The SPICE Formula of Sensational Speaking
E Is For “Empathy”
When I was twenty-five years old,
I was working with a major training organization and was
scheduled to speak at a local service club.
When I arrived at the auditorium,
I was stunned as I walked into the room and looked
around at the audience. The entire audience was
comprised of males that looked quite old.
The plan was to have a dinner
before I was scheduled to take the stage, so I sat at
the head table with my host and some delegates. During
the dinner, I asked my host what the average age of the
audience members was, and he told me the average age was
84. Now, that wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it
weren’t for the topic I had prepared for my talk: “GOAL
SETTING!”
Throughout the dinner, I was
trying to come up with ideas for a talk that would be
relevant to this group of highly distinguished,
profoundly experienced and very old men. I could come up
with nothing, so I knew I had to go with my originally
prepared plan and speak about goal setting.
After dinner, my host stepped up
to the podium and, reading the introduction I had
provided him, he brought me to the stage with “…and now,
here to speak to us about setting and achieving goals,
please welcome Steve Lowell.” With those words, and to
frail applause, I stepped up to the podium and began by
asking, “By a show of hands, how many of you have some
clearly defined goals for your life?”
As soon as I finished asking the
question, I heard someone in the front row reply, “My
goal is to not die before the end of this presentation!”
I’ve never spoken in a situation
with less of a connection to my audience than on that
evening. In retrospect, the problem is pretty obvious. I
had no idea who my audience was before I got there,
therefore, I wasn’t able to empathize with them in order
to address their interests or stay at their level and
pace.
As a speaker, you need to
understand the mindset and temperament of your audience
in order to speak with them and not at them. This
understanding is called empathy, the ability to be
conscious of, and have compassion for, the emotional and
intellectual state of your audience.
With empathy for your audience,
you can tailor your delivery, and sometimes even your
content, to resonate with your audience so they can
relate to you as a speaker. In return, they empathize
with you.
As you’re speaking, be aware of
the dominant posture of your audience. There’s valuable
information being shared with you from your audience,
and recognizing that information can help guide you into
giving the best presentation you can.
In his book, Winning Body
Language, Mark Bowden describes eight levels of
“tension” that really define the different mental,
physical and emotional postures we humans can take. The
eight levels of tension are: No Tension, Relaxed,
Neutral, Deliberate, Alert, Agitated, Entranced and
Total Tension.
For our purposes in this book, we
need not dissect each level of tension. Suffice it to
say that, as a speaker, as you recognize the dominant
mental, physical and emotional posture of your audience,
you can first match it, in order to gain their trust,
and then adjust your tension state as you progress, in
order to lead your audience into whatever new state you
wish.
Of course, it’s impossible to
adjust to everyone’s individual level, but you can get a
feel for the overall mood of the room, and use your
discernment to adjust to it. Watch for body language
indicators, such as facial expression, nodding or
shaking heads, yawning, laughing, leaning forward,
slouching, and the crossing of the arms or the checking
of cell phones.
These signals help you estimate
the dominant posture (tension state) of your audience,
and let you adjust your delivery accordingly, in order
to form a closer bond.
Recently, I had an early morning
speaking engagement with a Chamber of Commerce group
near Ottawa, Canada. During the breakfast, before I was
scheduled to speak, I tried to get a feel for the
dominant posture in the room. I watched the people
carefully, spoke to some individually, and also listened
to conversations around me, as I tried to get a read on
the dominant tension state.
I did this because I knew I was
going to be the first speaker, and as the first speaker,
part of my job is to make the audience feel like they’re
glad they came, and also to entice them to stick around
for the rest of the morning.
As I began my presentation, I
could tell within a very short time that I had misread
the group’s tension state. My energy level on the stage
was too high for them to form that solid bond with me
right off the bat. There were no nodding heads, just a
lot of blank stares. Most audience members were sitting
back in their chairs, some slouching, some with their
arms crossed. Many of them were looking straight at me
in a semi-catatonic trance.
In reading these signs from my
audience, I immediately changed my delivery. I slowed my
pace, softened my voice and tempered my movements just a
little, all in order to match the dominant posture of
the room. I asked a few rhetorical questions to see if I
could get some of them nodding their heads, and I made
deliberate eye contact with as many people as I could,
all the while toning down my gesturing to ensure that my
physicality on the stage more closely matched their
physicality, giving us the ability to fall in sync with
each other from an energy standpoint.
Before long, I could see many of
them tilting their heads just slightly showing me an
ear, which told me that they we listening. I noticed
that many of them moved forward in their seats, and some
began taking notes. After a few minutes, I had earned
their trust and attention, and I was able to then
gradually elevate my energy and bring them with me. This
is often referred to as “pacing and leading.”
Without that empathy for my
audience, I would never have captured their attention
and brought them on the journey I wanted to lead them
on.
So, what’s the lesson? Know who
your audience is, and be aware of their feedback so you
can match their dominant posture and then lead them to
your desired tension state. |