I have made many friends in Toastmasters. One of these friends is looking to become a professional speaker. She wants to speak on topics that are part self-help, part motivational and part therapy. She has great passion for what she talks about and, with a bit of polishing, could be a great professional speaker. She came to Toastmasters to polish her skills. She uses language that some may object to and she has a poor sense of time.
She currently refuses to allow me to evaluate her speeches.
Why? I am too hard on her. The last time I evaluated her I told her she had not followed the directions in the manual. She took offense because she wanted to give the speech she gave and she just made it to fit the speech. Why was I adamant on my feedback? I feel that, as a professional speaker, she will be asked to speak on specific topics. If she ignores instruction then it may reflect poorly on her as a speaker.
I now have to bite my tongue about feedback, but I am about to share some more with her. She wants to be motivational, but she only seems to come off as pushy. Here are two examples:
1- She is a huge Twilight fan (the vampire romance series). She wants to share how much she enjoys the series by convincing others to read it. At a recent social function she showed so much passion that she almost had them ready to read the books until someone disagreed with her. She went on about how they were great literature and so well written. The dissenter felt this was not true at all. The dissenter felt they were poorly written, but were addictive none the less. Basically, this person agreed with her main point, but disagreed with the supportive evidence. She proceeded to yell her point and speak over the dissenter.
2- She has noticed this Susan Boyle woman who has caught everyone's attention for her beautiful voice. At a post TM, impromptu ice cream social, she tried to convince some of us to get online and watch her sing. Again she talked with passion about this woman's voice and how it made her feel. When someone commented that they just didn't care, my friend responded by insisting repeatedly that Susan Boyle's voice needed to be heard. Complete with raised voice and jabbing, pointing finger.
How did my friend fail at motivating people to read Twilight or to watch a video of Susan Boyle? She crossed a very thin line between motivational and pushy. She refused to allow people their own opinions. She shouted over one person who disagreed with her. She repeated one point over and over. She jabbed her pointed her finger at a person. She came off, in both cases, as fanatical rather than passionate about her subject.
What could she have done differently? In the first case, she could have validated the other opinion and pushed that they both agreed Twilight was an enjoyable read. She could have toned down the sense of authority and appealed to others who may not be looking for great literature. She could have simply lowered her voice and let the other person speak. In the second case, she could have accepted that the other person didn't care about Susan Boyle. There were other people listening who may have cared. She could have focused on them instead.
Motivational speakers are going to have to deal with hecklers, the bored, those who have a different opinion and so on. You need to learn how to deal with them (or ignore them) and keep the right frame of mind. You may have to learn how to deflect them without loosing your authority.
What advice would you give my friend if you had the chance?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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2 comments:
Well-written, thoughtful discussion. I have a few reflections.
Sara's friend refuses to let Sara evaluate her speeches
My perspective on evaluation is that it is primarily for the benefit of the evaluator: it helps one to become a better listener, to think carefully about the speech assignment and how well the speaker fulfilled it, and how to frame these reflections in a short speech. Everyone should evaluate every speech they hear.
However, the extent to which my evaluation is of benefit to you (as speaker) is a separate question. It all depends on what I choose to say in my evaluation. Here, the guiding principle is this: what you hear from me must be such as to leave you enthusiastically looking forward to giving further speeches. Any respect in which I wish to convince you to improve your speech (i.e., to change) must be a matter of persuasive speech on my part—a challenging task.
The speaker and evaluator have a compact, and it must be a mutually agreed upon one; otherwise it will not work.
I recently had the experience of giving an evaluation of a speech (a speech from one of the advanced manuals) where the speaker clearly did not cast the speech in the terms the manual asked. In my evaluation, I explained the discrepancy, and encouraged the speaker to bear it in mind. It is not clear that he will change his ways, but whatever he does, he is definitely in the driver's seat, not me. Afterwards the meeting, he candidly remarked that, yes, he really did not cast his speech in the terms the manual asked for. But he did not appear to be offended by my pointing this out in my verbal evaluation. So I was satisfied that I had been able to convey my message without exciting offended feelings on his part.
In such situations, I try to refrain from being more invested in the speaker's behavior than the speaker himself. This principle works for me.
Sara’s friend wants to become a professional motivational speaker, but...
I have a strong mistrust of the business of motivational speaking. The whole idea seems such a scam to me. Look at it from the standpoint of an audience member: after the speech, are they going to do something they would not have otherwise done? If so, fine. And they were capable of this beforehand. If not, then why were they attending? The sad truth is that they will probably get a small shot of feelgood, which will wear off in time.
It is rather like the many self-help books and diet books in the marketplace. If they were really effective, then a person would need to purchase only one. But many people act as if addicted to the self-help book. One is never enough.
Sara's friend does not appear to be motivated by the desire to help her listener. Instead, she appears to make her time onstage an opportunity to indulge herself at her audience's expense.
I, too, want to make a difference in the world, but gradually, I am finding the most effective way to connect to people is to take the time to listen to them, to learn to draw them out, to benefit from what they have to tell me. And to wait for the right time to express my own thoughts: the point where they will be heard and received.
Sara's friend could have been more successful at persuading her audienceBy carefully listening to how your friend is speaking, you have come up with some truly valuable ideas about what persuasion is all about. Not putting off the listener by insisting on your point of view. (To paraphrase an old saying, “Do you want to be right—or do you want to be persuasive?”) To focus on the persuadable and let be those who disagree. In case of disagreement, to focus on the area of agreement. To not get attached to your authority.
What advice would you give my friend?Short answer: none at all—until she asks me. And then I would think about what she is capable of hearing and receiving rather than thinking about what I am dying to tell her. For all I know, her ambition to become a motivational speaker may inevitably fail, just because she has personal issues that have to be resolved beforehand. But in the attempt, she may just find a pot of gold in an unexpected place.
Thanks for posting, Sara, and thanks for reading, too.
Is the speech for the speaker, or for the audience? Public speaking is not an ego thing. Sure, the speaker needs an emotional connection with the subject matter, but the speaker needs an emotional connection with the audience as well. When the speaking becomes about me as a speaker, I run the risk of alienating my audience. Probably not a good idea for someone trying to earn a living with speaking.
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