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Contents
PART I The Six Principles 7
1 Trust 9
2 Knowledge 15
3 Clarity 19
4 Humor 23
5 Interaction 29
6 Passion 37
PART II The Stevie Ray’s Method 39
7 Solid Platform 41
8 Sharpen Your Sword 63
9 Multi-Focus Delivery 81
10 Convince Me 87
11 Bring It to Life 111
12 Command the Listener 153
13 Non-Human Helpers 171
14 Over-the-Top Tips 187
CHAPTER 1
Trust
Most speakers don’t think about the issue of trust when delivering a presentation. After all, you have been asked to deliver a speech to impart information or entertain an audience. You’ve done your homework and are ready to give the audience the benefit of your knowledge and talent. What’s not to trust? There are obvious cases where trust of the speaker is at issue—political speeches, sales pitches, or staff meetings. These deal more with the art of persuasion, which we will cover later in the book. The real issue of trust deals with the overall feeling the audience has about the speaker. An audience trusts someone who has command of the room. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned as a speaker is that an audience member will only feel one of two emotions: comfort or nervousness. If an audience feels comfortable they will believe you, laugh with you, and trust you. They will participate, interact, and agree. If, however, they feel nervous, you get none of the above. Did you ever watch a performance or play in which the actors didn’t seem completely at ease onstage? It was difficult to enjoy the show because you never knew when something would happen that could throw the actors off their game. Every glitch in the show caused your stomach to tighten. On the other hand, when you have seen actors who had command of the stage, you trusted them to take care of you. You knew that if any problems arose (as they always do), it wouldn’t matter because the actors would make sure you didn’t have to worry, they would take care of everything. Trust from your audience comes from your mastery of the stage, assuring them they can relax. Trust is accomplished when you: - Trust yourself - Trust your audience - Trust your message
Trust Yourself The first of the three “don’t” is obvious. If you don’t like speaking to a group and you dwell on that fact, you lose trust in yourself. Self-talk is powerful. You can rehearse a technique all you want, but if you tell yourself you are going to fail, you will fail. This habit is easier to combat than you might think. All you have to do is tell yourself you will do great. Before you chuckle and dismiss this advice as just another self-affirmation gimmick, remember that psychologists have long proven that whatever you tell yourself you can do, you will do, whether it is good for you or bad. Psychologists call this, “psychological consistency.” In order for people to maintain sanity, our behavior must be consistent with our thinking. If we tell ourselves we are poor in sports we will perform poorly in sports. The payoff of being correct about ourselves is bigger than the loss of not being able to play on the team. The first step to being a good speaker is to tell yourself you are a great speaker. If this seems silly, don’t tell anyone else you are doing it, but do it anyway. If you tell yourself often enough that you are good at speaking, psychological consistency will win out and you will excel in spite of previous doubts.
Trust Your Audience I have been called upon to speak to hundreds of different types of groups representing a variety of professions. It stands to reason that every now and then I would walk into a room and think, “I didn’t know it was going to be a bunch of [insert profession]. I don’t know anything about these people. I’m going to bomb!” Not trusting yourself is often a result of not trusting the audience. Whenever I find myself second-guessing my abilities, my doubt can be traced back to a lack of trust of the audience. “They are too uptight.” “This group won’t get it.” “What a stuffy crowd.” All these thoughts flash through my head, and the funny thing is, I am usually wrong. I was once asked to speak to a group of public works employees about communication and working as a team. When I arrived, I discovered that this was the first time that the city administrators had ever held an all-employee meeting. Here I was, standing in front of 300 big burly guys in t-shirts and fishing caps who came to work every day to drive dump trucks, clean sewers, paint road signs, and repair street lights. I was pretty sure they didn’t say to themselves, “Someday I want to be a truck driver so I can learn communication and teambuilding skills.” I stepped up to the stage thinking, “This is going to be a long two hours.” I didn’t trust my audience. I didn’t realize that, with my attitude, there was no way I could expect them to perform any better than my narrow view allowed. At it turned out, they loved what I had to say and we had a blast. In fact, I now have a standing invitation to drive a street plow during the next big snow storm. And being a Minnesotan, that’s a big deal. The trouble was, I didn’t trust that audience until they proved themselves to me. I forgot to trust them right out of the gate, which is important for every speaker. The people sitting in the chairs are “your” audience and not “the” audience, because the group is yours. You can take them anywhere you wish. If you trust them, they will follow you anywhere. If you don’t, you go alone.
Trust Your Message I am amazed at how many corporations decide on a new initiative or procedure that they know will upset the employees, and then send a member of management out to deliver the message. “Go get buy-in on this,” is the command. If more CEOs had to deliver bad news themselves they would probably think twice about their new initiatives in the first place. Be that as it may, we have all been in a position of delivering news that we are not in favor of. If we don’t fully agree with what we are saying, we have put ourselves in the position of not trusting our message. And, just like the audience is “your” audience, the message is “your” message, even if you didn’t have a hand in creating it. Don’t take the easy way out and say, “Look guys, I don’t like this any more that you, but…” If you are delivering the message, it is yours. You owe it to your audience to get behind the idea. Adding a disclaimer that the message isn’t yours doesn’t protect you from blame. Far from it; you look even more dubious. Making the message yours gives you credibility and trust.
Once you have examined your presentation, your audience, and yourself, and eliminated any issues of trust, you can move on to the next principle: Knowledge.
CHAPTER 10
Convince Me
The phrase “the art of persuasion” may not be completely accurate. Art involves aesthetics, self-expression, and interpretation, qualities which certainly could be used in persuasion, but convincing people to take action or behave in a certain manner is as much science as art. You may recall in Chapter Seven that audiences do not make decisions based on facts, they act based on emotions. This knowledge is used to great effect by the advertising industry. Advertising has the challenge of convincing the greatest number of people to take action, and to convince them in the shortest period of time. Advertisers are taught that people buy with emotion and justify with fact. If you were to poll all the men in America who own huge four-wheel drive pick-up trucks, you would find that they have no good reason for owning one. Very few of them are farmers or mechanics, they don’t haul grain or tow heavy equipment. So they have no factual basis for buying a truck; their decision to buy was not based on need. They didn’t even know that their lives were so horribly incomplete without a pick-up truck until a TV commercial told them. Picture this: a guy is watching TV and sees a commercial where some other guy powers a truck up a mountain of rocks. (On a closed course with professional driver. Do not attempt this at home.) His first reaction is, “I must own one of those.” His wife asks, “Why? We don’t have any mountains of rock in our suburban cul-de-sac.” Her foolish attempt at logic does not faze him. He knows that Armageddon could occur at any moment and there would be mountains of rock everywhere. He certainly doesn’t want to be the only guy on the block not able to drive over the rocks to get to his job at the cheese factory. Never mind that if Armageddon were to occur there would be very small demand for cheese. After he gets the truck, his friends will invariably ask him why he chose to buy it. He will certainly not tell them he acted out of pure emotion, “I bought this to satisfy my feelings of inadequacy.” No, he will pull out the facts. “It’s got a great warranty, good gas mileage, blah, blah, blah.” We almost always have to justify our decisions to others, which is why we need facts. However, we use the facts after the decision-making process, not during, which means that the science of persuasion should follow the same order, emotion followed by facts. Let’s see how you can use the science and art of emotion to your benefit.
Tell Your Story As we discussed earlier, the human brain is most efficient at pattern recognition and emotional connection. Stories are a very powerful tool for persuasion because they contain both of these qualities. Stories contain a series of events, (a pattern,) and they contain characters involved in interesting situations, (emotion). If you tell a story and connect it to the points in your speech you accomplish a number of goals, especially if the story is about your life:
You have probably noticed a theme in effective presentations: stories. If you have not looked at your presentation as an opportunity to tell a story, it’s time to rethink your presentation. Inserting stories into a presentation is a simple matter of looking at the salient points of your speech and remembering any situations you have found yourself in that illustrate the point. Providing a story gives instant proof that your points are valid, it is one thing to say something is true and quite another to say that you know it is true because it was proven by real-life experience. People usually give more weight to experience than “studies have shown.”
Trust We follow the direction of people we trust, so gaining trust is a key element in effective speaking. When polled, people consistently rate the most trusted professions in America as Doctors, Teachers, and Scientists. The three least trusted professions are Politicians, Lawyers, and Car Salesmen. It is interesting to note that we turn to all six of these professions because we need their service, and yet we inherently trust some and distrust others. The difference between them is not whether they are competent, we suspect highly qualified politicians just as easily as those newly elected. The greatest difference between those we trust and those we don’t is their perceived agenda. If your agenda appears to be to serve yourself, we don’t trust you. What teacher goes into the classroom with a self-serving agenda? No scientist really chose the profession to become rich and famous. Those of us who study the speaking profession, especially as it pertains to the skills of persuasion, learn many lessons from watching politicians. Whereas advertisers must get people to act given the shortest available time for persuasion, politicians must persuade the largest number of people while facing the greatest opposition. Being a Minnesotan I can personally attest to one of the greatest acts of persuasion by a politician, that of Jesse Ventura becoming Governor of Minnesota in 1999. Here was a former professional-wrestler-turned-actor running against Norm Coleman, then Mayor of St. Paul, and Hubert “Skip” Humphrey III, then Attorney General of the State of Minnesota. Other than being mayor of Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, Ventura had no real public equity as a politician. He also spent considerably less on his marketing campaign, yet Ventura won the election. He won in spite of the fact that the name Humphrey in Minnesota carries the same weight that Kennedy did in America in the ‘60s. Ventura won in spite of the fact that Norm Coleman was such an accomplished politician that he later went on to become a state senator. How Ventura won the confidence of the majority of voters is a fascinating lesson in gaining trust. The biggest issue at the time of the election was the surplus in the state budget. Yes, there was a time when states actually had more money than they were supposed to, a situation my household budget has yet to experience. The election debate largely centered on the three ways to handle the surplus: give the money back to the public in the form of a rebate, save the money for future needs, or spend it on social programs. During the debate, both Coleman and Humphrey spoke with politician-like eloquence and poise. They both had clear ideas of how to deal with the budget issue, but their speeches were so filled with rhetoric and facts that no one could really remember what they said. When Coleman and Humphrey were finished speaking it was Ventura’s turn to respond. He stood up, went to the podium and said, “If you go to a store and buy a shirt and they overcharge ya, they give your money back.” Then he sat down. The auditorium erupted with applause. Everyone was applauding, even those from the opposing parties. Coleman and Humphrey might as well have handed Jesse the keys to the Capitol right then. Audiences are so thirsty for someone with an absolute opinion and a clear manner of presenting it that we applaud people with whom we might not even agree, as was the case for Ventura during the debate. Trust is the key to persuasion, and it is gained through the heart, not the head. Ventura ran such a down-to-earth campaign that he went on to gain the highest approval rating of any sitting governor in Minnesota, even though he was easily the most controversial. Keep this in mind the next time you think that the environment of the presentation prevents you from being yourself. The only way to gain trust is to have a strong opinion and be genuine in presenting it.
Stevie’s Big Huge Mistake to Avoid Don’t let the audience, the event, or other speakers intimidate you into being anything other than your natural self.
A social psychologist and professor of psychology, Robert Cialdini, realized one day that he kept buying things he had no intention of buying. This told him that someone must be influencing his behavior, getting him to act in ways that he would not otherwise. Intrigued by this, he spent three years studying the science of influence. He and his research assistants conducted social experiments with unsuspecting subjects, and he personally participated in classes and training programs conducted by those he called, “Professional Influencers”: real estate agents, car salesmen, etc. Cialdini discovered that humans make decisions because of certain psychological triggers in the brain. When these triggers pop off we go into auto-pilot and, before we know it, we’ve bought a car. Cialdini calls these triggers the “click, whirr” of the brain, as if a mechanized toy has been set into motion. As he watched the techniques used by professional influencers, he detected similarities in all of their methods, no matter what they were selling. This allowed him to work backwards from the result—making the sale—to its psychological foundation. He was able to categorize all techniques of persuasion, whether intentional or not, into six “Weapons of Influence.”
Reciprocation. If I do something nice for you, you must return the favor, even if the thing I do for you is fairly insignificant. Cialdini tested this with a study where a research assistant sat in a room with an unknowing subject. As far as the subject knew, they were both waiting to be interviewed for a campus survey. At one point, the “plant” got up, left the room for a moment, and returned with two cans of soda. “The guy in charge said we could use the vending machine in the hall, so I got us a couple of Cokes.” Now that the research assistant did something nice for the subject, the test was to see how far the assistant could go in asking for a favor from the subject. How beholding would the subject feel because of a free can of Coke? To the surprise of the entire research team, the assistant was able to go so far as to get a ride to a friends house on the other side of town, far out of the way for the subject to drive. Further tests proved that the amount of reciprocation was not tied directly to the size of the initial favor. On a larger scale, Ethiopia provided thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia’s own problems of famine and civil war. Ethiopia was reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937, 48 years earlier! This explains why companies will spend tens of thousands of dollars mailing free samples to potential customers. I tested this theory at a speech I gave to a group of executives. I brought copies of my book about humor and, rather than pitch the book for sale after my presentation, I gave a free copy to every person in the room before I started. Not only did I get a rousing ovation at the end of my speech, but everyone bought books as gifts for friends and colleagues. I actually sold more books than by merely offering them for sale after my speech. Reciprocation has worked for me in other ways, like the host who, during my introduction, told the audience that I was previously booked for another speech that day, but rearranged my schedule just to be with them. Any chance you get to do something nice for an audience, either individually or as a group, will be paid back in more agreement, higher cooperation, and better evaluations. Of course, don’t be nice just to get something in return. Remember, your mother is always watching.
Commitment and Consistency. If people commit to achieving a goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment than if they had kept their goal to themselves. As we discussed in Chapter Seven, the three steps to changing behavior are Awareness, Commitment, and Practice. Because humans are social animals, we seek approval from the group. If we commit to doing something and fail to follow through, the potential disapproval from our peers is very damaging. When speakers hit the stage and start with, “Who here wants to increase sales?” They are not asking a silly question, they are establishing public commitment by getting everyone to raise their hand and agree to a common goal. Now the speaker can discuss his sales techniques with less push-back. Not only will the audience be more accepting of the material, they are more likely to follow through with the action steps provided by the speaker.
Social Proof. People will do things that they see other people are doing, even more so if the other people are similar in appearance and social background. For example, if one person stands on the street and looks up, only a few passersby may glance upward. When a number of people all stand looking up, in a very short time a small crowd will gather, all looking up. If the group looking up all looks the same, you will see others who look similar copying the behavior. This is our way of proving that we are part of “our own” group. The larger and more anonymous society gets, the more we seek ways to separate ourselves into smaller clubs. The larger the group that is performing an activity, however, the less similarity matters. After a certain critical mass, similarity takes a back seat to group mentality and everyone joins in. Speakers use social proof to their advantage by getting to know a few people in the audience before they take the stage. During their speech they can then drop lines like, “I was talking to your head foreman Chuck, and we both agreed that the biggest challenge you face is…” With good ol’ Chuck behind the message, the audience has social proof of its worth, and now the speaker is in the club.
