Public speaking: the magic is in the middle

For most of us, learning to communicate effectively with the spoken word is a much longer process than learning to write effectively.

Part of the reason for this is that the most effective communicators learn to adapt to, and finally resonate with, the particular audience they are speaking to at the particular time they are speaking. Being this adaptable and responsive to your audience can take years to learn because no two audiences are alike, and in any two presentations you aren’t the same person, either. This makes public speaking something you have to do over and over in order to master it.

So how do you actually respond to your audience?

There are lots of ways. You might pick up the tempo a little, or slow it down. You might interject stories or humor, or stick to the facts so you can get to a demonstration. You might use pictures with one audience, and text only with another. By and large your message will stays the same—after all, you’ve been asked to speak about some specific thing—while your delivery changes.

How do you know what your audience needs?

The key to the whole mystery is that you have to pay attention to your audience. At every moment every member of your audience is sending clues about their response to you and your topic out like a radio transmission tower. You just have to tune yourself to the right frequency and start paying attention.

1. Scan the audience

Scan the audience while you talk, and ask yourself some of these questions: are most people following me? Are most people paying attention? Am I getting questions that indicate a wide divergence between my message and their understanding?

For small and medium audiences, such as you would find in a team meeting or technical presentation, you’ll be able to canvas all the participants manageably, to make sure you are reaching everyone.

For large audiences, you won’t be able to keep track of everyone and still be coherent enough to present your message. What I do in these situations is pay more attention to the kinds of questions being asked and what they reveal about the audience’s understanding.

2. Pick canaries

I also pick four or five “canaries” to help me gauge the audience’s response to my message. I keep my eye on these canaries throughout my talk, and take my cues from their nods of assent or looks of puzzled confusion. This approach isn’t always effective, especially if you are in an audience of strangers and have to pick your canaries at random, but it’s better than nothing.

3. You can try asking questions, but…

Some people attempt to connect to their audiences and keep tabs on how effectively they are receiving the message by asking questions of their audience throughout their talk.

I have rarely seen this be effective. The problem is that no one wants to look stupid in public, and non-threatening questions that reveal whether or not you understand the topic being presented are pretty tough to come up with.

Your questions will most often be greeted with blank stares, you’ll try to recover from the silence, and you’ll have a dent in your rhythm that will probably reduce your confidence for the next several minutes.