Ignite CSP

Why is it scary to stand up and talk to a room full of people?

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After all, the mechanics are the same. It’s not about the talking; we do that all day long. It’s not about the standing; we stand around in kitchens and living rooms at friends’ houses and talk with no problem.

 

It’s about being the center of attention. When you’re the only person standing in a room, and everyone else is looking at you, it can feel threatening. It makes us feel vulnerable to have dozens or hundreds of eyes all on us at once—evolutionarily, that was a bad position to be in. It meant we were isolated, and the eyes looking at us were likely to be those of a pack of predators.  The oldest part of your brain, the brain stem, way in the back, is responsible for keeping you alive. It doesn’t know the difference between the eyes of a pack of hyenas and the eyes of the accounting department. It just wants to keep you safe, so it floods your body with adrenaline and cortisol. Awesome if you need to get out of there; less so if you want to give your presentation.

 

Here’s the good news—the eyes aren’t a mob of wildebeests planning their attack. They’re people just like you, interested in what you’re going to say. Tell your brain stem thanks, but you’ve got this. Remember your intention, breathe, and go. You’ve got this.

Putting in the boring work.

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When you have to learn a new piece of software, do you sit down and watch all the videos and really put it through its paces so you know what it can do? Or do you, like me, impatiently learn the bare minimum that will allow you to do the thing you got the software for in the first place? (see: my relationship with Excel and PowerPoint, in particular.)

 

 

One of the best-kept secrets about practicing communication skills is that, surprise, it’s like practicing anything else.  You have to put in the boring, repetitive work before you can really rely on these skills to be there when you need them. This means regularly practicing in low-stakes situations before the big meeting/interview/presentation comes up.

 

 

The kinds of things you can practice include: eye contact, tempo, inflection, and volume of your voice, deliberate movement and gestures, and most importantly, coming to the interaction with deliberate, not default, intention.

If you make time to practice in regular meetings, on the phone, even in casual conversation, you’ll expand what feels comfortable and natural to you. You’ll start to see the range of behavior that’s available to you, and you’ll see the impact this kind of presence has on other people. You’ll be using the whole suite of software, not just the formula function.

I’m going down in flames!

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As promised, I’m responding to some reader questions in December. This one’s from Stephen:
You’re prepared and well-rehearsed… and a minute into your presentation, you feel like you’re bombing. What do you do? Are there strategies that can help avoid a total collapse?

 

This is such a bad feeling, especially when you’ve prepared well. There are a number of strategies you can use here:

 

  • First, pause and take a breath. It’s very easy to start to rush, to default to a “try to get this over with” intention, and that’s only going to make things worse.
  • Remind yourself of your deliberate, positive intention. What impact do you want to have on your audience? How do you want them to feel?
  • Sometimes facial expressions or body language in the audience can make you think you’re doing a bad job. Decide, then and there, that those people just look like that when they’re paying close attention, and move on. Don’t think about them, and definitely don’t worry about them.
  • Don’t push. You’ve rehearsed—stay the course. There may be voices in your head urging you to be bigger or funnier or to try something new in an effort to get the audience back. Don’t listen to it—stay present.
  • Finally, when you finish, get some genuine feedback from a source you trust. Ask a specific question: “At this point, I felt like the audience was confused,” or “Did this example work?” The input will give you more information, and you can apply it the next time you speak.

 

Thanks so much for the question, Stephen! Readers, send in your questions!

Everybody is busy.

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When someone says, “How are you?” what do you say?

Fine.
Good.
Busy.

Here’s the thing. We’re all busy. Answering “busy” has become a non-answer, another “fine.” Plus, it’s a conversation-killer with the added threat of initiating a which-person-is-busier escalation.

What can you say instead? How can we turn a routine exchange into something with some meaning?

How are you?

Good! I’m working on a project that I’m excited about.
Swell! Had a terrific weekend with my buddies.
Great! I’ve got a lot going on; it’s fun. How about you?
Pretty good. Working hard on this new project.

You’re in charge of the room.

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When you’re presenting or leading a meeting, you’re in charge of the room.

Maybe it goes back to our days as students in class, maybe it’s just part of how we understand authority, but when you’re the one at the front of the room, you’re in charge. That means you have responsibilities that go beyond your content. Everyone is looking to you to keep things moving, give a coherent message, and handle anything unexpected that pops up.

Have you ever been in the audience when something goes wrong? It could be anything—the computer freezes, an audience member’s phone goes off, one person is dominating the Q&A with long-winded assertions masquerading as questions. The audience’s discomfort can only be mitigated by the person in charge—you. My advice is to address it as soon as it becomes clear that the issue isn’t going to resolve itself quickly. The attention of an audience is a fragile and fleeting thing, and as soon as the dominant thought in their minds is “when is she going to handle that?,” you’ve lost them. And it’s hard to get them back.

The computer freezes? If there’s a tech person available, ask them to come up and address the problem while you continue without the deck. If your slides are crucial to doing your presentation, pause for some discussion while they get you back up and running.

Phone rings? Pause, ask everyone to go ahead and pull their phones out to silence them. No shame, just action.

One person is dominating the Q&A? Pull out a thread you can respond to in order to get the floor back, then without batting the conversational ball back, say, “I’m glad you have so much interest in this topic. Now I’d like to hear from some people who haven’t had a chance to speak yet.”

The big thing to remember is that the decisions here are yours. You need to make them quickly to keep the energy up and the attention on you and your message.

The sneakiest habits…

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…are the ones we don’t know we have. The good ones–drinking water throughout the day, taking the stairs, assuming others’ good intent—enliven and nourish our days. The not-so-good ones—slouching, mindless snacking, cynicism—erode our relationships and health.

 

We all have both kinds of sneaky habits. We need them–having routines and default modes is an important way that we reserve energy and focus for our most important work. But the sneaky not-so-good habits can get in the way of our work, keeping others from receiving our message fully.

 

One of the most powerful tools we use in our communication skills coaching is video. We record a client giving a presentation (or whatever she’s working on), and we watch it back together. This is where we really see the sneaky habits—the gestures that distract, the eyes that flit away, the words that rob the speaker of her power. Until the sneaky habits are unmasked, they can’t be addressed.

 

What mirrors can you hold up to spot your sneaky habits?

The law of the instrument.

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When I lived in New York, ages ago, I took a self-defense class.

 

The big selling point of classes like these is the idea that you’ll be able to take care of yourself if you’re the victim of an attack. And that makes sense—no one wants to be at the mercy of a stranger who grabs them out of the blue.  And in fact, the instructor made a point of saying
this–“I’ve watched people out in the early morning for their run, headphones on…it would be the simplest thing in the world for someone to just snatch them up, and they’d never be seen again.”

 

The instructor spends a lot of time thinking about exactly this topic. This is her thing—she is really invested in being fit and prepared for an attack. So it follows that she sees the world as a minefield of potential threats.

 

The law of the instrument, or Loevinger’s law of irresistible use, is the idea that to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And I’m going to posit here that we all have our own version of this. Not only do we want to use our own special tool to address the problem, but we also can’t see what’s actually going on because of our bias.

 

And it matters. It matters because the actual threat of being attacked by a stranger in the United States is about 0.146%. But when we look at the world as if that scenario may be imminent, it changes our mindset and our behavior.  We may become more suspicious, less generous, less willing to connect with others in our communities.
My hammer is communication skills, being intentional about how we connect with other people. But not all coaching needs to have that as a focus, and often we can get away with “okay” communication. If I insist on wielding my hammer all the time, I won’t see what else is going on. I’ll limit my own learning and understanding.

 

What’s your hammer?

The ole Q & A

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Ah, the classic “Let me open the floor to any questions” at the end of a presentation or talk. What’s the formula for making this an effective use of everyone’s time?

 

1.) Keep your answers concise so that you can answer more questions. Very long answers stifle the group because they’re doing some mental math and realizing you’re going to run over and keep them from leaving on time, or worse, from being released for lunch. Also, long answers quell momentum.

 

2.) Remember that you are there for the audience. While we love to hear stories, keep yours relevant to the question that was asked. Make sure the Q & A session doesn’t become an opportunity for you to regale the crowd with all your favorite hits.

 

3.) If you aren’t sure what the questioner was getting at, ask.

 

4.) Most questions have lots of possible answers, even for the same person. Don’t start talking, realize you have a different answer, and change course. Decide which answer you’re giving and commit to it.

 

Reminder! I’ll be answering questions in an upcoming blog post. Curious about what to do with your hands, filler words, how intention works, or how to practice? Email me! 

“I don’t get nervous!”

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People love to tell me that they are good public speakers, and maybe they are. But often the only evidence they give is this: “I don’t get nervous!”

One of the great misunderstandings about public speaking is this: not being nervous doesn’t mean you are serving your audience well.

And this works in both directions. Most of the great speakers you’ve seen have been managing some level of nerves or anxiety, and often the folks who are congratulating themselves for being so confident didn’t spend enough time preparing. (The Venn diagram here of “I don’t get nervous” and “I do best when I wing it” has lots of overlap.)

When you’re talking to other people, it’s about them. Full stop. The level of nervousness of the speaker is relevant, but only if it affects the audience.

Reminder! I’m getting ready to do a post that answers reader questions. Send ’em to me!

I’m great at this.

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When was the last time you unabashedly said, “Yep, this is my thing. Stand aside, I am really good at this”? It could have been anything—opening a jar, giving a speech, calming a crying baby.

We shy away from letting people know what we’re good at because it feels like bragging, and nobody wants to be that guy. (Well, most people don’t.) But it’s also possible that this modesty is hampering you, keeping you from grabbing opportunities and connecting with folks who want what you have to offer.

If it didn’t feel like bragging, how would you finish this sentence: “I am absolutely terrific at: _______________________”? Is there someone you could say this to?

Reminder! I’m going to have a reader-submitted question post coming up soon. Send your questions to me–they come straight to my inbox! I’d love to hear what you’re wondering about.