Speaking your way to Success – 5

Referring to one of my favorite authors Stephen R. Covey and his epic book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” once again, one of the seven habits he mentioned was “First seek to understand- then be understood.” Speaking is essentially a communication exercise with a specific objective. Where the speaker is the sender of the message and audience is receiver, in any communication, responsibility to communicate lies solely with the speaker. An oft heard statement is “You don’t understand”, or “Please try to understand” is a misplaced statement, the speaker should rather tell himself that “Let me understand how can I make the person understand my point of view” or “I am not understanding how can I communicate right with the person”.

 Knowing your audience facilitates this process. Because when you know your audience, understand them, then you can make them understand in a manner in which they would be able to receive the entire communication in the manner in which you wish it to be communicated. It is extremely difficult to build a strong rapport with an audience until you get on their same wavelength.

There are many factors that drive human behavior but in most of the audiences following five desires act as major drivers.

1.      The desire to know – What can I learn as a result of attending this presentation? How will it add value to my education?

2.      The desire for wealth – Will the information I receive produce financial benefits either now or in the future? Is it a wise investment of my time?

3.      The desire to change – Can this knowledge help me escape an unwanted behavior pattern? Will it open doors for personal transformation.

4.      The desire to acquire skill – Will I become competent or proficient in my present job or at a new task?

5.      The desire for happiness – Is the information I learn personally fulfilling? Will it increase my well-being?

Best way to reach out to the audience is rapport building through pre-talk, giving them a brief about the topic that you are speaking on, asking the right questions like, asking some of them what do they expect from the speech or lecture. If it is a diverse audience, asking questions like how many of you are doctors, or students, or professionals or housewives, etc. This will give you an idea about the profile of the audience. More you are aware about the audience, better are chances of your communication reaching out to them, because you could design it accordingly with suitable anecdotes, stories, examples. The famous management thinker, writer and speaker Peter Drucker said “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and to ask a few question” Jo Robbins says “Knowledge is power and it comes from asking questions – tons of them”.

  

Requesting for input from the audience before your lecture could be very powerful tool, provided you are in command of the subject, you may ask them what would you like me to discuss, what is your expectation etc. The positive side is that you have the audience which is looking forward to listen to you, but the negative side could be that if they tell you something you are not prepared for than you can create an awkward situation for you, unless you tactfully bring their attention to the topic that you have prepared.

 It is always a good idea to ask the person who is organizing your presentation or lecture, what is the audience profile, what is their average education level, age level, gender mix, cultural background, subject competency and profession, more such inputs you have, more would be chances of you designing a better presentation suiting the need of the audience.

  

If you are going to speak in an organization on some professional or technical topic then you need to know

What is the makeup of the audience? Top level executives? Middle level managers? New employees?

  

What current challenges and problems facing the organization need to be addressed in your lecture.

Are there any industry buzzword, language, which is important and you should know it.

Is your audience attending voluntarily or made to attend compulsorily.

Are there anything that you should avoid, like in cross cultural audience, one should avoid reginal, language or religion specific remark, jokes or comments. And finally the most important point mentioned in the previous post – What is the takeaway from my lecture. Remember Begin with end in mind.

It’s also very important to be in control of your environment as well, and arriving early at the venue always helps because then the chances of you encountering surprises would be minimum. If you arrive early you can check the microphone, LCD projector, Laptop, presentation etc beforehand and if there is any problem you can device an alternative action plan and be ready with it when the time comes, rather than getting surprised when challenges crop up suddenly. As already mentioned in my previous post on the subject, an audience would like to be led by a person who is in control and command and is worthy to lead.