We often see presenters elevated up on stage or positioned at the front of the room, flanked by or under a screen, and protected from the audience by a rostrum. In Japan standing above your seated audience requires an apology for doing so at the start of the speech. This is a very hierarchy conscious society, so implying your superiority to your audience, through your physical positioning has to be wound back immediately. We add to this feeling by driving the slide deck, playing around with the lighting, using a microphone and speaking in a knowledgeable, commanding voice. All of these devices place a barrier between the speaker and the attendees of the talk.
Is that what we want though – a barrier to our audience? If we want the audience to buy what we are selling, we want to have total access to the participants. Believe my statistics, follow my suggestions, take action on my ideas are typical outcomes we want to achieve. Getting people to come with us necessitates persuasion and having appeal. The less barriers between us and them, the better.
A useful approach is to speak conversationally with our audience, as if we were all intimates of long standing, where the trust had been built up over the years and where the simpatico is flowing. It also lends itself to sharing information like confidences, that only the specially initiated and conspiratorial are made privy to. We are letting you into special data and insights, that only those in the room can know.
This requires a switch from speaking at an audience to speaking with an audience. We call out the names of audience members we know or have just met, to build that feeling of connection between speaker and participants. “Suzuki san and I were chatting a moment ago and she made an interesting observation on the subject”, “I am glad my old friend Tanaka san is with us today, because I consider him a great model for what I am proposing”, “Obayashi san and I were speaking during the networking before lunch and she mentioned that there was some new data on this topic”. As soon as we do this, the people we are referring to feel three meters tall, because their name was mentioned in a positive, supporting way. We also break through the mental barrier between speaker and audience by including the audience members into our speech.
The tone we apply moves from oratory to more of a chatting over the backyard fence style. It is much more inclusive, convivial, endearing and conversational. We still pick out key words for emphasis by either putting the power in or pulling it out, we use pattern interrupters like speeding up or slowing down our speaking speed. A conversational monotone is still a sleep inducer. We need to avoid that. We still use gestures and we will increase the frequency of inclusive gestures. What would be an inclusive gesture? The stylised wrapping your arms around your collective audience is a good one, as if you were drawing them in toward you. Pointing to the audience with your arm outstretched and the palm up is a non-threating way of engaging your audience. Pointing fingers at members of your audience is aggressive and not recommended. Our eye contact at six seconds for each person, has enough balance to make it inclusive without it becoming invasive.
Talking about ourselves, sometimes in a self disparaging manner, reduces the hierarchy feeling between us and them. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a master of this. He has a very elite background at Eton and Oxford, but makes fun of himself in his public speeches. Some journalists insist the ruffled hair and disheveled clothing are props to better humanise him for consumption by non-elite audiences. Depending on the audience, he sometimes makes a show of being flustered and disorganised for effect. This positions him more effectively as an “everyman” with his audience, rather than as a distant upper class Brahman.
Not taking yourself too seriously is always good advice, if you want to connect with your audience no matter how brainy, powerful, superior you may see yourself relative to the assembled punters. Just don’t overdo it, because then it becomes sensed as manipulative and fake. A little humour at your own expense goes a long way. Yes we can be serious about our topic, without being distant and standoffish. Getting the balance of gravitas and congeniality is the key and being chatty but highly valuable and informative is the sweet spot.
Action Steps
Mentally switch the scene to a chat over the backyard fence, rather than in a big five star hotel’s ballroom
Where possible integrate some of the audience members into your speech to strike that personal connection
Make the speaking tone, gestures and eye contact conspiratorial
Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself
