by Peter Meyers
We’re not biologically designed to talk to more than one human being at a time. You can’t even look at two eyes at the same time. Check yourself next time you’re standing close and speaking to someone. You’ll notice that you have to shift your focus from one eye to another. So, when you have an audience of five hundred in front of you, what do you do? Talk to one person at a time. Instead of scanning and making “eye contact,” we suggest that you have connected conversations.
For a connected conversation, you look at one person, and speak directly to them. You stay with one person until the first comma, pause, or phrase in the thought ends, and then shift to another person for the next thought. This should amount to roughly three seconds per person.
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MASTER TIP: Forget about eye contact. Have connected conversations instead.
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If you’re speaking to a large audience, mentally divide them into four quadrants.
If you pick out one person in the rear left quadrant of a large crowd, the ten people around him will perceive that you are looking at them as well. Land on that one person and hold him in the focus of your attention as if the whole presentation were designed specifically for him. Find your point of stillness. Watch the tendency for your eyes to roam and scan. And then move on to the next person. Make sure that you’re moving randomly from quadrant to quadrant, including the entire community to whom you’re speaking. Don’t make the common mistake of giving 90 percent of your talk to 5 percent of the audience. The person you need to convince may be in the back row. But if you’ve never looked at them, they will never feel totally included.
If you’ve used your eyes correctly in front of an audience, even as large as a thousand people, most listeners should leave the room feeling as though you took the time to speak directly to them. The other thing you do with your eyes is to direct the audience’s focus. The audience looks where you look. If you want to direct their attention to media, slides, or another person, you must turn your body and look at the object in question yourself. When it’s time to reconnect, step forward and draw their attention back to you again.
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MASTER TIP: The audience looks where you look.
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An audience creates a bond with a speaker, and that bond is often broken by a speaker who sends her audience off to look at slides, and then disappears into the darkness.
Your eyes reveal your presence in the room. Don’t waste it by staring at the podium, the floor, or your own slides the entire time. The podium doesn’t need to feel a sense of connection with you—the listeners do.
REMEMBERING YOUR CONTENT
One of the biggest fears people have about speaking in public is: “What if I forget what I’m supposed to say?”
This one is simple: use notes. Let’s dispel a myth about using notes onstage right here. Notes are not a crutch that indicates weakness—notes are a smart tool. Consider Barack Obama. Most people around the world would agree that he is a top-notch communicator. Obama often uses a deck of index cards. If notes are good enough for Obama, they’re good enough for you!
Notes are actually desirable for a number of reasons. First, they dispel anxiety and allow you to relax and focus on your presentation. Second, notes prevent the “memorization effect.” This is when the speaker is putting so much time and energy into memory retrieval that he fails to connect with the audience. Under this heavy and unnecessary burden, his voice flattens, his eyes droop, his body goes limp, and he becomes difficult to hear. Sometimes you can even see the speaker’s eyes move to the upper left or upper right, as if he’s reading his words from the inside of his forehead. An effect best avoided!
Finally, we believe that the use of notes on a pad or on cards says that the speaker cares enough to come prepared. It also says that she actually has a job to do during the day. It takes an inordinate amount of time to actually memorize even a brief speech. Most of us would prefer the speaker was spending that time doing her job—especially if she’s a CEO or the president of the United States!
So, having notes available is perfectly acceptable, as long as you spend most of your time in relationship with the audience, letting them see your eyes. What we’re recommending here is that you shift back and forth between your notes and the audience. Glance down at your notes, capture the information, and take a moment to internalize it. This is the moment where you filter the information through your brain, infuse it with your own personal meaning and expression, and allow it to come bubbling back up. We want to see the words emerge through your experience. This is the magic moment where the value is added, and the data is transformed from an anonymous PDF into your unique presentation. Then look up, and share the information with the audience. The principle is capture, internalize, and reconnect.
There are various ways to access your notes onstage. You can use:
1. An outline on a notepad
2. Notecards
3. Slides
4. A monitor
5. Flip charts
They’re all fine, and the choice you make really depends on your personal preference, and the setting in which you will be presenting.
There are two methods, however, that we urge you to avoid when giving informal speeches and presentations. One is that you write out a script word for word, and then memorize every word. As previously discussed, this can actually produce a negative effect. We’ve rarely heard someone deliver a memorized script in a natural way; it almost always sounds mechanical. It also takes an incredible amount of time and energy, and if you forget one line or phrase, it can often derail your entire presentation. Unless a formal written speech is required, try to stay away from memorized scripts.