Authority. People obey authority figures, sometimes even if the authority figure makes unreasonable requests or demands. History is full of examples where entire populations blindly obeyed orders that they later recognized were in direct opposition to their own feelings. This is why your introduction should contain biographical information as well as mentions of awards and achievements. You must be viewed as an authority on the subject in order to counteract any resistance to your message. A good speaker knows how to insert a little authority when needed. During a presentation I will occasionally say something like, “I learned how effective this technique is during a workshop last month for (name of big impressive company). They utilized it for…” Even though my comment seems to compliment the other company, by having worked with such a big outfit I now have the image of authority. The comment also tosses in a little Social Proof by relating how another organization used my techniques. Sneaky.
Liking. People are influenced by people that they like. Cialdini noted that Tupperware parties were the first form of viral marketing because people are more likely to buy something if they like the person selling to them. This is why attractive people can count on getting better job offers, more salary raises, and more agreement when they voice an opinion. Be sure to smile a lot and dress well when you give a presentation. Connect with the audience by mingling with them before the speech. Being liked is key to being a successful speaker. In fact, being liked often means you can deliver a message people don’t like, but still be viewed favorably by the audience.
Scarcity. Scarcity creates demand. If there ain’t a lot of it, we want more of it. And because of our emotional nature, the scarcity doesn’t even need to be real. For humans, what is perceived is real. In one study, a subject was given a jug full of cookies and asked to rate the taste and texture. When another jug was brought in, but with only a few cookies in it, those cookies were rated much higher, even though they were the same cookie. As the test continued, some subjects were given a jug full of cookies, but after tasting one the researcher removed the jug. Once the cookies were made unavailable, the taste and texture ratings greatly improved. In one final test, after the subject had selected one cookie, the researcher entered the room, took the jug and said, “I’m sorry, some of the other taste testers down the hall really want the rest of the cookies.” Not only was there scarcity, but it was because someone took them. This scenario produced the highest ratings of all. And remember, the scarcity wasn’t real, it was only perceived. The subject could go get his own cookies anytime he wanted. This explains why every TV commercial claims the item for sale is available for a “limited time only.” I have said to audiences, “I’m sorry I only have a couple of hours to spend with you. Another group has requested that I speak to them right after this.” You wouldn’t believe how attentive that audience is, and how often they ask, “Isn’t there a way you could stay just a little longer?”
What is their stance? An important factor of persuasion is to know the position of your audience before you speak. There are two ways to deliver your argument: you either state your conclusion and then follow it up with supporting evidence, or you present your evidence first and end with your conclusion. Which method you use will be determined by the position of the listener. If the audience is in agreement with you, you start with the conclusion and follow with supporting statements. If the audience is against your message you must reverse the order. Your audience being in agreement before you start is similar to a high school pep rally. The audience already knows what you are going to say so you might as well get to it. That’s why pep rallies and political rallies start with conclusion statements like “Our school is the best in the state, right?” Everyone screams, “Yeah.” This conclusion statement is followed by a series of supporting facts: “Because we work the hardest, right?” “Yeah!” “And we don’t take defeat lying down, right?” “Yeah!”
After the audience is built up to a fury, the rally master ends with the one good ending to any speech, a call to action. “So let’s get out there tonight in those football stands, stamp our feet, clap our hands, and show the world that we support the Rocket football team.” If the audience is already in agreement and you reverse the order and start by building your case, they will think, “We know this, get to the point.” Conversely, if the audience doesn’t agree with you and you start with the conclusion, you have just sealed your fate. Not only do you lose of the Weapon of Influence identified by Robert Cialdini—Social Proof—you also look weak when you don’t get a supportive, “Yeah” from the audience. If you have a contrary audience, you must get them thinking in the right direction before hitting them with the conclusion. For example, if I wanted a friend to mow my lawn and I started with the conclusion, “I would like you to mow my lawn, now here is why…” I could talk until I was blue in the face and my friend would be thinking, “Go ahead and talk. There is no way I am mowing your lawn.” Instead I must get my friend moving in my direction. “You’ve been wanting to get outside lately haven’t you?” “Yes, I guess so.” “And I heard you mention that you would like to get more exercise. Is that right?” “That’s right.” “And I have to tell you, I love being outdoors, but I still want to know that I am getting something done. Don’t you feel that way?” “Yes.” “Hey. You know what? I was going to mow my lawn, but since it means getting outside, getting some exercise, and getting something done, I could let you do it if you want.”
Using this method is no guarantee that you will be able to get anyone to do just about anything, but I can guarantee that if you reverse the order you will meet much more resistance. The common element to both methods is the word, “yes.” In both cases the speaker got the audience to say “Yes.” The word “yes” is very powerful psychological tool. Once a person says the word “yes” out loud, it is almost impossible to turn back. You see the “Yes Technique” used by unscrupulous salespeople all the time. “We both agree that if I can get you a trade-in allowance for your old car of $5000, you will buy a new car today, right?” The salesperson must ask a question to which the only response is, “Yes.” The trick is to get you to keep saying “yes” no matter what; they may not even be important issues. “Because it would be a lot easier to buy a car here today rather than waste time shopping all over town, right?” Once the salesman has maneuvered about a dozen “yes” statements into the conversation he hits you with the change-up, the sale price of the car didn’t include the “I need money to send my kids on a nice vacation” clause. At least you got a good trade-in price. You don’t feel comfortable dropping the deal because a few minutes ago you agreed to buy the car if they gave you the trade-in allowance that you asked for. To pull out now would create a schism between your stated intentions and your actions, resulting in psychological inconsistency. We would rather deal with an unhappy outcome than try to resolve psychological inconsistency.
Inoculation Theory We inoculate ourselves against potential disease by taking pre-emptive medication. That way when the disease pops up we are protected against it. The same technique applies to persuasive speaking. If you are aware of objections that might arise, bring them up in your presentation before anyone else can. You have effectively inoculated your speech. If you bring up possible objections before anyone else, you also appear more intelligent; you show that you’ve done your homework. Lastly, only someone who was extremely confident in their position would risk bringing up opposition. If you bring it up first, you exude confidence.
Position Your Message People choose one option over another largely because of the differences between the two. When developing your speech, determine the dramatic differences between your idea and any competing suggestions. This requires some thought because most people think only in terms of the worth of their own idea, not in analyzing the opposition. When I work with corporate clients on business development or marketing, I ask them to define the single dramatic difference between their business and their competitors. Nine times out of ten the answer is, “We provide great customer service.” This may seem special to the owner of the company, but not to the customer. Customer service is not a dramatic difference, it is an expectation. It would be like saying to someone, “I’m going to sell you this house, and it comes with a roof.” Determining the dramatic difference in your position is no different than the business that must disregard all the factors in the company that are the same at every other company. You must be willing to suspend any egotistic attachment to your position and examine it objectively. If challenged on your proposal, you can bring out these big guns. When the audience realizes that there is no other plan that contains these dramatic qualities, you have shut the competition down. Another aspect of positioning a message is helping to guide the audience toward your plan. By nature, humans are step-by-step animals. When we grieve a loss we experience five emotions in order: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. When we court a potential mate we have a first encounter, date, become attached, get engaged, marry, go on a honeymoon, and then get fat and lazy. In fact, those who step outside the order, (get married after the first date for instance), are considered outside normal society. Determining the worth of an idea is a step-by-step process as well. The process involves identification, sorting, ranking, and buying. Once we identify our needs we sort through all the options and rank them according to importance or applicability. Once we rank the options, we simply buy the best one we can afford. In delivering an idea to an audience, you have already identified the need. Now sort and rank the benefits clearly so the audience can see that they should buy your idea. As we discovered in the example of Jesse Ventura and his crystal-clear answer in the budget surplus debate, when given a choice, audiences will buy the answer they most clearly understand.
