There is plenty of advice for organizing a successful public speaking event. But here are 15 rules for public speaking disaster.
By: An American Flaneur – A Stream of Consciousness
There are countless ways to screw-up a speaking engagement. But, I have 15 rules for public speaking disaster that are quite memorable – starting with Rule #1 – “Know your audience”. Rule #2 – “Know your subject”. Rule #3 – “Know yourself”. Follow along. You will begin to see what I mean.
I had accepted a speaking engagement that had been offered to a close acquaintance. We had traded speaking engagements before, and when I asked why she had declined her replied, ” It’s just not my market.” I shuld have listened more closely.
It was an early morning “keynote” address opening a four day meeting for utility district employees throughout California. I was warned by the organizer that the attendees were mostly field service and office managers, and she described them as having kind of a “hard hat” mentality.
I found the hard hat inference somewhat offensive, and dismissive of any appreciation they might have for more abstract ideas. Admittedly, it was not the audience I wanted, but I needed a venue to test drive a new leadership presentation that had been giving me some difficulty.
Most business communities are well connected these days so it is usually best to test new material in front of an audience that is not part of your peer group, or preferred audience. Additionally, the subject included some elements that I was uncertain about, but I remained confident that I could get through even the most unexpected of circumstances.
I would soon discover that you never ignore the first three rules if you want to avoid a public speaking disaster, unless you want your inflated sense of confidence and self- importance severely tested.
Rules #4 & #5 For Public Speaking Disaster
Rules for public speaking disaster #4 – “Never compromise the topic“. I arrived on the morning of the presentation after a particularly sleepless night resulting from stressful events the day before. My physical and emotional state was further aggravated by the officious greeting of the event organizer who had been very busy attempting to micro manage the “keynote” topic during the weeks preceding the event.
I had repeatedly made concessions to both the presentation, and content, leading up to the event. I would come to seriously regret this later. I probably would have cancelled due to her coarse management style, but I needed the test venue, and I had paid a videographer pursuant to a non-cancellation agreement.
As we were setting-up I began to experience that “dull” physical feeling that we are all familiar with after a restless night. The environment seemed to be slowing down and everyone around me became seemingly less animated. I began to sense the true extent of my fatigue as I sat and waited. I stared straight ahead while attempting to fight the recumbent effects of exhaustion. There was a rule in there, but I was too tired to remember it. Let’s call it rules for public speaking disaster #5. Moving on –
Rules #6, #7, #8 & #9 For Public Speaking Disaster
Presentations are often about changing or moving an audience’s belief system; beliefs about your ability to impact them, create change, meet a goal, reinforce leadership values or redeem a challenging situation.
But, before you get too far into your planning, make an inventory of your thoughts about what you want the members of your audience to think and believe differently when your presentation is over. Then make a plan to create the feeling you hope to leave behind. Address those goals effectively and success will generally follow. Rule#6 – Inventory audience response.
It’s also critical that you plan a presentation with the end in mind from the very beginning. Just like the old commercial for the American Express Card. Do you remember? “Don’t leave home without it!”. Many speakers depend on the momentum of their presentation as a guide to the outcome. How many speeches have you heard that sounded great, but failed to leave you with an actionable outcome. An idea, or plan, that you could easily execute from the moment you left your seat.
Most speakers are so consumed by the importance of their own ideas they ignore the need to provide the audience with a useful connection to their own lives. Your presentation must finish with a clearly defined “call to action” that is meaningful to your audience. This is Rule#7. And, in order for this to occur your message must be relevant. Rule #8.
I recently attended a presentation in which the speaker finished by asking the audience to buy his book. There was a serious problem, however. The title of the book was unrelated to the speaker’s message. This is a universal failure of many promotional presentations. Your message must conclude with a relevant call to action.
I opened my presentation with some biographical comments, then proceeded to the first element of the content which was a rather meaty commentary on the historical evolution of the meaning of words and how they have been changed by technology in the modern narrative of private and business discourse.
I was confidently on track and maintaining strong visual contact with my notes. However, each time I attempted to reestablish eye contact with the audience – Rule #9 I found it increasingly difficult to return to my notes. This was actually the first time I used a script for a speaking engagement, and I was finding it difficult to transition visual contact between my notes and the audience. I also began to realize that my message was not relevant (Rule#7), and that my call to action (Rule#8) was likely to be meaningless.
In the past I would simply draft a numerical outline for the audience which listed the topics and the order in which each would be introduced. I would then rely on my knowledge of the subject to guide the presentation referring to the outline only to keep the audience informed of where I was in the presentation. My failure to properly acknowledge Rules (#7) and (#8) as well as Rules (#1), (#2) and (#3) was now in play, and starting to break down quickly.
