How important is authenticity for speakers?
On Tuesday night, I was asked to speak to the members of Asia Professional Speakers – Singapore. (Here’s the blurb, if you’re interested – pdf - scroll down…). It was (bizarrely) my first meeting as a member – they turn out to be a lovely bunch of people!
I chose to speak about authenticity as I’m increasingly aware that rehearsed, polished talks aren’t necessarily the way to go.
Here are my thoughts – in ascending (decending?) order of weirdness.
(Bear in mind these thoughts were aimed at people who make a living at speaking – I tend to hold them to a higher standard as they are being paid for their speaking expertise. And this isn’t a transcript of what I said – no script, see? – but the same thoughts expressed again.)
If you really want to make a difference, is a talk the best way?
I am pretty strong about focusing on behavioural outcomes – specifying in advance what you want people able and motivated to do as a result of your communication. Most professional speakers declare that they are in it to make a real difference in the world, but I’m not sure if delivering a speech is the most effective way of doing that.
The more I learn about group facilitation and participatory decision-making, the more I realise that people commit more to change if they have been involved in evaluating and making the decision.
Talks, unless incredibly well done, are one of the least effective ways of getting people to move in the direction you are recommending. Much more effective is what my radical friend Dustin calls small groups muttering to each other.
If you’re serious about helping people change direction, you’ve got to put some deep thought into your methods – just because you’re a speaker, doesn’t mean a talk is in the best interests of your listeners. (cf. Only got a hammer? Problems= nails).
Don’t plan a performance, plan a conversation
If you’ve been following along at home, you know that this is one of the principles of developing presentation superpowers. I’ve also written before about why it’s important to plan conversations way back here and here. The way to decide on level of detail, level of formality, level of jargon is to think what you would do in conversation, and do the same in your presentation. It also means you might be less hard on yourself around ums, ers, losing your place, pausing…
However, especially for professional speakers, the hidden metaphor behind public speaking is one of performance.
We call our listeners ‘the audience’, there’s a person ‘up there’ and the group ‘down here’ and often talks are scripted and polished, like communicating to a group is akin to performing a piece of Bach.
Framing things as conversation allows you to remember what works in that mode. Things like, er, listen, be interested (rather than interesting), talk about what excites them. Shifting into this schema also invites your listeners to be active conversation partner, rather than passive audience members.
Slickness is more often about what we call in the trade Jack ‘em up and glaze ‘em over with the speakers desired outcome being ‘Book me again…’
This I have issues with.
Rehearsed, scripted performances show no respect for the people in front of you – you’re in control (in theory) and they must receive what you’ve cooked up.
Conversation holds within in it much more respect.
(One of the questions at the talk was if this works with large numbers of people. I think it does – it’s more a mindshift rather than anything directly prescribing a particular style.)
Moving up the weirdness scale…
Connect with the real people who are in front of you
The first part of this is to do with planning.
You’ll know if you’ve read Rapid Presentation Planning (pdf) that there is some research quoted by David Berreby (author of Us and Them) about how we treat objects and how we treat people.
In (ridiculously) brief, there are certain patterns of brain activity that are triggered when people look at pictures of objects, and certain patterns triggered by pictures of people. The scary part is when we look at pictures of people from populations marginal to our experience (people who look homeless, for example) the object patterns are triggered. Somewhere along the line, we see some people as not-people.
My fear is that when we do the archetypal first planning step for a talk (’Think about who you’re talking to’ – uh, yuh think?) we tend to do it in terms of demographics – they are business people, they are stay-at-home Mums, they are dentist receptionists. More object-like than people-like.
No one is just a [insert category].
Groups from the outside look homogeneous, groups from the inside appear to have infinite variety.
Don’t believe me? Pick up a cross-cultural communication book and read the description of your native country. Then think about people you know who are from the same national culture. Homogeneous? All have the same attitude to authority, to losing face, to punctuality?
So… be careful of planning purely for categories.
The second part is to do with what happens just before you begin, and as you’re speaking.
It’s your duty to really connect with the people in front of you. As you look out, take a moment to really look, see the (mass of) distinct individuals, watch them breathing in and out, hear the busy-ness of their heads. Feel how your human-ness connects with their human-ness.
When I used to commute to London, I would be walking, head down, through the crowds of commuters, and suddenly see them, see us, see everyone coming from somewhere and heading somewhere else, with secret thoughts buzzing in their heads.
It’s a bit like that.
Re-remember how much of a difference you want to make.
Which leads me to the most out-there point.
Ask, ‘What’s the highest good I can do for these people?’
I know that for business speakers within organisations that there are often more veils laid on top of the intent to do good.
But for professional speakers it’s pretty clear. You’re here, talking about a topic you’ve chosen, out of a professed desire to make a positive difference.
Everyone in the room is a whole mixed cup of beautiful and weird.
They (we) all have crazy thoughts, repressed desires, irrational dislikes, favourite vegetables (thank you David B). They (we) are all falling backwards towards the end of our ridiculously short lives, ignoring the dizzying speed at which life is rushing past us.
This is when you put your preparation (notice the pre- in preparation) behind you, and focus on how you can use your skills and knowledge to truly help the people in front of you.
Yeah, you want to sell your book. Yeah, you want more speaking opportunities to come out of this. Yeah, you want that cute/senior guy/girl in the third row to give you their number/book your training course.
But, well, it’s your karma. Wasting an hour of your life is one thing. Wasting twenty, a hundred, a thousand hours of other people’s lives with generic, over-rehearsed, self-serving distracting emptiness is another.
It’s a priviledge that these people are spending (no refund) their time sitting in front of you.
They are honouring you. It’s your responsibility to honour them.
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So.
Presuming you’ve decided that talk is the best thing to be doing, just before you open your expensive mouth, breathe in and think:
Conversation…
Real people…
Highest good.
Breathe out. And begin.
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What do you reckon? Too idealistic? When have speakers really affected you by their honesty, or disappointed you with their fantastic plastic?
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