Objection Analysis A good technique while writing your speech is to perform an Objection Analysis. Generate ten to twenty possible objections that could be raised. Pick the top three and focus on them first. Where is each objection coming from? Skepticism? Indifference? Misinformation? Or is it a legitimate drawback to the idea? Perhaps the idea you are presenting will make someone else in the room look bad for not presenting it first. It might even fly in the face of another proposal. Each type of objection needs to be dealt with differently, and none of it should involve straight facts. If people buy with emotion, they also object based on emotion. Determine the emotional underpinning of each objection. If someone says the idea will cost too much money, it does you no good to simply flip open a chart and start talking about the financial benefits of your idea if you haven’t dealt with the emotion basis for the objection. Is this person afraid of getting in trouble if your idea doesn’t work? Perhaps they had a budget cut recently and they are still angry. They may even have a problem with you personally. If you don’t calm the emotional fear of the objectionor, he will not be able to listen and give consideration to your idea. He will just be thinking of his next objection. Obviously you can’t lay everything out on the table: “Well Maureen, I know you are still stinging after getting passed over for that promotion, but if you look here at these figures…” You can, however, deal with the basis for the objection: “You are right, Maureen. If we aren’t careful, another mismanaged quarter would get us all in hot water. That is why I put these figures together, so we could all weigh in and make sure we are fully aligned before starting.”
When pushed into a corner, most people will fight for their position, so the best defense is no defense. The old karate instructor I spoke of earlier was answering questions from the students after class one night. One student asked, “Sensei, what is the best way to handle an attack?” The karate master thought for a moment and said, “The best way to handle an attack is not to be there.” We were confused until he explained. “If you have a house at the bottom of a hill and a big boulder was rolling toward the house, a foolish man would run up and push against the rock until he was crushed as well. A wise man would run beside the rock, nudging it to the side a little at a time until it rolled past the house. “If someone tries to attack you, either with fists or with words, they are rolling toward you. They want you trapped in a corner, like the house that can’t move. Rather than push back, step to the side and let them pass. You don’t get hurt, and you don’t get all sweaty from fighting.” If someone attacks your idea it is their way of trying to get you into a corner. If you respond by defending yourself, you are pushing against the boulder. Instead, surprise them with, “Yes, this is not a simple idea to implement. That’s why I need all of your input to ensure it is a success.” You have not acknowledged the attack, but side-stepped it and regained control of the audience. You might have noticed that most of the above responses start by saying “Yes.” This may seem like an odd choice when faced with opposition, but saying “Yes” actually gives you a psychological advantage. An audience expects objections to be met with, “That is not entirely the case,” or “That isn’t true and here is why…” If you respond the way we expect, we dismiss you. People think, “I knew he was going to say that,” and they don’t listen to anything you have to say past that point. Starting with, “Yes, that is true so we need to…” or “That is absolutely the case, which is why I…” surprises us, recaptures our attention, acknowledges the worth of the issue raised by the audience member, and moves us toward a solution. By saying, “Yes” you also make it clear that there is no risk to the audience in voicing an opinion. They realize that instead of being shut down they will be acknowledged and valued for their participation. The one caveat to the “Yes” rule is that you cannot respond with “Yes, but.” The “Yeah, but” response is habitual for people. It is our way of appearing to acknowledge an objection so we can quickly get back to our point. We hope that if we pile on enough reasons we will win the debate. The “Yeah, but” response doesn’t work because it negates the psychology of the listener. When a person hears the word “but,” a trigger goes off in the brain. We immediately forget everything that was said before “but,” and distrust everything that is said afterwards. This is because we recognize the ploy to use a positive statement in order to soften a negative one. You can see the positive/negative tactic used all the time. “Emily, you have doing a really good job on this proposal, and everyone is impressed with your attention to detail, but we were hoping for something with a few more photos.” The only thing Emily will remember from the conversation is that she didn’t use enough photos. And she will likely recall the conversation to friends and say, “I think I used plenty of photos in that proposal.” To counteract this psychological trigger, don’t use a ploy to dodge around the person’s comment. First acknowledge the comment and be specific about its good points. If you only say, “That’s a good point,” we feel like you are just trying to placate us. Be clear about why the person’s observation is helpful. “You are right. If we don’t clarify this objective before starting the program, we could have to halt the project midstream.” Only after you have delivered a “Yes” statement can you move on to your position. If you include the person’s observation rather than seek to deny it, you actually turn an adversary into an ally. Try this for an exercise: spend an entire day without saying the word “but.” This will be very challenging: saying “but” is a very ingrained habit. And you can’t replace it with “However,” or “Although.” Those words cause the same reaction from the listener as “but.” All these words are called “Negations,” because they negate the other person. We are often so unaware of what we say that it is likely you will go through the day thinking you are not saying “but” when you are actually lacing your conversation with it. Get a friend to point out every time you slip. If you are diligent, you will soon be able to count the number of negations you make on one hand. When you remove negations from your language, you will notice some unique benefits that “yes” responses provide: - You will position the audience to help move your case forward. Even detractors will appear to be working to advance your case. - You will force yourself to think on a higher level. Automatic or habitual responses require little thought; they take your brain “offline.” Fully acknowledging and working with someone’s objection keeps your mind sharp and ready for anything. - You will appear more positive and inviting to an audience. Negative responses make you look negative, even if you are correct. Many a politician lost the election because what he or she said was correct, but said it in a negative way.
Practice the techniques from this chapter in everyday conversation. Once the various tools become second nature, using them to keep your cool onstage will be easy. Now let’s move on to the ways you can bring spirit and passion to your presentation
CHAPTER 11
Bring It to Life
Listening is hard. Give an any excuse to tune you out and they will. You have probably heard the phrase, “It is not what you say, but how you say it.” It is easy for some speakers to ignore the fact that their delivery is mediocre because most audiences are captive. A CEO may believe that, because the audience members are all employees and it is to their benefit to listen, they will. Most audiences are too polite to do or say anything negative. These factors allow a speaker to think he is better than he is. Without passionate delivery the actions sought in the speech will either be barely implemented by the audience, or ignored outright. No matter how much clout you have in the organization, you can’t force people to work to their fullest capacity. You can encourage them, but once the speech is over and everyone is back at their desks they will decide whether to jump on board or work only as much as necessary to not get fired. A colleague of mine called these types of employees Road Warriors; Retired On Active Duty. Bringing your presentation to life ensures that you get full participation. The audience will be charged up and excited to put your ideas into practice.
