Posts Tagged ‘rehearsal; authenticity’

Building Credibility When You Speak: The Value of “Acting Objectives”

Sunday, May 31st, 2015

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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!

 

Your Speaking Space: Become Adaptable the Way Actors Do

Monday, October 20th, 2014

In my last blog, I provided two strategies for successful business speaking that are rooted in theater techniques that I used while I was rehearsing and performing the role of Amanda in The Glass Menagerie this past summer.

Here is another technique you can use in business to enhance your confidence when you are about to make a presentation:  know your venue and become adaptable to the space, so that you can speak comfortably in a range of situations.

Our set for The Glass Menagerie depicted a tenement apartment in St. Louis during the late 1930’s.  Right before one performance, the stagehands had placed a heavy chair in the wrong spot on stage.  I had been directed to sit on the arm of the chair all the way stage right, at an angle facing away from my scene partner.  With the chair in its incorrect spot, my sitting on the chair that way would block half the audience from any view of the action.  I had previously thought of various other options for my stage movement, so I was able to improvise a solution during that performance.  Under the new circumstances, I stood in the stage area far right of the chair, to open up the view for whole audience.

Business speakers, too, should be ready to improvise physically when necessary.

  • Whether your business presentation or conversation takes place in an office, conference room, boardroom, or convention hall, visit the space in advance whenever possible.
  • Notice what is in the space and how it might help or hinder your ability to communicate.  Request what you do want and do not want to be “in your space”.  Then, assume that the space may not be just as you wish, and look for ways to improvise, if necessary.  Determine Choice B and Choice C for where you will be and where you will move, so that you can be ready to adapt.
  • During your advance visit, do a brief “walk-through” or “sit-through” of your talk.  Experiment with a variety of other spots for you to stand, sit, or move.  This will help you improvise gracefully (and give your audience a full experience) whenever you face challenges with the physical setup of the room.

Preparing for uncertainty in this way will give you a wonderful sense of security and the confidence that your message will have impact for your audience, even when your venue is not ideal!

 

Rehearse Your Elevator Speech, Part 2; Additional Guidelines for the “Endowment” Technique

Sunday, February 2nd, 2014

Today, I’ll share more about how you can project spontaneity and authenticity in your elevator speech by rehearsing with the actor’s technique called “Endowment”.  Here is a summary of the steps:

Step 1:  Choose a person from your real life in who has qualities that help you feel liked, trusted, and respected when you speak with him or her.  Step 2:  Choose a spot to place your focus, and imagine your business listener, right there in front of you.   Step 3:  Endow your imaginary listener with these same qualities that help you feel liked, trusted, and respected.  As you say your elevator speech aloud, speak AS IF you were in conversation with the person from your life. 

Here are some additional guidelines for the Endowment process.

1.  It’s very important to be flooded with positive feelings as you rehearse this, so choosing the “right” person to feed your imagination is key.  Experiment with the technique of Endowment by imagining various people from your life, in order to discover which one person most effectively triggers your expression of warmth and relaxation when you are speaking.

2.  Never tell anyone the identity of the person you have chosen to “use” for this process.  Keeping it a secret will increase the power that the Endowment technique will have on your demeanor and delivery.  

3.  The technique of endowment may be challenging at first, so rehearse aloud as often as possible.  Over time, rehearsal of the endowment process will help you focus your mind in a very useful way.  It will help you create an emotional environment for yourself:   to project authenticity and spontaneity when you’re networking and meeting with prospects and clients.

Using the Endowment technique has a secondary benefitit will keep your mind so focused on the task at hand, that you’ll have very little emotional availability to be nervous or self-conscious.

This is a way to use rehearsal strategically:  it will prepare your for a spontaneous and authentic presentation of yourself and your business message.

Be Conversational and Authentic: Rehearse Your Elevator Speech

Tuesday, December 24th, 2013

Here is a strategy to help you rehearse the delivery of your elevator speech, to generate interest and begin conversations that lead to sales.

Rehearsal is very important for business speakers, just as it is for actors. Many people mistakenly believe that rehearsing makes you sound “canned” or phony. If that’s what happens when you rehearse, you need strategies for effective rehearsal.

When actors are speaking lines, their job is to make it sound as if they’re making it all up – right there on the spot. So, rehearsal is the preparation to appear completely spontaneous, conversational, and authentic.

Here is a very useful strategy that actors use to rehearse. It’s called “endowment. The task is to “endow” your listeners with qualities that will help you speak with them the way you speak with a friend in conversation.

Rehearse with the following three steps:

Step 1: Think of a person from your own life (past, present; male, female; any age) in whose presence you feel cared for, trusted, and respected.

Step 2: Use the power of imagination before you begin. Choose a spot on the wall to place your focus. In your mind’s eye, “see” that person, right there in front of you.

Step 3: Use what actors call the “magic if”. As you say your elevator speech aloud, speak as if you were in conversation with that person. Take the time to connect with your positive feelings about him or her and allow this emotional connection to impact your tone and demeanor.

The more often you rehearse with the technique of endowment, the easier it will be for you to appear conversational – with spontaneity and authenticity.

Follow these steps, and you will be on your way to delivering your elevator speech in a way that generates interest and begin conversations that lead to sales.