Have you ever made a mistake during a business meeting or conversation: a big mistake that was obvious to everyone? You don’t have to lose face in situations like these. Here is a tip that will help you save face.
At one point or another, in your professional life, you may at one time or another, have dropped the balls. You said the most inappropriate thing or your spoken mistake that everyone noticed was a serious one. These situations present two choices for you. You can
1: Pretend that it didn’t happen: this is never advisable when you are sure that everyone noticed your mistake!
2: Accept that you dropped the balls and demonstrate humility.
Humility might be an instant and sincere apology. It might be self-deprecating humor. It might be that you allow others to see you try with your heart and soul to correctly your mistake and maybe even fail to correct it! Humility means that we accept our right relationship with nature and allow people to see our human-ness. Because human beings make mistakes and are sometimes wrong — and most everyone we do business with can identify with that.
Humility is a very importance ingredient in successful business speaking. It’s not a weakness. It’s actually strategic. It’s a quality that makes us approachable, more likeable, and more attractive to do business with.
When you’re in the middle of a challenging business conversation, and you’re certain that your tone of voice has been “above reproach”, what else can you do to increase harmony?
I recently talked with you about the importance of monitoring your tone of voice to increase harmony in challenging conversations. Here are three more strategies to help guarantee your success:
#1: Give positive reinforcement.
We often need to continue having business conversations with people whom we have already experienced to be difficult. Be on the lookout for their positive behavior, and acknowledge it verbally. Whenever you witness behavior that you would like to see repeated, you can say something like, “That’s one of the things I admire about you: your ability to ___”. Identify the positive behavior; praise it.
#2: Interrupt people tactfully when they are shouting, dominating a conversation or meeting, or complaining with increasing negativity.
Calmly repeat the person’s name over and over again. When the person stops speaking, state or restate your own intention in the conversation.
#3: Respond to criticism strategically.
Thank people when they criticize you. When we defend ourselves, it often appears to be an admission of guilt. Instead, you can say something like, “Thank you for telling me how you feel”, or “Thank you for being honest”, or just “Thank you.” “Thank you” is a complete sentence!
When you monitor your communication in these three ways, you’ll help bring out the best in people, increase harmony, and set the stage for greater success in challenging business conversations.
Savvy professionals apply acting techniques to help enhance their credibility and gravitas when they speak for business. They know that they need to build belief within the listeners, so they borrow techniques that actors have used for decades. So can you.
Crafted actors spend years perfecting a craft that is designed to build belief. This is why advertisers so often rely upon actors and their craft: they understand that actors’ techniques and performance skills are fundamental to the business of selling any idea, product, or service.
When actors are preparing a role, they make careful choices about what actions to take, to help the audience believe that the make believe situation is real. For actors, it’s all about actions; for actors, actions speak much louder than words.
To prepare, actors create “acting objectives”. These are actions that lie underneath the words – actions they plan to take toward their listeners. This helps actors to be motivated to speak the words that the playwright or screenwriter wrote, and speak them truthfully, authentically, and conversationally.
In rehearsal and performance, actors pursue their acting objectives as if their lives depended on it. This helps the audience believe that the actor and the character are one and the same: that the actor IS the character.
This applies to you when you speak for business for two important reasons:
You want your business listeners to believe something: to believe that you have solutions to their problems, for example. The more rigorously you pursue your actions (your acting objectives), the more completely your audience will believe: believe that you and your message are one and the same; believe that you are your message.
Whenever you are speaking for business, when you make listeners believe, they are very likely to overlook minor shortcomings or mistakes you might make.
Throughout my acting career, and as a professional speaker, I have occasionally neglected to rehearse with the use of acting objectives. Invariably, whenever I have neglected to use this technique, I lost the acting job or failed to engage my business listeners.
Your business speaking/presentations will never be perfect; there will always be something to improve upon and something that you might consider to have been slightly “negative” in your “performance”. Without the use of acting objectives in your preparation, you significantly reduce your ability to make business listeners believe. When that happens, your listeners have little to focus on BUT the negative.
Once you have helped your business listeners believe, you’ve won them over to your side. After that, they will forgive you almost anything!
You can increase the impact that you have on your business listeners by revealing who YOU are when you speak!
Consider the impact that actors have on their audiences. Many years ago, Marlon Brando said, “Acting is the ancient, instinctive art of representing ourselves to others in a way that reflects how we truly are.”
Successful business speaking also reflects how we truly are. It shows your business listeners what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and how they might do it better. It also shows them how you, the speaker, truly are. And that means WHO you are.
Convincing actors and persuasive business speakers make their greatest impact through self-revelation.
To play a character convincingly and make the audience believe, actors reveal truths that lie in the deepest places of their own hearts: truths that lie inside every heart. The ability to reveal what is both personal and at the same time universal creates for the audience a transformative experience: when audiences recognize themselves in a character – when they can identify — they can understand more about our human condition, our limitations, and, most importantly, our potential.
This ability to reveal what is personal and at the same time universal is important in business speaking, too. Whether you are giving a power point presentation or talking with a prospect on a sales call, revealing who YOU are is a key ingredient in making a deep connection with your listeners and building their trust.