Metaphor Chapter Ten introduced the power of stories. With stories the listener is captured by the plot and can more easily follow your line of thinking. Another advantage of a story is that it allows the use of metaphor. A metaphor is a term or phrase applied to something it is not literally connected to, implying a connection between the two. People enjoy metaphors for a few reasons. One is that we love a good reveal; a surprise at the end. Stories have an unexpected ending, plays have a conclusion with a twist, and magic shows end with an astonishing flourish. When a narrative starts to build toward the conclusion, the listener feels a bit of tension; not knowing what to expect. The tension continues to build, with some in the audience thinking, “I know where this is going,” and the rest thinking, “I have no idea where this is going.” In either case, the tension is suspenseful, which is part of the enjoyment. When the ending is finally revealed we either get to congratulate ourselves for being right, or delight in the surprise. The process of build-up and release is actually the basis for all jokes. While a joke is being told there is a build up of tension, then the punchline allows a release. Because metaphors carry a reveal of meaning, the build-up and release is enjoyable and keeps the audience focused. Another benefit of metaphor is that audiences love to figure things out for themselves. Speakers who simply lay out the facts in lecture form lose our interest because we are not required to do any mental work. Metaphors, however, are just sideways enough of the obvious to make us work to figure out the meaning. Yet another advantage metaphors give the speaker involves image. A speaker who uses a creative way of getting a point across, rather than lecture, appears more intelligent. Finally, metaphors are fun, any chance to add a little fun to a presentation is certainly worth the effort. Using metaphors in your presentation is simple on one level and tricky on another. It is fairly easy to look at your speech and discover a link between your subject matter and an accompanying image. You must be careful, however, not to make the metaphor too obvious on one hand or too much of a stretch on the other. Too obvious and you display a lack of creativity, too obscure and you look like you are trying to hard. An audience can tell in a heartbeat when you are working too hard at being clever. It is a good idea to try your metaphor out with a friend before delivering it in a speech.
Parable One step beyond the metaphor is parable. A parable is a short story designed to teach a lesson or moral. The story is allegorical in that a concrete example is used to represent the abstract or spiritual. The ease with which parables can carry important messages is seen in how much they have been used throughout history as a teaching tool. Parables are used to teach religious tenets in almost every major work including the Christian Bible, Jewish Tanakh, Muslim Qur’an, Taoist Tao Te Ching, and Hindu Itihasa. If you tell a child that it is wrong to lie and that someday his lies will catch up with him, he will probably listen politely and promptly ignore your advice later. Perhaps ignore is the wrong word, because facts are difficult for anyone’s brain to process; it would more accurate to say he forgot your advice. If, however, you tell him the story about the little boy who cried wolf, he will not only see the ramifications of his actions more clearly, but he will be able to remember the story for a lifetime. The interesting thing about parables and stories is that they both give you the benefit of irrefutable truth. When we hear a story we assume it is true, even if it is fictional. There is something about a series of events that carry a “this really happened” quality. Parables can have even more weight of truth because they are constructed poetically. Fancy language has a tendency to make people believe. Poetic language always seems to come from someone more intelligent than ourselves, the Weapon of Influence of authority kicks in, and we are convinced. For ease of retention, lack of objections, and clarity of message, see if there is a “Boy who cried wolf” story in your message.
Voice of the Message Much of the advice so far has focused on getting you to find your own voice as a speaker and to be genuine, so it may seem like odd advice to now tell you to start copying other people. Finding your own voice can actually start by using someone else’s. The karate instructor I spoke of earlier once said, “Look at the fist I hold out in front of me. It represents your art.” With his other hand he made a motion of a globe about eight inches from his fist and said, “This is a shell that prevents you from reaching your art. In order to achieve mastery of your art you must get through the shell and reach the center. To do this you must chip away at the shell every day. After many years of chipping, chipping, chipping, you will eventually reach your art. “The best way to chip at the shell is to follow the instructions of your teacher. He will make sure that every chip you make is in the right direction. If you have a poor instructor, or none at all, you may chip in the wrong direction. You could circle around for years. Someday you may accidentally stumble upon your art, or you may never get there. An instructor’s task is to guide you to your art. You must do what your instructor tells you and go in the direction your teacher points. A master knows what the art looks like and where it lies, so he can make sure that every step you take will be toward your goal. Once you reach your art, you no longer need your teacher. You may go and practice the art that is now yours alone.” Since few speakers have a teacher who can guide them to perfection, you must find a way to learn from other masters. Fortunately, there are scores of masters in communication, performance, and leadership. Look at your speech and determine the style of the message. There is likely to be a famous politician, actor, social activist, news anchor, or business leader who fits that style. Practice delivering your speech as that famous person. The people below represent just a few masters of speaking that you can emulate:
Vince Lombardi - Motivation Billy Graham - Inspiration John F Kennedy - Grandeur Martin Luther King Jr. - Righteousness Mahatma Gandhi - Beating the odds Indira Gandhi - Quiet power Dr. Joy Brown - Wisdom Queen Elizabeth - Worldliness Ronald Reagan - Authority Bill Clinton - Humor/Clarity
When you practice delivering your speech as one of the characters above be as accurate as you can in imitating their voice and mannerisms. This exercise might feel strange, but the distinctive qualities of each of these individuals provide lessons in how to be an effective speaker. If you really want to challenge yourself, try your speech as several different characters. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also an effective training technique.
Verbal Technique As I mentioned earlier in my work with Larry, the executive with the challenging CEO, using a microphone doesn’t help overcome a frail voice, it only amplifies the weakness. Developing a strong voice is part of the battle of communication. You must also work to avoid the verbal habits that can diminish your image as a speaker. Here are a few of the most common: Backpedaling. Backpedaling is marked by phrases like, “This is just my opinion, but…” or “This may sound crazy, however…” These small apologies that you make before stating your position weaken your message and you image. Backpedaling is a way for an unsure speaker to try to align himself with the audience. It is also a way to protect ourselves if our message is unpopular. By backpedaling we remove ourselves from the message. In speaking, as in life, if you try to please everyone you end up not pleasing anyone. If you have an opinion, stick to it. People respect someone with a strong stance even if they don’t agree with the stance. One technique that helps you support your message is to have your body work with you instead of against you. When you backpedal you demonstrate weak body language. Typically you will slightly back away from the audience. If you recall the power positions of the stage from Chapter Eight, it is important to remain front and center and full face to the audience. When you are unsure of yourself strong body language and stage position will sustain you. Speech Tics. Little sounds like, “umm,” “ahh,” “you know,” “kind of,” or “like” that are inserted into sentences are very annoying. Repeat them often enough and you can drive an audience crazy. Interestingly enough, even though they all have the same effect of filling silence while we think of what to say, they do not all have the same origin or serve the same purpose. Sounds that fill a pause, like “umm,” or “ahh,” let the listener know that there is a gap in the delivery, but the speaker doesn’t want to give up the stage. “Like,” is a way of putting the listener into the setting of the message. “You know,” establishes connection with the audience. “Kind of,” lets the listener know that we aren’t sure of the words we are about to use. In order to get rid of these annoying tics you must first be aware of them. Once again, because we are often unaware of our own behavior, a friend can be a big help in pointing out which of the above is your particular challenge. I often have my business partner, Pamela, attend my presentations to offer suggestions afterward. At one session I asked her to give a quick wave from the back of the room every time I said “umm,” or “ahh.” I looked back at one point and it looked like she was swatting flies. I guess I said “umm” a lot more than I thought. Once you know when you are using tics, the best way to get rid of them is to slow down. When you feel a tic coming on, choose a strong word to fill the silence, but give yourself plenty of time to think. Also, maintain eye contact with the audience. When people insert a verbal tic they usually break eye contact briefly. Concentrating on your audience’s eyes will help you to focus and speak at your own pace. Although maintaining eye contact is good for avoiding mindlessly inserting sounds when you are caught in a brain freeze, it might come as a surprise that the opposite can help too. Because looking into people’s eyes can be disconcerting when you are trying to think, if you need to search for a word or a thought, direct your eyes downward or to the side. When you are ready to resume, turn back to the audience. For most of us, even a slight pause while standing in front of a group feels like an eternity. In reality, the pause never feels quite as long to the audience. And a well placed pause keeps you in command of the stage. My father once told me, “What you say will never have as much impact as the pause that follows it,” so you may want to look at where you can insert a pause for effect. A pause can be as much for the audience’s benefit as for yours. The reason I suggest directing your eyes downward or to the side is that those eye movements signify introspection. Looking upward is usually associated with searching for the answer, which would detract from your image of authority. I typically avoid suggesting any type of formulaic technique such as where to direct your eyes, but the scientific basis for how people react to body language is hard to ignore. It behooves a speaker to be aware of how movements affect the audience. Unconscious repetition. Everyone has a favorite word or two in their vocabulary. These favorites can tend to be overused without you even being aware. Listen to the radio and it seems like every radio show host is stuck on the word “absolutely.”