Rules #10, #11 & #12 For Public Speaking Disaster
Public speaking disaster Rule#10. No two presentations on the same subject were ever the same. I found the challenge of this kind of dynamic presentation style exiting for both me and the audience. It does, however, depend on a complete command of the subject and confidence in your ability to change the narrative on the fly in order to fit the mood and pace of the production.
I had read the script a few times before the presentation and believed I had the content solidly in hand. But, I clearly did not. Public speaking disaster Rule #10. When speaking from a script practice until it becomes second nature. Each time I returned to my script it took me longer to relocate my place on the page, and it became increasingly difficult to reestablish a comfortable rhythm. This was further aggravated by the fact that I was loosing my audience. I realized I had violated Rule #1 and #2, and that was only the beginning.
It was bound to happen. Overconfidence and failure to prepare properly had finally caught up with me. I completely lost my place. I didn’t know how to continue, or where to go. Suddenly, I felt like the weary traveler in the song by the Eagles, “Hotel California”.
The lyrics weave a tale about a tired nomadic traveler who checks into a luxury hotel which at first appears inviting and alluring, but turns into a ghostly and fractuous maze where . . . “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave”. Trapped in a haze of surrealism the traveler laments: “Last thing I remember . . . I was running for the door . . . I had to find the passage back . . . To the place I was before”.
According to most accounts the Hotel was intended as a metaphor for the Southern California music industry in the late ’70’s. Some alleged that “Hotel California” referred to a San Francisco hotel. Others rumoured that the Hotel was a mental hospital.
Some years ago I was having lunch with my wife and friends at the Hotel California in Todos Santos located on the Baja California Peninsula about two hours north of Cabo San Lucas. As the proprietor served my margarita I noticed imprinted on the napkin, “The original Hotel California ”. I asked him if it referred to the popular song. Pointing his index finger convincingly at the table he said, “Don Henley and Glenn Frey wrote the lyrics on a napkin just like that . . . . right here! They left that, too”, he said nodding towards a small framed object on the wall next to our table. On the way out I took a closer look. It was a cocktail napkin signed with the names of Henley and Frey.
At first I glanced casually between my typewritten draft and the computer monitor. Rule #11. Never use both. Read from a draft, or your computer. Use the other as a backup, but never integrate these two distinctly mediums into your presentation delivery.
I began to search frantically for “the place I was before”. I became hopelessly lost between my notes and the computer. Soon I was feeling the grip of real fear. It really has a definable hold on you. You feel your body compressing as the blood vessels constrict around your head and throat. The pain was beginning to swell in the pit of my stomach, followed by slight nausia. My heart began to pound; hands trembling as my eyes, by then, were darting aimlessly between the podium and the audience.
I felt faint, light headed and all the moisture was gone from my mouth. The zenith of physical and mental exhaustion was accompanied by the loss of any peripheral awareness, followed by increased tunnel vision lacking any visual clarity. My final thought was to feign illness. I needed a way out and was about to declare that I was becoming ill, when I had a distant flashback.
It was late on the evening of February 12, 2013 when United States Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivered the GOP response to President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address. I found it strangely reminiscent of the same response speech given by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal the evening of January 24, 2009.
As I watched the Senator’s speech I was reminded of Rule #12. It could be the most important. Know your venue. If you are not comfortable with the presentation setting, change it, or cancel. While knowledge of the location of your speech has only marginal benefits to you, the potential pitfalls of not knowing or failing to prepare your venue properly can have devastating effects on the event.
Rules #13 & #14 For Public Speaking Disaster
Public speaking disaster – Rule#13. Few people will ever notice that both Rubio and Jindal staged their presentation by standing in an open environment. This is a clear departure from virtually all the other respondents who have chosen a more formal presentation positioned behind a podium, or comfortably seated.
Some, wisely, have made arrangements for a legislative audience, or studio setting. By standing in an open environment each had elected an informal setting which requires more animated presentation skills to be demonstrated by the speaker.
One of the most difficult speaking challenges occurs in a static environment without an audience, or any live response. It’s exactly like speaking to a brick wall. We have all had the feeling of speaking to someone who is not listening. It is very disconcerting, at the least. This expression has a meaningful origin based on “the fourth wall” an imaginary, or physical, barrier which separates the speaker from the audience.
In theatre parlance, “breaking the fourth wall” refers to the actors ability to penetrate the physical barriers of the stage, or camera, in order to communicate directly with the invisible audience on the other side. It’s that illusive line that separates the presence of mind from the illusive reality of space and time. Think of it as the “event horizon” that exists between a speaker and the audience.
In general relativity an event horizon is defined as the two dimensional space time boundary beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. In layman’s terms, it is defined as “the point of no return”; i.e., the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. An event horizon is most commonly associated with black holes. Light emitted from beyond the event horizon, or captured inside the black hole, can never reach an outside observer.
