Monthly Archives: September 2012

When the Audience Goes to Sleep

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I recently spoke to an advanced public speaking class at a local university. This class began at the hour before lunch, and although I had a very stimulating and entertaining presentation, (my view of the content, of course) there were a couple of students who had a problem staying awake. This gave me an opportunity to apply principles of what to do when the audience sleeps as you speak.

I did a quick self-evaluation. What am I doing that could create this mental lapse in an audience member? At one point I thought I needed more variety in my presentation so I went into a brief exercise that required audience participation. They all said “oh” together in three different scenarios to underscore the importance of vocal variety since delivery was one of my themes. Simply saying the word “oh” aloud by the whole class made everyone alert.

I changed the rate and volume of my speech. When I made the next point, I paused as the slide came up on the screen. Then I slowly defined the term to stress its importance. Since I normally speak rapidly, this was an easy way to bring attention back to me.

I stopped in the middle of my lecture and asked a question of the audience and waited for an answer. The question was, “Why is a personal experience such an important part of using humor?” Several good answers are appropriate, such as that we can all relate to personal experiences as fellow humans. Or we are more confident in telling a humorous story that happened to us. After a pause, I received two responses that gave the audience an opportunity to speak and changed the pace of the lecture.

One other change I made was that I walked to the other side of the front of the room. Just the change in location motivated several in the room to turn their heads or change position in their seats to see me better.

As I thought about the presentation afterwards, another idea came to me that might work next time to keep the audience awake. Do a perception check. I might stop and make this statement: “I can tell by the look on some of your faces that this may be too much detail,” or, “I can tell by the look on your faces that this might be a good time to stand and stretch.” This shift mentally or physically would wake up the drowsy listener.

Remember that movement, change, and variety attract attention. A goal I want to strive for each time I speak is to keep the attention of the audience. If I have enough variety to keep their attention, there will be fewer “sleepers” in the room.

Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is Professor Emeritus of Speech Communication, College of Informatics, Northern Kentucky University, near Cincinnati. He presents keynotes and seminars to corporations and associations whose people want to speak and listen effectively. See additional articles and resources at www.sboyd.com. To book Steve, call 800-727-6520 or email him through his website.

Five Tips for Organizing a Speech

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We have covered five tips each on handling stage fright and delivery. This “five tip” article is on organization.

Alexander Pope said that “order is heaven’s first law.” When God created earth, his first concern was giving order by separating creation in six units and then declaring on the sixth day that this was good. If God thought it was good to be organized, then we should be concerned to organize our speeches.

Give your audience a roadmap early in your presentation. Think how important the GPS or MapQuest is in getting to unknown destinations. The same is true with an audience. Each person listening wants to know where we are going and how are we going to get there with our presentation content. A good lead-in that takes very little time is a simple, “What I want to talk about today is…”

Develop few and specific points. When you say, “I have six points I want to make today,” that is information overload and the audience will tune you out. I think three points are sufficient. Specificity of a point is saying “To be successful, one must give attention to detail” instead of “To be successful, one must work hard.”

Use transitions when moving from point to point. You can simply use numbers: “My first point is…,” My second point is…” Be sure you remember what the number is of your next point!

Internal summary is another effective transition such as “Now that we have covered the importance of specificity in speaking, let us move to the use of transitions.” If you want to wake up an audience, consider an interjection. “You may forget everything else I say today but remember this next point!” Clear transitions will help you avoid meaningless phrases such as “You know” and some version of “and uh.”

The use of repetition is an important organizational tool. An audience cannot review your material unless you do it for them. In a book, we can go back and reread a chapter or page. The listener cannot do that, so when you begin a statement with “Let me say that again” or “Thus far we have covered…” the audience is very appreciative. Certainly review your main points at the end of your presentation.

Finally, show your organization through your delivery. When you move from one point to another, take a step away from the lectern. Move back to the lectern when you finish the point or story. Change your tone of voice when you are changing direction in your speech. Pause before you mention the next point. Hold up the number of your point with your fingers if you are using that approach to transitions.

To sit and listen through a thirty-minute presentation is difficult for any audience. You are more likely to hold their attention when you are well organized. In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.” Organization helps you do that.

Speaking Without Notes

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My greatest fear in speaking came to reality for me Sunday. I forgot my speaking notes for both my class and my sermon! I did not realize this had happened until I got up to teach the class; it was too late to drive the twenty minutes to my house to retrieve them. What does a speaker do when he forgets? I was able to practice some of the principles I share in my speeches and seminars on public speaking.