“Scott, is the increase in traffic accidents caused by people not being aware of others on the road?” “Absolutely, Peter…”
Once you notice this, it will annoy you every time you hear it. Nothing beats correcting your own behavior better than noticing it in someone else, so develop a habit of watching people’s mannerisms. The great improvisational comedian, Jonathan Winters, was asked what advice he would give anyone who wanted to be an improv performer. “Become a people-watcher,” he said. “There is no better way to train your own skills than by watching and imitating others.” Be mindful of your choice of vocabulary. A good speaker is able to connect with the audience by using common vernacular, but the speaker must also sound more educated and polished than the listener. This means having a command of vocabulary that is higher than the American standard (which is sadly only at the eighth grade level). Losing your train of thought. While a brain gap can be a sign of distraction, it can also result from the speaker being a perfectionist. Speakers who are precise in their vocabulary will often be dissatisfied with their first choice of words. They stammer while searching for the correct word because whatever pops into their head doesn’t measure up. This habit creates frequent gaps in your delivery, making it hard on the audience to stay connected. A story that is told with gaps is also less interesting. Ironically, the speaker who wants to use just the right word in order to be viewed positively by the audience is viewed negatively because of the poor delivery. To avoid being frozen by perfection, during everyday conversation force yourself to go with your first choice of words. Freezing up in mid-sentence is also a sign that you might be speaking a little too fast for your brain. Talking too fast is caused either by being excited about the subject matter or being afraid that you will lose the audience if you don’t hit them with a bang from start to finish. Slow down; the audience will have an easier time listening if you don’t speak at the speed of an auctioneer. Question or statement? A very annoying habit, more common among female speakers than male, is the tendency to raise vocal pitch at the end of sentences. This rise in pitch makes it sound like the speaker is asking a question rather than making a statement. This is a subconscious way to get some sort of feedback from a silent audience. The speaker usually ends a thought with a raised pitch, then looks around the room until someone nods in agreement before continuing. To correct the raised-pitch habit, vary your sentence structure. Place the subject and verb such that you sound like you are giving a command instead of asking a question. Instead of, “This is sometimes a great route to take…” try, “Use this route the next time you…” Also, try putting a bit more space between you and the audience. If you are farther away and must compensate with stronger projection, using a stronger voice will prevent you from raising your pitch. Just don’t back away too far; you don’t want to lose the power position.
Humor Getting an audience to laugh is key to being a memorable speaker. I was confirming the details of my presentation with a client and I asked one of my standard questions, “What would you most like the audience to get out of my presentation?” Without hesitation she said, “We want everyone to have fun. Sure, it would be nice if they learned something, but so few people have fun at work these days that we really need to make sure they enjoy themselves.” I discuss the benefits of laughter in Chapter Four, now let’s talk about how to create it. First of all, yes you are funny. Whenever I teach a workshop on using humor someone will say, “I just don’t think I’m funny.” I will ask the audience how many of them are really funny. Only two or three hands will go up. Then I will ask how many are out with friends and everyone ends up laughing the night away. Every hand goes up. My point with that question is, if your friends are always laughing, who do you think they’re laughing at? We are all funny around our friends; the trick is to transfer our natural sense of humor from the coffeehouse to the stage. The first step is to have a greater understanding of humor. For this, we will cover the Laws of Laughter, the Conditions of Laughter, and the Anatomy of a Joke.
Laws of Laughter In order for a human being to laugh, the words or actions in the event must follow certain rules. Remove one of the following Laws of Laughter from the experience and there is no laughter. Laughter of the Unexpected. Remember the last time someone told you a joke you had already heard? There was no way you could laugh. Laughter cannot occur unless there is a surprise—an unexpected twist in a joke or a surprise ending to a story. The surprise is what gives a joke its punch; without it, you simply have a pleasant story. Laughter of the Unexpected is why comedy is such a difficult art form to perfect. The more experienced the audience is with comedy, the harder it is to surprise them. If you can lead us down one path and then surprise us with a different ending or unexpected twist, the reward is laughter. What destroys Laughter of the Unexpected is poor delivery or a meandering plot line. When telling a story, remember the cardinal rule of comedy: there is no way for you to speak faster than the listener can think. While the audience is listening to a story, they are also guessing what the ending might be. It is easy to surprise people with a funny ending if there is no foretelling of the conclusion. It is even easier if you don’t let on that the ending will be funny at all. If a story is being told with a serious attitude, the listener will assume that the ending will be serious. If the story has a goofy ending, the surprise will cause laughter. Surprise is more difficult if the setting is already comedic, such as a comedy club, because the listener expects that the end of the story will be funny. The audience will be guessing the punchline. If the comedian takes too long to get to the end of the story, the audience is there waiting with a few funny endings already figured out. A good performer knows how to keep the story moving so as not to give the audience a chance to beat him to the punchline. Laughter of Recognition. Watch an audience listening to a stand-up comedian and you will hear them say, “That same thing happened to me!” Humans are social animals, and we have many ways of reinforcing our group-ness. In the book discussed in the introduction, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, Dr. Robert Provine reveals that most laughter is not caused by funny stimuli. Instead, over ninety percent of the laughter incidents in his nationwide study were people agreeing with each other with phrases like, “You got that right.” Laughter of Recognition is powerful and widespread. Recognizing something from our own lives in another person’s story is our way of saying, “See, I’m not the only fool in the bunch.”
Jerry Seinfeld became famous for taking observations of everyday life and making them funny.
“With any kind of physical test, I don’t know what it is; I always seem to get competitive. Remember when you were in school and they’d do those hearing tests? And you’d really be listening hard, you know? I wanted to do unbelievable on the hearing test. I wanted them to come over to me after and go, ‘We think you may have something close to super-hearing. What you heard was a cotton ball touching a piece of felt. We’re sending the results to Washington; we’d like you to meet The President.’