Another method we’ve yet to see work well is writing down the entire script of your talk, word for word, and simply reading it out loud to the audience. Unless you’re an Academy Award–winning actor, reading a script will always sound like . well, like reading a script. What happens is that you end up just reporting your data. It flows from your eyes to your voice on a monotonous conveyor belt, without much added nuance or emotion. If you insist on this method, be aware that what great speakers do is develop a way of making a scripted speech seem live, as if it’s being spoken for the first time. They sometimes use the performance technique of seeming to stop at times and search for the words, as if they’re putting the concepts together right in front of your eyes. Beware—it’s harder than it looks. But whatever you do, don’t just read out the speech as if you’re serving yesterday’s warmed-up leftovers. Great communication is about you and the listener thinking together, and making discoveries. Don’t bring in stale, prepackaged ideas—serve up something that looks and sounds fresh.
The exceptions to these recommendations, naturally, are when you find yourself in a legal, diplomatic, or press conference situation where precise wording is extremely important. In these cases, by all means, read from or memorize a prepared script—but let the audience see your eyes.
Our own personal favorite method is to create an outline of key points on a notepad. Remember when you learned to make an outline in fifth grade, complete with Roman numerals and supporting points? Our outlines look just like that, written in a discreet black notebook. Have the outline with you at the podium or desk, and refer to it when you need to. This way, you’ll never get lost. You can remind yourself of your key points, but it’s up to your brain in the moment to find the right words—which will keep it sounding fresh and natural. Like a batter in a baseball game, this method allows you to focus on one thing at a time. After you’ve hit the ball, all you have to concentrate on is getting to first base—delivering your first Point of Discovery. Once you round first base, then you start looking to second. And once you’re on second, you head toward third. You don’t have to think about each little step along the way—you’re just hitting key points, one large objective at a time.
A lot of speakers choose to use notecards onstage—a good option, as they’re easy to
carry and hold. When you’re preparing your cards, put the key point in bold letters at the top, with any supporting points underneath it. Use a black felt pen; it will show up more clearly. Remember that lighting can be dim onstage—use big, bold, clean letters, easy to see at a glance and capture quickly. Write clearly, and always number the cards. If you ever drop them, you’ll be glad you took the trouble to number them first!
A word of caution: if you do use notecards onstage, don’t try to hide them. Don’t get all weird and furtive about it. Just pull out the notecard, glance down, capture the information, then look up, reconnect, with the audience, and deliver the message.
The main principle when it comes to notes, whether it’s cards or a notebook, is this: don’t cover yourself up. Don’t use your notes as a blanket, or as a shield.
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MASTER TIP: Do not hold notes in front of you with both hands.
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This is the most common mistake most speakers make when using notes. It creates a barrier between you and the audience, and the body language it conveys is that you feel the need to protect yourself. Holding notes in front of you also has the effect of cutting off a percentage of the audience—from certain points of view, it’s going to look as if someone dropped a shade in front of you, and they won’t be able to see you.
Instead, put the notes down on the podium or in an inner pocket, so that your hands are free to gesture. If you find that it’s necessary to hold the notes, hold them with one hand, and make sure that the other hand is free. Don’t allow the free hand to drift into a pocket. If you do put your notes in your pocket, practice reaching in and pulling them out before you go onstage. Wear a jacket with an appropriate inside pocket. Some pockets are so deep that it will look like you’re digging down into your shirt to get hold of the cards. Actors know this: rehearse your props. A prop needs to come smoothly into your hand the moment it is needed, without fumbling or falling.
Don’t read the notecard out loud—you’re using it as a memory prompt, a springboard. If you’re not traveling around a lot onstage, try holding the notecards in one position. Your eyes will create an internal map of where you were on the page last time you looked. When you look back, your eyes will go automatically to the exact spot where you left off. If you are moving around the stage, try leaving one finger on the place where you left off, so that you don’t lose your place. A final word about notes: always use notecards or a notepad with a back, never just loose paper. When you’re nervous, your hands will shake—and loose paper exaggerates this movement, flapping like a noisy sail and drawing everyone’s attention.
It’s also perfectly acceptable to use your slides as a series of prompts, to remind you of your material. Unfortunately the most common mistake people make is to fall into the habit of simply reading the text to your listeners off your sides. Please, we beg you, don’t do this. If all you’re going to do is read out loud, send them the slide deck and stay home. Anyone who has a second-grade education can read faster than you can talk, so you’re telling them something for the second time. Boring!
If you do have a few words of text or a compelling image on your slide as a memory prompt, upon which you can then elaborate, try to work with the monitor in front of you, rather than turning your back to the audience and reading the text off the wall. Monitors in this situation can be easily placed on the floor. Again, like the notecards, don’t try to hide the fact that you’re looking at the monitor. There’s nothing wrong with needing some support to remember your text. There is, however, something terribly wrong with trying to hide it from the audience!