Likewise, any object approaching the horizon from the observer’s side appears to slow down and never quite passes through the horizon, with its image becoming more and more obscure as time elapses. The traveling object, however, does in fact, in an altered state pass through the horizon to become, hypothetically, part of the other side.
It is the two dimensional feature of the “event horizon” that most resembles the theoretical “fourth wall”. An “event horizon” exists only in theory, without any physical boundaries. It cannot be seen, or proven, other than by observable experience. For this reason most experienced speakers will say that it is easier to speak to a large audience rather than a very small one.
Most speakers will admit that while speaking in a static and faceless environment, without observable boundaries, is the most difficult thing they have ever done because they have to trust, metaphorically, that there is an audience on the other side of the horizon. I will testify to that. I simply cannot speak to an anonymous audience. I should add, also, that this is the reason many good public speakers perform poorly in the increasingly popular webcast environment. And, many have trouble in the new Zoom protocol as well. Some preform in front of this “fourth wall” quite naturally, others may break down completely. Most stumble around somewhere in the middle.
Governor Jindal may have been trapped by this theoretical space-time “fourth wall”. The Governor began by walking to an abrupt stop in front of a television camera located in the narrow corridor of a building somewhere in the Louisiana State Capital. Complicated by the fact that his presentation sounded like a high school valedictorian speech, it was clear throughout that he was struggling to relate to the invisible national audience that was somewhere on the other side of the camera.
His presentation was seriously inept, and clearly lacking in thought or preparation for the dangerous limitations of the venue. Even his most ardent supporters could do little more than apologize for this otherwise talented statesman and speaker.
Senator Rubio generally managed to overcome the barriers of the “fourth wall” reasonably well, but suffered from the unexpected consequences of the chosen setting. Compressed against a walled facade the heat of the venue lighting began to produce the expected results as Rubio’s mouth dried up, and he began to wipe the saliva from his lips and the perspiration from his forehead.
Before long his speech was slurred, becoming an obvious distraction for both him and the television audience. He then took the infamous water break when he reached for a bottle of water just below the view of the camera. Unfortunately, all this could have been avoided if he used the water bottle as a speaking prop. Public speaking disaster- Rule #14. Always have a speaking prop available. You don’t have to use it, however you may find that this device facilitates the release of pent-up tension. This is perfectly acceptable for most any setting, and would have created a more intimate and confident air for Rubio’s presentation.
“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things . . . .
A moment lasts all for a second, but the memory lasts forever.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero –
Conclusion
Rule#14 – I was in the final stages of the “fight or flight” syndrome when suddenly my memory produced an image of the Senator reaching for the water bottle. It took just a millisecond, and my response was immediate. I asked for some water.
As I stepped away from the podium I felt a certain relief. It seemed to break the effect of the twisted physical cascade that had tied my body and mind into an emotional knot. I took my time unwinding the cap and sipping slowly, while confessing to the audience that I felt a little like Senator Rubio. The event had been so recent that they took a certain delight in reminiscing about the events of that evening which gave me more time to recover. As I drank from the bottle my eyes returned to the script. I was luckier than the less fortunate Hotel California traveler. “ I had returned to the place I was before.”
I picked up the topic, reengaged my audience and finished on a strong note. Following the presentation the videographer complemented me on a strong performance. He had worked with me a number of times during the years, and remarked that in his opinion it was one of the best. However, it did little to restore my confidence at that moment.
This was the first, and last, time that I had with this kind of critical performance breakdown, and I was very disappointed with the outcome. I continued to be bothered for several weeks, however when I received the video I was left with an entirely different impression. Because I had internalised the experience, both then and later, I was left to my conscious impression of what had happened.
Without the benefit of the videographer’s emotionally detached view of the event I would never have realized that what I was internalising was outside the experience of the audience which was limited to what they could see and hear. This was a great opportunity for me that I can pass on to anyone in the personal services industry. Rule #15. Make sure that you get a third party opinion, and video-record whenever possible.
Stress is unavoidable. It is an important natural reaction used by the body to prepare for action. Without stress we would be unable to perform at our best. Stress sharpens our senses, activates response and provides added strength to address the task ahead. Stress is an automatic reaction we rarely think about or plan in advance, and because the changes in your body are subconscious it is sometimes hard to understand and properly interpret the unexpected consequences of the physical and emotional response.
The best way to avoid stress is preparation. Start with Rules One, Two and Three. Know your audience, know your subject and know yourself. I doesn’t matter whether you are preparing a keynote address to be delivered in the largest public venue, a marketing presentation or just pitching a deal, you are likely to fall into an unexpected trap if you don’t prepare for disaster.