Facing Your Enemy

Well ...

One thing we haven’t discussed here is the belligerent, hostile, or grandstanding audience. You know, the audience you are compelled to present to, but the same one that’s also poised and ready to take you down?!? Ugh, no fun.

Aside from being astutely aware of whether the Q&A section of your presentation has turned into an opportunity for members of your audience to make their own speeches (ahem, grandstanding!), I’d like to encourage you to get in touch with and remember these core principles of a leader’s voice:

Be brief. No one has less time, patience, and tolerance than an unfriendly audience, or an audience waiting for their turn to pounce. At least win their respect – and possibly their support? – by being crisp, clear, and to the point. It’s much easier to get annoyed with a rambler than with someone who is succinct.

Be transparent. If you have to share bad or controversial news with an audience, be open about it. Tell them right upfront that this may be hard, or that not everyone will agree, but that you’re hoping at least they’ll be more informed. If there’s an element of discomfort and you’re the messenger, call it out; don’t try to downplay it or hope that it will go away on its own.

Be gracious. Despite the sometimes overwhelming temptation to push back with a corresponding level of hostility or even belligerent defensiveness, don’t … nothing good can come from that. Stay in your most gracious self.  The dictionary definition of gracious is: courteous, kind, pleasant. Try to remain gracious, it’s the high road, you’ll be the bigger person.

Be sincere. Honest, yes, of course. But also sincere as a professional, sincere in your commitment and dedication to your work or your professional standards. People may not like what you have to say, but if you are sincere in your intentions to do right or do well, it can help a lot.

Leave the coat of armor at home, try brevity, transparency, graciousness, and sincerity!

Raise Your Hands!

Did you know that using hand gestures gets your audience to pay attention better and also increases their ability to retain what they are hearing? Your hands provide the punctuation for your mouth. So interesting and so the opposite of what most speakers think is okay.

Here are some hand gesture tips:

Rubbing your palms together indicates the expectation of something positive.

Hands clenched together (with interlocking fingers) can indicate frustration, so be careful with that!

Making a steeple with your hands, fingers lightly pressed against each other, can look like thoughtfulness ... or it can be read as superiority, so be forewarned.

Holding up your hand with the thumb and index finger together, with the other fingers resting in the palm, is used for emphasis by politicians and others engaging in persuasion (but be careful not to rub the thumb and index finger together, as that begins to suggest money and not in a positive way!).

Hands clasped behind the back have an unfriendly authoritarian feel; they're not unlike crossed arms in terms of unfriendliness and should probably be avoided.

Arms open, palms open, arms and hands gesturing upward and toward the audience are all positive and engaging.

Height matters when it comes to your moving parts; keep your arms and hands at chest level or below to avoid blocking your face or being overly distracting.

In any case, big thumbs up on talking with your hands!

**Oh, and as a note, thumbs up or down are very powerful; they have been since Roman times when thumbs up or down meant life or death to a gladiator! Just sayin' ...

Dumb it Down

You've been asked to speak at an event. Or it's on your shoulders to make a big presentation for your company. You want to seem smart, you want to appear to be savvy and sophisticated, you want to make a good impression.

If that's the case, I have some great advice for you: play dumb. Yup, I think you should play dumb.

You know those high-brow talks you've heard with big picture concepts and even bigger vocabulary words? And you know those super fancy slides you've seen people present with, the ones that move and change and grow before your very eyes? Well, forget about all of it. More often than not, when the speaker and the visuals try to go too big, the audience takeaway is "huh?!"

Go for simplicity. Be willing to do the hard work for your audience. Make it simple for them, so they can understand and remember. Dumb it down. Even the most complex ideas, projects or transactions can be made simple. Use basic everyday words, think of metaphors or analogies that can help illustrate, make your sentences short and crisp, keep visuals clean and clear.

If you can simplify for your audience – and make your ideas accessible, understandable and memorable – then you're definitely the smartest person in the room!