Don’t get seduced into staring at the screen the whole time. The audience didn’t come to look at your back; they came to connect with you. Look at the monitor, internalize the information, then reconnect with the audience and deliver it. Steve Jobs, who gives presentations accompanied by massive screens that could dwarf him, finds moments to ensure that he is personally connecting with the audience, and not being upstaged by his own slides.
Embrace the technology, but make sure that you also pick out moments where you can come back in and drive the personal relationship. You are the bridge between the listener and your ideas. No matter how cool the technology may be, nothing will replace that human connection.
And finally, you have the option of using flip charts. We think these simple and effective tools are widely underrated as presentation aids—we use them in trainings all the time! Flip charts are reliable and low-tech, will not break down, and give you the ability to spontaneously write down things that the audience says, which provides a high level of interactivity. You can write your cues on a flip chart ahead of time, and then flip the paper up over the top, so that it can’t be seen by the audience until you’re ready. (You don’t want them distracted by looking at what’s on the chart ahead of time.) At the appropriate time, you bring down the page in question. You can then add to it in the moment, giving your presentation a feel of up-to-date spontaneity.
WHEN YOU BLANK
We’ve all had it happen. You prepare, you’re ready, you walk out, and you freeze. Even though you may have your notes in your pocket, you can’t remember the first thing you were going to say. In fact, you can’t remember your middle name. All you can hear is a voice in your head screaming, “Red alert! Red alert!” It’s hard not to panic in this situation. But it’s like quicksand—the more you panic, the more you sink. You’ve got to roll out. Here are a few tips to keep in mind for those times when you blank:
1. REBOOT. What’s happening to you is very similar to what happens to your computer when the hard drive gets stuck. The information is still there—it’s just frozen. Just like the computer, you have to do a reboot. The good news is that for a human being, rebooting only takes a fraction of a second. You’re not going to be able to solve the problem in your brain—you to have to use your body. Change your physical pattern. Do something different. Take a drink of water. Adjust the microphone. Take a step back, and step forward again.
2. BREATHE. When you blank out, it may be because you have stopped breathing. Stop. Take a slow, deep breath. Look up. Try again.
3. NOTES. Your notes are there to get you going again. Use them. Give yourself some insurance against blanking by writing your opening on an index card, and stashing it in your breast coat pocket.
4. VAMP. In music, vamping is when the band keeps playing the same two or three introductory bars until the diva is ready to make an entrance. In this case, the diva is your brain—it just hasn’t come into the room yet! You just need to keep the band playing until it does. Make small talk. Say, “Good morning . Hi . Good to see you.” It’s not your first choice for an opener, but it’s better than standing there like a statue.
5. DON’T SUFFER. If you blank during your talk, don’t suffer over it. The audience will stay with you, as long as you don’t make it obvious that you’re in pain. Audiences naturally take on the attitude of the speaker; if you’re in pain, we will be, too. And this may sound strange—but it could actually be a good thing for your presentation. Practiced speakers sometimes actually pretend that they’ve forgotten their next line, just to keep it feeling fresh. Look up, take a moment, take a breath, let the idea come back, and carry on. A tightrope walker in the circus doesn’t just stride straight across the wire without pausing or wobbling—although he probably could. That would make his show incredibly dull. Instead, he stops, he backs up, he wobbles, he almost falls—but then he saves himself. Whew! We go to the circus to see the close escape, the miraculous rebound. That’s what makes it exciting. It’s the same onstage; it’s fascinating to watch people think. The inward glances where you search the files of your mind, find the idea, and bring it back out are part of the excitement of being live. We didn’t come to watch a robot perform a smoothly automated routine. We came to see a vulnerable, authentic human being.
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SHANN
When I joined KGO Radio in San Francisco as a fledgling talk show hos
t, management explained that I would have to develop myself into a larger-than-life “personality” in order to do the job properly. It’s not too hard to make a radio show mildly interesting, so that people will sit and listen. It’s more difficult to become so compelling that people will get up off the couch, pick up the phone, call in, and hang on the line for an hour, waiting to talk to you. But that was my challenge. I was given this advice: “Don’t get too slick. Don’t try to sound like a newscaster. Most newscasters are much too smooth and perfect to do successful talk shows. It’s like a rock—if the rock is too polished, no moss can cling to it. People want you to have craggy edges and rough bits. That’s what makes you real. Those are the vulnerabilities that make you seem accessible—and that’s where they will attach and cling to you.”
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REHEARSAL
A word about rehearsing:
Do.
Theater professionals spend five weeks rehearsing a performance, with the help of a producer, director, lighting designer, costume designer, prop designer, and set designer. You’re up there all alone. Don’t you think you should at least do yourself the favor of being well prepared?