Putting into practice my suggestions on preparation was a huge help. I had spent several hours during the week preparing for both programs. I always work hard to have a few simple and specific main ideas to communicate to my audience. I found several resources and went over my material several times making notes and typing the outline I wanted to speak from.

On Sunday morning I spent an hour going through my notes and thinking about the audience and how I wanted to handle possible questions in the class and how to use my slides for greatest impact in my sermon.

I also spent time praying that I would have a good memory of what I had prepared to say and that God would give me common sense in dealing with the unexpected from the audience or surroundings.

My philosophy is never to make excuses about my speaking, so I did not mention that I had forgotten my notes. When I mentioned this fact to a couple of people afterwards, each said they could not tell any difference even though they noticed I had no notes. I spoke my allotted time in both settings.

What made me forget my notes when I double and triple check before I leave for a speaking engagement? Cream puffs!! Not just any cream puffs, but the ones we had purchased at a bakery that only makes them around Oktoberfest. I was carefully placing them in the trunk of our car for a lunch gathering later that day. Yet another time when food got in the way of more important things!

5 Tips for Good Delivery

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How ideas are presented has a great deal to do with how much value they appear to offer. Delivery is the audience member’s contact with the speaker’s mind. Here are five tips to have effective delivery.

1. Make music with your voice. Frequently use the pause and punch; speak loudly and then softly. Pause before proper nouns or statistics and punch them out. Speed up to show excitement and slow down to indicate drama and suspense. In a sense, to use your voice effectively you are putting music in your speech; you are doing the same kinds of things a vocalist does by speeding up, slowing down, pausing, getting louder or getting softer, and punching out certain words.

2. Use your hands to describe and reinforce the point you are making. Just imagine the following joke without showing the actions with your hands.

A man is pulled over on the interstate by a state trooper for speeding. At the window of the stopped driver, the state trooper sees in the back seat several sharp knives. He says to the man, “I’m going to have to arrest you for possessing the deadly weapons in your back seat.”

The man replies, “You don’t understand. I’m a juggler for the Barnum and Bailey Circuses and the knives are a part of my act. Let me show you.” So he gets out of the car by the side of the interstate and begins to juggle the knives.

About that time, two good ol’ boys drive by and one says to the other, “They’re sure getting’ tough on those driving tests, aren’t they!” You have to describe and reinforce with gestures to help people enjoy the joke.

In addition, keep your gestures under control. Adapt the size of your gestures to the size of the room. If you have a big room and high ceilings, use gestures from the shoulder out; if you have a small room with low ceilings, use gestures from the elbow out. Keep your hands away from your face so as not to diffuse the impact of either facial expression or gestures. Instead of pointing to your audience with your gestures, “embrace” them by reaching out with your full hand and bringing them in to you.

3. Connect with your audience with your eyes. Eye contact is a visual handshake with your audience members. Without looking directly at members of your audience, you cannot determine if they are listening and understanding your message. Look at small clumps of people in the room and in doing so you will be able to look directly at people within that clump and in a short period of time you can engage all of your audience with your eyes. An ancient proverb states, “The eyes are the window of the soul.” This describes how important looking at the eyes of the audience is to the speaker.

4. Show self-confidence by your posture and space. Avoid slouching by standing on both feet with your weight equally distributed on the balls of your feet—between 7 and 12 inches apart. “Plant” your feet to fend off the tendency to pace or bounce with your feet. When you move, move toward to the audience and not away from them. You want to stand equally distant from most members of the audience. That way everyone feels equally attended to by the speaker.

5. Finally, look pleasant as you speak; smile, look expectantly for positive feedback, and change facial expression to match the content of your presentation. The face is the object of attention by listeners when you begin to speak, so work to express the feelings behind your content through the face. Begin with a smile and a pleasant demeanor; that will encourage you to be more that way throughout your presentation.

Certainly content is more important than delivery, but you have to keep the attention of the audience to insure that the message will make it into the minds of the listener. Delivery does that. As Robert Redford said in the movie, The Horse Whisperer, “Knowing it is easy; telling about it is the hard part.”

Five Tips for Controlling Stage Fright

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We can remember five easily because we can count1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on the fingers of one hand. Thus this is a handy unit of organization.

Stage fright is the area of public speaking I receive the most questions about. Here are five ways to control stage fright.

Be prepared. There is no substitute for careful preparation. Practice new material at least three times. Each time you practice you gain confidence. Practice your delivery by simulating the speaking situation—standing and delivering the content as though you have an audience.

