn’t seen an A/V Mute button on a projector, so I went to show it to them, showed them my laptop was still functional and then went to turn the projector back on and…

Nothing.

No display. “Searching for signal…” It was JUST working, for Pete’s sake!!! I did a pretty nifty segue and blanked the screen, but knew I had to come back. When I did, nothing seemed to work — Fn-F8, auto search, manual input selector — nothing.

I was about to quick and call a break when I happened to lift the computer again… and knocked the VGA cable to the project to the floor. Evidently the screw had come loose (in the laptop connection, not the instructor) and the cable came loose when I showed the screen to the class. It would have likely been the last place I’d have thought to look, but it sure seems now like the most obvious thing I should have seen.

Total time looking like a doofus was less than 30 seconds, but it reminds me to…

Check the easy stuff first. Have a checklist.