When you prepare to speak for business, decide what you will reveal about yourself in the following areas:
1. Your personal perspective about your business message
2. Your appreciation of your listeners and your enjoyment in speaking with them
3. True stories from your own life that will help illustrate your message
Be sure that your communication is supported by your vocal delivery, your body language, and every aspect of your demeanor.
Reveal who YOU are when you speak, to build trust and make your greatest impact!
In my last blog, I wrote about your use of pauses, to allow your ideas to land when you speak & engage your listeners.
Today, I’m going to talk about the power of the surprising pause. Successful business speakers, like good actors, use the surprising pause strategically to command attention and add depth to their message. The element of surprise is a key factor in capturing and keeping your listeners’ attention when you speak for business. Pausing at meaningful and surprising moments can be helpful to you in three ways:
1. It creates variety in your delivery: A moment of unexpected silence provides the greatest contrast to a stream of words.
2. It creates suspense: It teases your listeners for a moment, making them want to hear more.
3. It gives your listeners a window into your inner world: Listeners want to know what is “going on” with the speaker underneath the words. A surprising pause filled with meaning allows your listeners to observe a different quality in your expressiveness and gain additional perspectives.
In the video version of this blog, I demonstrate now just how effective a surprising pause can be. You may wish to view that now; simply click the thumbnail for the video.
If you prefer to continue reading:
I use the following sentence as an example of the use of the surprising pause. It’s a sentence about concept of supply and demand: an excerpt from a play called Other People’s Money, by Jerry Sterner; which was first produced Off Broadway and later made into a film with Richard Dreyfus. Here is the sentence:
“One day, when the dollar is weaker or the yen stronger, or when we finally begin to rebuild the roads, the bridges, the infrastructure of our country, demand will skyrocket.”
Logical but predictable moments to pause would be after the words, “day, stronger, and country”. A more interesting choice would be to add meaningful pauses after the words, “dollar, yen, and demand”. The surprise and suspense created in those moments leads to a more compelling delivery.
As you rehearse your business talk, consider why and when you will pause. Take logical, meaningful pauses at moments when those pauses might be most surprising.
Make your delivery truly compelling — and captivate your listeners!
In today’s blog, I’ll write more about how to keep your listeners engaged by allowing your ideas to land when you speak.
Last time, I wrote about Step One in this process: Speak in thought groups. Today, I’ll write about Step Two: Pursue your point with energy and focus. I’ll share some early advice given to me by one of my teachers: the late Mira Rostova, (who for many years was coach to the great film actor, Montgomery Clift).
One of the most common mistakes speakers make is to put focus on (to stress) each word – or too many words — within a complete thought. Speakers who do this are usually attempting to be clear, but the result is often a delivery that sounds unfocused, pedantic, or even condescending. While every word that you speak “counts” and should be understood by the listener, take time to consider which of your words should receive focus and which should not.
Prepare with these three strategies:
1. Review your notes and identify the focus word of each complete thought. Remember that the more words you stress, the more you lose focus and clarity — so be very discriminating as you choose your focus words. Make word-stress choices in creative ways that add depth and an interesting perspective to your ideas. This can add an element of surprise to your delivery, which is very engaging.
2. Underline the focus words of each complete thought.
3. Rehearse aloud, stressing only the focus words of each complete thought. Put your attention on your focus words. Keep them at the forefront of your mind, and pursue them energetically as you speak. My late teacher, Mira Rostova, used to say, “Go for the point! Go for the point!” Mira was talking about pursuing your point with focus and energy. Rehearsing this way will help you drive your ideas and will prepare you for the third and final step in this process.
So, be sure to read my next blog: Step Three for How To Engage Your Listeners by Allowing Your Ideas to Land When You Speak.
Every person connected with the theater knows that an audience must become engaged with the action on stage as soon as possible, in order for that stage effort to be successful. The same is true for your business presentations. You can start by applying three simple strategies at the beginning of each talk.
1. Maintain good eye contact.
Eye contact means “eyeball to eyeball”: not looking at foreheads, to the tops of heads, or looking in the general direction of individuals. Make eye contact with people within audience sections: for example, focus on individuals on the left side of the audience, then the right, then the center – or in any order you choose. Be sure to cover the whole audience territory and remember to include people seated in the back rows. Depending upon the size of your audience/venue, it may be challenging to make eye contact with people who are furthest away from you, but seek out as many eyes as possible. Contrary to common fears, maintaining good eye contact actually helps relax you as a speaker. Seeing people’s eyes will remind you that the audience is, after all, made up of regular folks just like you, and that they do want you to succeed. They are usually hopeful and expectant; they want to believe that they have made a good choice by attending your presentation!
2. Use a conversational tone, vary your pace, and be sure that conviction and passion are visible on your body and audible in your voice.
Most listeners respond favorably when a speaker communicates gratitude and humility, and a conversational tone helps project these qualities in you. It lets your audience know that you are approaching them as an expert who is an equal, not as a professor or pontificator. Speak as you would during a one-on-one conversation, with the slight adjustment of a heightened energy. Take the attitude that you are pleased to be sharing an important secret with your audience; that you are speaking confidentially to each individual listener. Vary your pace, to generate interest and convey enthusiasm. Take time to allow you thoughts to “land”, and occasionally pause for dramatic effect. Audiotape your rehearsals; when you play back the tape, take special note of the moments when you sounded most authentic, most conversational; moments when your voice and YOU were “one”; when your voice is the true YOU. Analyze what you were doing that caused that authentic sound, and strive to replicate that underlying behavior (rather than the sound). Your sound in any given moment is the result of your intention and communication behavior. You can achieve an authentic and effective sound by doing something; pursuing an appropriate objective. The degree of conviction and passion in your voice and gestures is within your control. Gestures and body language should match the intensity of your voice, as well as your content.
3. Ask questions and ask for volunteers.
Involve your audience by asking questions and inviting individuals to come to the platform area to participate in simple tasks/exercises related to your topic. When you pose questions to your audience, people invariably answer them, which immediately makes the responders a part of the presentation. Audiences enjoy this. Ask questions that you know they can answer, and be sure that everything you ask is directly related to the purpose/main idea of your talk. For pure engagement and entertainment value, nothing beats demonstrations by your audience members. Create simple tasks/exercises for individuals or pairs that will illustrate your points. Ask for volunteers from the audience to come to the platform area; if people seem shy at first and no one immediately volunteers, wait. WAIT. Have the courage to tolerate silence or hesitation from the audience, and during the silence, make strong eye contact with a broad smile and open arms. Avoid all temptation to recruit individuals; allow them to volunteer. (During the hundreds of presentation I have made in all industries, I have never faced a situation where we lacked volunteers.) Audiences include those who enjoy receiving attention and will rise to the occasion! Audience members who remain seated become immediately captivated: this is theater, the drama of watching a situation unfold in the here and now, where anything can happen. It is compelling and irresistible because of its immediacy.
When you involve your audience early in your talk in these three ways, you set the stage for the audience to bond with you. The sooner they bond with you, the stronger their connection with you will be. This is true engagement.
While many people are quick to agree that being a good public speaker enhances one’s business life, fewer consider capitalizing on this skill when they possess it. This is a mistake; the benefits of good public speaking skills are often underestimated and deserve greater attention.Being a good public speaker helps you persuade listeners to take actions you want them to take, makes you a valuable asset to any organization you are connected with, and is one of the best ways to generate business.There are few aspects of professional success that are more important than the power to persuade. Whether you are trying to convince your executive vice president of HR to adopt your latest initiative, or you are a business owner trying to close a deal, skill in public speaking allows you to organize your message, deliver it with an effective style, and defend your position with poise.If you are a professional working in the corporate arena, skill in public speaking is one of the best ways to demonstrate that you are ready to become an active spokesperson for ideas and initiatives of interest to your organization; it makes you a key player. When you make a dynamic impression by speaking on a given topic, you allow top executives to view you as someone with leadership qualities: an “idea” person who has the ability to persuade. So, find opportunities to speak within your organization: at meetings, forums, and company events. There is no better advertisement of your value or leadership qualities.If you are a business owner, using your skill at public speaker is one of the best ways to generate new business, because it positions you as an expert in your field. When you begin your journey as a public speaker (whether or not you are paid to speak), “high profile” speaking opportunities need not be the goal. What matters most is value and volume: speak as often as you can, to generate interest and build a following. Contact associations whose memberships may be interested in your topics, and offer to create seminars for them. Provide valuable content, and over time people will seek you out for your expertise.Whatever your career objectives, you should view your skill as an excellent speaker as one of the best strategies to reach your professional goals.
In my last blog, I presented some visual strategies that will increase your persuasive power with upper management, no matter what department you work in, and no matter how little time your are given to make your case. I focused on how you can build belief visually. In today’s blog, I will offer a few tips for building belief with your voice.First, some background information. In his article for CLO Magazine, Kevin D. Wilde (VP and Chief Learning Officer at General Mills) suggests that, when you have just a few minutes to win over the CEO, it is crucial to make your message “executive crisp”. Although Wilde’s strategies are useful, they fail to address two key ingredients in the art of persuasive speaking: visual and vocal impact.My response is supported by the findings of a Harvard Business School study: only seven percent of the success of business speaking is based upon content. A full ninety-three percent of the impact that business speakers make is based on their visual and vocal impact: how they deliver their message to build belief within the listener.The vocal component of your presentation is crucial. Be sure that your vocal “performance” supports the value of your ideas:1. Vary your pace: when you begin, speak slowly; when you come to information that is less important, increase your pace; when you come to your most important points, pause and then slow down.2. Vary your pitch, and be sure to end your statements with a pitch glide downward (not upward, as we do when asking a question).3. Whenever possible, rehearse what you are going to say by glancing down briefly at note cards. Internalize your content; don’t memorize it. Pick a spot on the wall to direct your eyes during rehearsal, and never practice with a mirror (it will distract you from your message and from the audience you should have in your mind, and it will keep you focused on how you look — a poor strategy).No matter how many minutes upper management can spare, your best content will have persuasive power only when your visual and vocal performance convey your own conviction, poise, and passion.