Not every situation in a story has to have been lived by the audience. As long as the audience can understand and put themselves in the storyteller’s shoes, they will laugh even if they have not been in the same situation. I tell a story in my act about the first time I tried water-skiing. It was a disaster. I learned never to bring my brothers when learning a life-threatening activity. (They don’t care about safety; they want entertainment value.) My inexperience at water-skiing, Dick’s 200 horsepower boat, and Mike’s eye for finding every wave and rock in the lake made for an obstacle course the marines would be proud of. Of every audience member who has heard the routine and laughed, I’m betting only half have water-skied themselves. They have, however, seen water-skiing on TV, and have been in situations where they were not physically up to a challenge. That recognition is enough to create a laugh. Laughter of Superiority. Think back to any time you laughed; it was always at someone. This theory goes back to Aristotle and Plato who realized that, because we live in a pecking order society, we are always looking for ways to bring those in power down to our level. This explains why we make jokes about The President, our boss, and anyone who we deem superior. This also applies to those who act like they have power, but in fact have none. We laugh if a common person acts “too big for his britches” and is brought down to size. Good speakers take advantage of the audience’s need to feel superior by always having a target. Most speakers can be divided into two groups: those who pick on the audience, and those who pick on themselves. If there is someone in the audience who looks powerful or who speaks up with confidence, they are demonstrating social power and are therefore an acceptable target. If the comedian makes himself out to be the fool with self-deprecating humor, the audience sees that he is making himself the target. (Even better, since they can relax and know they are safe.) The fact that laughter must be directed at a target carries an obvious risk for the speaker. As the speaker, you must determine who in the audience is an acceptable target. When your head is spinning with everything you have to balance while onstage it can be difficult to keep a clear enough head to accurately judge which target is okay. Choosing the wrong target can spell disaster. I once gave a workshop at a law firm. Anyone who knows the legal profession can tell you it is one of the most hierarchal occupations in America. Every employee from the firm’s founder to the mailroom clerk knows exactly where they stand in the food chain, and you are wise to not take any swipes at those above you. Unfortunately for me, no one told me this before my speech. In the middle of the session, the senior managing partner challenged me on a point I had made. Thinking that his status protected him, and not wanting to seem inferior, I directly rebuffed his comment. My comment was also phrased to illicit laughter. The result: the other attorneys in the room were put in a very awkward position. Some agreed with my position, and thought my comment was funnym but they couldn’t risk laughing at the expense of their boss. The managing partner was embarrassed, having lost the one thing he worked for most in the firm, his status. The rest of the session suffered from lack of cooperation and a cloud over everyone’s mood. Needless to say, I was not asked back to that firm again. On the other hand, I had a session at a manufacturing company where the plant manager was eager to be seen as “one of the boys” to his workers. I made him the brunt of the joke every now and then and he loved it. He told me later that for months his workers would kid him about the session. He said it broke down barriers that he couldn’t budge during the typical manager-employee meetings. Sometimes a speaker appears unaware that he or she is the butt of the joke, making bold statements that give the illusion of power. When the statement turns out to be foolish, we laugh at the person’s inability to recognize his own mistake. A clever speaker can use the image of being a fool to create laughter, and turn out looking even better as a result. Instinctive laughter. This is a different form of laughter in that it is not a reaction to a funny event. Instead, it is a psychological response. Although all laughter is largely instinctive, these types of laughter aren’t under the control of the speaker. They include: Subservient Laughter, Nervous Laughter, and Laughter of Delight. Subservient Laughter is used to gain approval from a superior. Sometimes it is unconscious, sometimes it is planned. A young woman being interviewed for a job might let out a quick giggle. The interviewer will often feel obligated to respond by smiling, making light of the situation, or reassuring the woman in some way. Nervous Laughter is simply the body’s way of releasing tension in a stressful environment. Neither of these types of Instinctive Laughter are the goal of a good speaker. Laughter of Delight occurs whenever a group of people are together. Unless some outside condition prevents us, people tend to laugh when in groups.
Conditions of Laughter Even if the Laws of Laughter have been observed, you still aren’t guaranteed laughter. If someone is surprised, they may react with shock. If they recognize a familiarity in your story, they may react with nostalgia. In order for the laws to produce laughter, certain conditions must be met. It is the three Conditions of Laughter where most people fail to get the laughs they want. These conditions are easier to understand than they are to manage. The three conditions of laughter are: A Feeling of Detachment, A Lighthearted Atmosphere, and Permission to Laugh. A Feeling of Detachment. You are more likely to laugh if your friend slipped on an icy sidewalk than if your grandmother tripped and fell. In order to laugh you must maintain a distance or lack of concern for the person you are laughing at. There is a good chance your grandmother could get hurt, so you have a strong attachment. A common phrase is, “Comedy is tragedy that happens to someone else.” This is true as long as the tragedy involves loss of dignity, not loss of limb. The condition of detachment is a major issue because it dictates the very subject matter a comedian selects. All humor must have a target, but in order to achieve detachment, we must know that the target is someone who can defend himself, someone incapable of harm from the laughter. Politicians and leaders of society are timeless targets of jokes. Who better to attack than the most powerful people we know? Every society has jokes about its leaders. Joking about leaders starts as soon as we are able to comprehend status. Movies made for children use the same character devices: smart and capable children fooling stupid adults. Children’s lives are under constant control by parents, teachers, and older siblings. We are able to detach ourselves from these targets because they can take care of themselves. They are not truly harmed by the laughter. The tricky thing about detachment is that we can’t be too detached from the subject or we won’t laugh. If we are so detached from a subject that we don’t care at all, we find the material too irrelevant to laugh. So a good comedian must choose subject matter that is relevant to our lives, but not too close for comfort. The audience must not only feel detached from the target of the joke, they must also feel detached from the joke teller. If the person telling the joke isn’t confident, the audience becomes worried. They are afraid that the joke will bomb. Nervousness suppresses laughter. The audience has become attached to the teller of the joke. If you have ever attended a play performed by grade school children, you have seen how attachment to the performer ruins laughter. Watch the parents attending the play. They are so nervous for their children that they cannot truly enjoy the show. This is because grade school children have no command of the stage. The possibility of failure is very real, so tension suppresses laughter. We have all seen speeches or presentations delivered by people who have as little command of the stage as a grade-schooler. Lack of command in any situation kills the chance for a laugh. The best thing you can do for the sake of your audience is own the room. You must convey the confidence that nothing can go wrong while you have the stage, or that if anything does go wrong, you are not bothered by it. Confidence provides detachment. A Lighthearted Atmosphere. Have you ever noticed that when you attend a comedy club, you sometimes laugh even if the joke isn’t that funny? If everyone at a social gathering is in a good mood, ordinary conversations suddenly become funny. For a person to laugh, a mood must pre-exist that allows laughter. Once a lighthearted mood is in place, laughter almost creates itself. If a good mood doesn’t exist, it is up to you create it. Most often, if the room is somber, the audience welcomes anyone who will lighten things up. This is tricky, however, because you can invite a lighthearted atmosphere, but you can’t force it. A group of people most easily develop a lighthearted mood when they are relaxed. Again, this is established by a speaker who is confident. Comedians playing in a night club and actors performing on a stage have the luxury of playing to an audience that is already predisposed to laugh. The audience is coming to the theatre with the expectation of laughter, so they are already in a lighthearted mood. Audiences at most business presentations don’t expect a rousing good time, and although that is a blessing for creating Laughter of the Unexpected, it can kill the mood. It is up to a good speaker to establish the mood. A bad speaker can easily ruin a lighthearted mood by showing nervousness. If the speaker shows discomfort, the audience cannot sit back and relax. Instead, they feel empathy for the struggling presenter. Empathy turns to nervousness, which becomes anxiety.
Stevie’s Big Huge Mistake to Avoid Never let the audience see you sweat.
