Your message and other things you say

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.

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.

Coaching a group the other day and was faced with the comment, “This is a lot easier when we’re on the road in front of strangers. It’s harder doing it in front of your peers. They know the material and the pressure is greater.” While I don’t think any of the skills I was espousing are particular hard in front of any audience, it was worth thinking about. Is it easier to speak to a group of people you will never see again?

Then I spent a couple of days with these folks and never heard a single word other than encouraging ones. They genuinely wanted to help each other, and their coaching was every bit as good as my own. By contrast, the stories they told of their audiences hinted of personal agendas, landmine questions, drunks destined to disrupt, and downright hostile. Tell me again you want the strangers?!

This organization had something special that every speaker should want — a group of peers that share the same pains, the same desires, and had a wide enough variety in skills to be good for one another. My parting challenge was for them to do exactly what their comfort wanted — I wanted them to schedule times to practice in front of their peers. Only through that time of refining and honing their craft will they get to the point they convinced me they wanted to achieve.

Get the coaching and help you need BEFORE you hit the road.

At a technical conference, the audience had just sat through about 100+ minutes of technical detail and demonstration. It was interesting stuff (to them) but was quite a bit on the dry side and was a parade of facts and features. The conference organizers had invited a keynote to liven things up at the end of the session.

The speaker trotted out on stage and opened with, “Wow. That was a LOT of information. I guess you understood most of that, but I didn’t. I have no idea what it is you folks do.” That sure isn’t Rule #1 compliant, now, is it?! He then proceeded to mispronounce the name of the company who had hired him twice in the first 10 minutes of the keynote.
While the egregious (I love that word) error is not knowing the audience, a smaller error is admitting it, and essentially separating the audience from the speaker. A speaker should strive to build bridges between the audience and himself, not alienate and separate himself from them.

Know your audience and connect with them.