Your message and other things you say

Watched about 30 minutes — and then the final 5 minutes — of the Final President Debate tonight. Once again, it is amazing to me that with so much on the line (it’s not even a remote stretch to say that the balance of power in the free world is at stake) we have individuals who have apparently failed to get coaching on some very basic communication skills.

Please understand this is an apolitical observation. This has nothing to do with what these men stand for, how it aligns with my beliefs, or what character they possess (or not). I’m just talking communication. To wit:

• Neither man used eye contact to generate confidence. There were shifty eyes and a lot of looking down (you could tell they missed their teleprompters).
• Both use an incredible amount of non-words, especially when using a defensive posture answering the other.
• I didn’t feel either was particularly polite until the final comments. I realize it’s a dirty, mean, political campaign, but I also believe common courtesy is worth using.

But the thing that struck me the most was the incredible overuse of statements to announce “facts”, “points”, and “truth”. I’m scared to try to estimate, but it seemed that almost every statement, rebuff, or accusation was prefaced with “The truth is…” or “The point I want to make is…” or “The facts are…” And at no time did I feel that I was getting straight facts when either man said this (as evidenced by the ubiquitous grin and sarcastic head shake by the accusee during the tirade).

If points and facts stand alone, they needn’t be announced with lead-ins. Stories shouldn’t start with, “Let me tell you a story.” (Good) jokes don’t begin with “Let me tell you a joke.” And good political rhetoric shouldn’t have to put banners and headers on every statement. Make the points clear and definitely delineate the big ones, but every issue needn’t have such a title.

The more you state that there’s a point or fact or that things are true, the more cause I have to doubt you.

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.

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.

As part of my coaching, one of the areas we almost always touch on is how to answer questions. In my experience, a large majority of people who can competently share information fall flat on their face when asked a direct question. Most coachees I work with can go for 30 minutes with no major gaffes or goofs, and I’ll ask, “How did that feel to you?” The first word out of their mouth? “Uh, …” Paragraphs of information without a moments hesitation, and when asked a (simple) question, their confidence apparently leaks rapidly.

Perhaps no area of public speaking can lose credibility as fast as in answering questions (poorly). That’s why it’s so important to have that polished and ready to go. We can never be fully prepared for every question, of course, so it’s important to practice technique as well as content.

But some low-hanging fruit:

• Make up a set of 5 FAQs or MHQ (most hated questions) and after crafting a (good) response practice answering that question with a straight face until you can do it right. Corollary: if you can’t quote your rate with a straight face or flinching or saying “Uh”, do you really think you’re worth it?
• Don’t qualify the question. No “That’s a good question,” or “I’m really glad you asked that question.” If there’s emotion involved, connect with that emotion (”It sounds like that’s a frustrating area for you. I can see why you’d be concerned.“
• LOOK at the person who asked the question as you answer it. Not ALL the time, but most of the time. If there’s a part of the question that is direct (e.g. “No.“), then answer that directly to the asker of the question. Qualify and add detail to the entire audience.
• Don’t respond until you know what you’re going to say. Avoid the dreaded “Uh, …” as the first word (which, BTW, is overwhelmingly the first word out of the mouths of an MBA student when you ask why you should hire them).
• And definitely, don’t ever, ever make up an answer. If you don’t know, then say so (bonus points for making the next words out of your mouth, “but I’ll find out and get back to you.“)

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Questions are so important, why leave them to change? Practice the answers and the answering until you can get it right.

Been traveling quite a bit.  Always interesting to see other places and experience different things.  Well, for the most part.

So I ran across a radio station in the Midwest that had a morning show contest I thought was interesting.  Anyway, usually, I think these things to be absolute drivel, you know, but this one was right up my alley.  So these, um, callers had to speak for 20 seconds on a given topic (I think the topic this particular day is “talk about the things we might find in your refrigerator“) and not use the (non-)word “uh” or “um“.
So, anyway, it turns out it’s hard to find, uh, random-person-on-the-street who can do this, uh, without saying “uh“.  They went through several tries of buzzing people off the air before someone was able to complete it, and were I coaching the winner, I’d say they even failed.  You see, they didn’t let loose with an “um” or “uh“, thus winning the prize, but they had enough “and“, “so“, “anyway” words that have the same effect.  So, basically, you see, these words don’t add, like, you know, anything to our message.  Once we clear such words out of our message, it’s amazing how clean and clear it sounds.  It’s, like, simple, uh, when you can, uh, eliminate the words that don’t say uh-anything.
Our goal as presenters is to eliminate anything that distracts from our message.  The low-hanging fruit is non-words.  It’s really not as hard as you might think.  I have developed the habit to use almost no ‘um’s and ‘uh’s — I find the so/and/anyways harder to control.  All they are is the speaker’s attempt to gather his/her thoughts.  A pause is almost always a more effective way to do that, and it doesn’t pollute the listener’s reception, either.

So, anyway, how would one accomplish this?  Simply put, uh, it involves slowing down.  There are easy ways to do this — the best and easiest involves using eye contact to drive speech.  Awareness helps, but at some point a skill to avoid such words must be practiced and utilized to make it happen.  Find a way, enlist a coach, practice.  So, anyway, you should do it.

Eliminate non-words from your, uh, communication.

Returning my rental car to the Austin, TX airport.  Getting into airports is an adventure unto itself, and signage is critically important, and usually rather good and frequent.

As I entered the main airport and was confronted with hundreds of signs, I was really looking for only one: “Rental Car Return”.  And I found it, indicated on a blue-banner sign that the right two lanes were the place to be.  Signal, lane change, and settle in at 45 mph.  Then the next sign with “Rental Cars” was on a red-bannered sign and indicated a single arrow in the left lane.  Who to believe?  Blue then changed to passengers and airline information while red remained for Rental Cars.  At one point, I saw an old Rental Car Return sign that had been erased some time back on the blue signage.

It’s worth noting that I’ve been to Austin before, and the Alamo (and other car companies’) return has not moved in at least 3 years.

Just like giving a live message, conflicting indicators are hard to follow and ultimately confusing.  Most of us don’t have the luxury to allow our audience to misinterpret our message.

It might be as simple as using the left and right sides of the room when comparing two things (let’s talk about those who have set goals over here, and those that have not on the other side of the room), but be consistent.  Gestures that don’t convey the spoken message (talking about increasing revenues while your hand descends) can also confuse.

Make all signs and messages consistent.

Heard a speaker the other night who had credibility by position (he was involved in a national court case that everyone in the U.S. would recognize).  En route to making his central point, he began with some audience participation questions: “How many of you understand that…?“  Everyone raised their hand.  “How many of you understand…?“  Nodding and agreement.  Story.  Point.  “How many of you understand…?” but no pause followed.  Many in the audience started to raise hands, but without the pause most stopped halfway.

By the end of the 30-minute speech, the phrase “How many of you understand…?” had to have been uttered more than fifty times.  After the first few times with nice pauses for effect, every other time it was just a lead-in to a statement.  With no pause, there was no audience participation effect, and it became downright distracting.

Errors are two:

1. Don’t ask rhetorical questions that you don’t want and wait for the audience to contemplate the answer to.
2. Don’t use any speaking device or ruse so much that the audience is tempted to keep a count of the number of times you have used it.  Pretty soon whatever goodwill and involvement in your message is distracted by the repetitive nature of your speech.

Use pauses effectively.  Avoid meaningless repetition.