Be physically ready for your presentation. Get the proper amount of sleep the night before you speak. Practice a healthy diet before speaking. Go light on sugar and caffeine. Wear comfortable clothing.

Learn about your audience. Become as familiar with your audience as you can. The more you know about your audience and the speaking context, the more comfortable you will be. One of the causes of stage fright is fear of the unknown. By going online and checking out websites, articles, and blogs that relate to your audience, the unknown will grow smaller and your confidence will increase.

If you are not familiar with the city or speaking location, check out directions ahead of time. Verify pronunciation of any unusual proper nouns connected with the speech, such as the names of people you will be meeting and talking to and the name of the city or location of the speech. For example it is Lafayette (Lah fi ET), Indiana, but Lafayette(Lah FAY it), Tennessee.

Develop a positive mental attitude toward your speech and the audience. You are speaking on a topic you know a lot about and are excited to share with your audience. (If that is not the case, you have my sympathy and perhaps you should be looking for another career). Shut out thoughts of “This audience does not care about this topic” or “They don’t want to hear me speak.” Instead fill your mind with “I have prepared well for this presentation” and “The audience will learn important principles from my talk.”

Finally, get off to a good start. Work hard on your opening lines to get attention and to preview your presentation in an interesting and creative way. If you get off to a good start, you quickly lose the high level of anxiety and become at ease with your audience. That beginning could be a relevant quotation, story, or reference to a current event that ties in with your topic. Attempt humor only if it relates to your topic and you have a high comfort level with using humor.

So here you have your handy list of five strategies to cope with stage fright. Remember Dale Carnegie’s classic statement: “You don’t want to get rid of the butterflies in your stomach; you just want to get them to fly in formation.”

Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is Professor Emeritus of Speech Communication, College of Informatics, Northern Kentucky University, near Cincinnati. He presents keynotes and seminars to corporations and associations whose people want to speak and listen effectively. See additional articles and resources at www.sboyd.com. To book Steve, call 800-727-6520 or email him through his website.

Speaking with an Interpreter

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Even in the United States, we sometimes feel by the audience reaction that we need an interpreter. We may think, “I am speaking English to an American audience. How can they look so clueless?” We’ve all been there.

However, speaking through an interpreter as I did a few weeks ago in Natal, Brazil, is an even more humbling experience. First of all, you are at the mercy of the person standing beside you. My interpreter was telling the audience in Portuguese what I said in English. I just hoped he transmitted the message that I intended. Knowing that there were a few bilingual people in the audience pretty much assured that he would be as accurate as possible since they would understand both of us!

Since many of us occasionally speak to global audiences, some lessons I have learned in delivering speeches through interpreters might be helpful to you as well.

  • Get to know the interpreter before you speak. Talk to the person in advance of your presentation. I find that the better I know the interpreter, the better that person can share the feelings behind the words.
  • If you have an hour of real time to speak, then you should prepare a 30-minute presentation. By the time you wait every couple of sentences for the person to translate, you will more than double the speaking time.
  • Jokes should be limited to your own culture. Leave jokes and one-liners out of your presentation. Much of our humor comes from a play on words or an inconsistency in the way we do things and people from other cultures might be more confused than entertained. For example, “I used to meditate a lot, but now I only do it every now and zen,” perhaps would not be appreciated in a different language. Neither would “She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.”
  • On the other hand, a humorous comment can usually be understood. For example, “You can imagine that I never made that mistake again!” at the end of a personal experience story would be quite understandable.
  • If you use a poem, be sure the message is not dependent on rhyme or meter.
  • Determine that you are using the correct terminology in English or you can confuse the audience. For example, in Brazil distance is measured by meters instead of yards and kilometers instead of miles.
  • Slow down your rate in order for the interpreter to understand your message. Speak only two or three sentences at a time. Use simple words. Don’t be afraid to rephrase if you catch yourself using a word that maybe your interpreter does not understand. Remember that even an excellent interpreter cannot know every possible vocabulary word you might use.

All in The Family was the first sitcom to address the differences in the way men and women communicate. One famous line that only Archie Bunker could say was, “The reason you don’t understand me, Edith, is because I’m talking to you in English and you’re listening to me in dingbat.” In addressing an international audience, we want to make sure that we are speaking in English so that the audience members can listen and understand in their own language.

Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is Professor Emeritus of Speech Communication, College of Informatics, Northern Kentucky University, near Cincinnati. He presents keynotes and seminars to corporations and associations whose people want to speak and listen effectively. See additional articles and resources at www.sboyd.com. To book Steve, call 800-727-6520 or email him through his website.