Jay, a senior executive attending a workshop:
“Does it work when I do this?”
(He’s striding across the room purposefully while speaking.)
Me :
“Do it again. This time watch your audience. Their faces will tell you whether it’s working.”
Jay does it again:
“They look unimpressed. Kind of bored, actually.”
Me:
“Then obviously it’s not key to your success.”
If you’ve ever taken presentation skills training or gotten coached, you know most presentation coaching focuses on the presenter.
My work focuses on the audience. If you want to slap a fancy label on it you could call it “Audience-Centered”, but that sounds clinical. It doesn’t capture the magnitude of impact this shift creates. It certainly doesn’t capture the exhilarating energy you create for the audience.
Here’s the simplicity of it: when I’m coaching you, I glance at you from time to time, but closely watch your audience.
I watch to see if you can make a transformation in the audience.
I’ve watched thousands of audiences. I know how to read them.
I look to see whether you’ve captured your audience, whether their minds have gone silent and they’ve become immersed in what you’re saying. I measure how much they’re nodding. I can see whether they’re connecting with what you’re saying, with you. Whether your message is landing. Whether it is compelling. What’s their emotion? How do they feel about what you’re saying? About you? I want to know everything.
I can see on their faces and their body language, and especially in their eyes, what they’re thinking. I can see what decisions they’re making. If you’re asking for buy-in or support, I can tell you their decision long before they verbalize it.
There’s no sugar coating this. And you don’t want to, you want the straight truth.
I watch the audience. And that’s what you should be doing. When you get good at it, you will see what I see.
Observation equals knowledge. Knowledge gives you intelligence and the means to be creative. Waiting until the end to get feedback is the sign of an amateur, not a professional. That feedback is always too late to do any good, and it’s incomplete.
Closely observe your audience as you speak and you won’t need feedback. You’ll have seen it all for yourself.
Your entire evaluation of your presentation will change. And most importantly, it will change in the many moments when it’s most needed. You’ll make the nuanced adjustments moment to moment as you speak that will make you successful.
It takes precise and accurate observation if you want to gain the ability to reach your audience. To interest, to inspire, to motivate, to move them. Most importantly, to transform them.
It’s been startling to me as I’ve coached thousands of people that less than one in 10,000 ever closely observed their audience. They all wait until the end for feedback. Until they are taught to observe, presenters are but dimly aware the audience is there while they’re speaking. And because they lack precision of observation, they lack precision of impact.
They miss completely that they’re receiving feedback from the audience every second they’re up there, it continues without interruption. It’s in their faces. It starts a moment before you say “Hello” and continues in a stream throughout. And that stream of observation is unfiltered and the surest predictor of your outcome.
A great presenter watches their audience like a hawk. And they get to a point where they’ve watched so many, and developed such observational precision, they can perceive them blindfolded, and can even do it when the lights are blinding them or they’re virtual. They’re tuned into the audience reaction as it’s happening.
Now you’re in a position to do what the truly great do: respond on a moment by moment basis, making the nuanced adjustments that give you successes moment by moment, and then ultimately. It’s the ultimate in awareness for a public speaker. It’s a high-level skill and can be developed.
When you develop this skill, and you learn how to respond to what you see, you completely transform the audience, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling, what they decide. The incredible energy and support you create is exhilarating.
We named our program Transforming Your Presentation Skills so that prospective clients would know what it’s about. A better name might be “Transforming Your Audience”, because that’s what you’re actually learning to do.
Start with observation.
Be the cause!