When a presentation event unintentionally turns into comedic relief, you know you have a major credibility problem. Imagine it is after work, a cavernous hall filled with hundreds of people, the booze and small talk all free flowing. The MC attempts to introduce the main host of the event, to make some worthy remarks. The hum continues as people are more riveted by their own conversation than anything the crew on stage has to say. In a stroke of pathos, the MC starts shooshing the audience to attempt to quieten them down.
The audience aren’t buying any of this Mother stuff from the MC and keep chatting regardless. This leads to even more ridiculous shooshing, only louder and more strident this time. The MC doesn’t appear to have had any presentation training. So they have reverted to parental authority over the naughty boys and girls in the audience, to restore some semblance of order. We have now descended into comedy, but more a comedy of errors.
Almost giving up, the main speaker is now trotted out by the MC for more of the same. This speaker thankfully didn’t try any shooshing of their own, but the MC was on a roll and unhelpfully weighed in from the sidelines, with more shooshing, during the speech. The main speaker was not skilled, interesting or commanding, so their words were subsumed into the general low drone echoing across the hall from all the crowd hubbub. There were other subsequent speakers and they also were buffeted by the strong winds of disinterest.
Should we blame the speakers for being unskilled and boring or the audience for being ignorant and rude or both? Well I don’t think we can blame the audience and even if we did, what difference would it make? Should we have burly security guards on hand, to frog march noisy offenders out of the hall. We could try this to spread the general idea that we the organisers can’t be brooked and require better manners from the assembled rabble.
In reality, I think we have to accept that if you release free flowing booze into the audience, then their conversations are going to be more attractive to them, than anything else happening on stage. In many cases in Japan, they hold the booze back for that very reason. If you are well behaved and don’t talk over the speeches, we will reward you with a drink when we get to the toast.
This Pavlovian style training tends to inject more discipline into the proceedings. It is not completely foolproof and some hardened conversationalists, maybe the non-drinkers in the audience, will still continue their tete-a-tete during the main speeches. It is a much smaller group though and generally everyone is listening to the speeches. The negative thing about the Japanese methodology though is the speeches are usually too many in number and too long in length. If you are all that remains between you and drinkees, then remember to make it short and memorable, then get off.
Well what can we do when it is us up there on stage, at the podium, surveying the great unwashed, unreformed and unruly rabble. They are shamelessly standing there staring back up at us, while willfully chit chatting, with no sign of embarrassment or remorse.
The first thing is to design your talk to be powerful, impactful and short. Waffling on about nothing of great import or of any consequence to the audience is a guaranteed formula for being ignored. Our main speaker did a great job of doing just that. Naturally people were not moved and the MC, in vain, had to bring out the shooshing nuclear harpoon to corral the audience.
If you are in this position, think very carefully about what you can say at the start to get the audience engaged. Talking at them won’t cut it. We need to be speaking with them and this is where getting crowd involvement works like a charm. Ask them a rousing question. Get them physically and mentally involved.
This occasion actually really lent itself perfectly to this task. It had a sporting theme and the audience was chock full of opposing supporters covering a large number of competing teams.
If our MC or the speaker had asked the audience to nominate which team was going to win the competition, then audience involvement would have been tremendous. Additionally the pro technique is to say, “I didn’t catch that, who is going to win?” By doing this you get the audience to really ramp up their energy and volume. They want to talk, so give them their chance to really rock it, but only for a moment. There is a particular mass rally, large crowd effect we want to tap into, as there is tremendous energy therein, which we want to direct.
Following that raucous reaction, thank them, then pause. You will now have a still quiet in the room. This is when you had better say something really gripping. You have the complete attention of the masses and they are now open to you. They are having a good time at last.
As you proceed into the talk, the low hum at the back will return. Expect that, so again ask them another leading question in a few minutes time. This will allow them to burn off all that excess chat energy they have, so that they will be calm and listen to you again. You can’t keep doing this ad nauseam, otherwise it feels manipulative. People won’t respond anymore, they won’t like you and will leave with a bad taste in their mouth.
The answer to keeping audience interest, is to be interesting. Use word pictures, tell relevant stories, lift your speaker energy right up to the top of the scale to command the room. Rock stars can do this, because they have massive amplifiers, electric guitars and a full drum kit to work with. You don't have any of that, but you have to become as powerful as a rock star on stage, to grab easily distracted people’s attention. Your projection of your “ki” or body energy, big gestures and powerful voice strength are the equivalent of the amplifiers, electric guitars and full drum kit.
In our presentation training, the participants are at about 15% energy levels when they first enter the training room. We the instructors have to project our own energy levels up to 130% or 150%, to lift the audience up to 100% of their potential energy. Speaking in front of a noisy crowd requires the same strategy. In this case, you have to go above their energy levels and seize control of the room. They are already chatting at close to 80% to 90% energy levels, so we have to go to 150% to stay in command of the proceedings.
Sadly, our speaker did none of that and was totally forgettable. The MC was just annoying and the whole episode was a shambles. Those on stage were all speaker road kill when it got to their turn.
If you are ever in the nominated speaker position to address a noisy assembly, take the ideas outlined here and you will be heard and well regarded. You will emerge with your reputation really enhanced, because skilled crowd lion tamers are few and far between.