Permission to Laugh. Ever laugh at a funeral? While passing a school bus crash? After your mother drops the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner? You could be in a great mood while passing a car accident and be completely detached from the other drivers, but in that particular situation you don’t have permission to laugh. It is the permission to laugh that allows us to temporarily drop concerns of etiquette and courtesy and laugh at someone else’s misfortune. We get permission from either the person who is the target of humor or from the group we are with. We know that we can laugh at the person who just had a bucket of water dropped on her head if her attitude shows us that it’s okay. If everyone starts laughing, we know it is safe to laugh. If one guy is laughing and the rest of the crowd is glaring at him, however, you know to keep your mouth shut. The lack of permission is what keeps us from laughing at things that would ordinarily have us on the floor. I remember my father yelling at me as a young boy (I can’t believe he was so unreasonable about one little brush fire in the back yard). Right in the middle of his tirade, he farted. Now, I’m like any red-blooded young American male; farts are the essence of comedy. As any boy would do, I giggled. It was then that I learned the true meaning of permission to laugh, because I didn’t have it. I also didn’t have feeling below the waist for three days. In Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, Dr. Provine discovered that most laughter is the result of what he calls a “cued response.” As opposed to laughter during a comedy show where the comedian tells a joke and stands silently while the audience reacts, laughter in social settings involves the speaker relating a story and laughing as he nears the end. This cues the listener that it is not only time to laugh, but that he is supposed to laugh. The speaker gives permission by demonstrating the appropriate response. That Provine discovered that most of laughter is a cued response does not mean the speaker must laugh first. We all know good storytellers who hold court at parties, sitting back while their audience guffaws. Provine’s discovery simply reinforces the fact that most people aren’t comedians and they create laughter in an everyday fashion. You have a choice of cueing the laughter or allowing it to happen while you hold back. It all depends on your style and which will work best with each particular audience. The difference between laughter during a staged performance and laughter in social settings demonstrates a dichotomy of comedy. Comedians are told to never laugh at their own jokes. If they do, they reveal that they are trying to get a laugh, which actually ruins the joke. If you try to take a story you told during a party (which got a laugh because you laughed first), and you tell it onstage with the same cueing laughter, it is not likely to work. The above three conditions—a feeling of detachment, a lighthearted atmosphere, and permission to laugh—all point to an important factor in comedy: the mood of the audience. While watching a presentation, an audience will either feel nervous or comfortable. If the audience is nervous, it is because the possibility of failure has been introduced. No one can laugh when failure is imminent. The speaker will make the audience nervous, not necessarily by failing, but by letting failure be a problem. If the speaker makes a big goof and shows the audience that he is still confident, the audience will sit back, relax, and follow along. If an audience is comfortable, it is only because the speaker has demonstrated complete command of the stage. When people are comfortable, they agree with you more readily and laugh more easily. It is your task to put the audience at ease and allow them the luxury of comfort. Allow the audience to feel detached from the subject of the humor as well as from you. Keep the atmosphere relaxed, no matter how you feel inside, and give them permission to have a good time. Only then can they laugh with you.
Anatomy of a Joke When you watch a comedian performing an act, a formula guides you to the laugh. All comedy follows this simple formula. In order for material to generate a laugh it must have a Premise, a Set-up, and a Punchline. The premise is the general topic of conversation, the theme of the story. The set-up is the information the audience needs to know to follow the story. The punchline is the funny line or conclusion. In comedy, a story or routine may have one punchline at the end, or have several punchlines scattered throughout. Let’s look at the elements of premise, set-up, and punchline more closely. The Premise. The premise might seem to be the simplest element, but is often overlooked when analyzing why a story failed to get a laugh. The premise, or theme, is only funny when it has some amount of importance to the listener. A comedian often gets an idea and develops it into a routine without asking himself, “Does the audience really care about this?” Professional speakers call this the “So what?” factor. If the audience hears your premise and responds with a silent, “So what?” your premise is weak. If you watch a bad performer, you can sense when he or she is stretching a premise. I saw a young comedian spend a good deal of time talking about how stupid the Stevie Nicks song “White Wing Dove” was and why it shouldn’t be on the radio. He failed to take into account that the song was long past being popular and was no longer played on the radio. He had thought of the joke long ago, waited for the courage to try comedy, and then pulled out all of his old premises. The joke never got a laugh. Even if the song was still being played on the radio, no one would have cared enough about it to laugh. It is like listening to a new parent talk endlessly about how funny their baby is. If we don’t know the baby, we don’t care. Bad premise. The premise dictates why comedians must use very general themes. There are only so many experiences that are common enough to everyone that they will generate laughter. This is especially true for a performer entertaining millions of people through television. Entertaining an audience with local affiliations is easier. If you visit a comedy club, you can see how comedians use the power of selective premise to their advantage. In fact, it is common for traveling comedians to ask the hotel clerk or waitress to let them in on the local gossip. Having a premise that the audience cares about is the start of a good joke.
Common Premise Mistakes l Using subject matter that is out-of-date l Using subject matter the audience doesn’t care about
The Set-up. The set-up provides a very important function: the flow of the story. The set-up must lay out the storyline in a clear and concise fashion, leading us to the conclusion. We have all heard a friend tell a joke during which he either rushed through the story or left out important information, only to have to go back and fill it in later. We have also heard a friend tell a joke that was so meandering that we couldn’t follow along. These misuses of the set-up made it impossible for you to laugh. The set-up is where the psychology of comedy comes into play. It is the part of the story that sets the audience up by guiding their line of thought. Laughter cannot occur unless the audience is surprised. In order to be surprised the audience must be thinking in one direction so the punchline can go in the other. The audience must build up expectations about the story, and it is the comedian’s job to make sure those expectations lead away from the punchline so when it is delivered at the end, the surprise will cause laughter. At times, it is easy to guide the audience’s train of thought. If a comedian describes a trip to the grocery store, we subconsciously think ahead to complete the scenario. If the comedian says, “I went to the grocery store the other day...” we think, “...bought eggs, went through checkout, bagged groceries, heavy bag, walked to car...” We help the comedian’s set-up by filling in the blanks. When the comedian gets to the line about tripping and falling into the produce sprayer and getting a free shower, we are surprised and laugh. Comedians count on us to think in terms of the norm. There are other times when it is difficult to guide our thoughts in the right direction. Fans of comedy are accustomed to jokes with a surprise ending, so they think in non-linear directions. They subconsciously try to get to the end of the joke before the comedian. If the listener gets to the end before the comedian, there are no laughs. Comedians know that the most important goal is to control the audience. There is another strict requirement for a good set-up: keep it short. As the character Polonius says in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “brevity is the soul of wit.” If you draw out the set-up too long, the audience will either guess the punchline before you deliver it, or they’ll become bored and won’t care about the joke anymore. The need to be concise is strong because the audience always thinks ahead. There is no way for you to speak faster than the listener can think. The best way to remain concise is to include only the information that is absolutely necessary. Extraneous facts will make the audience think the joke is about the wrong part of the story. Extra information either leads the audience down the wrong path or gives away the ending.
To improve your comedic abilities, try this exercise. Tell a story to a group of friends about an event that happened to you. Keep an eye on the clock and only allow yourself sixty seconds to tell the story. At the sixty second mark, deliver the punchline or conclusion. Afterwards, review to yourself everything you said. To make review easier, some comedians carry a mini-recorder with them so they can remember everything they said. After the show, they write down everything they said and look for edit spots. While reviewing your story, take out every word you can remove without jeopardizing the story. Tell the same story to a different audience, but this time give yourself only thirty seconds. Do this one more time in only fifteen seconds. Most people will prefer listening to the thirty second version. The one minute story is too long, and the fifteen second version doesn’t have enough detail. In the comedy business, this is called tightening up the act, and it sharpens the material immeasurably. We all know someone who can’t tell a story without getting every single fact right. This is frustrating because typically the fact they are correcting has nothing to do with the joke. This is like listening to my mother tell a story:
“We went to your cousin’s wedding on Thursday and we…wait, I think it may been Friday. No…it was Tuesday because Tuesday is also when we got that phone call from Aunt Mary Lou…so anyway…”
Common Set-up Mistakes l Information that doesn’t lead to the conclusion l A meandering storyline l A set-up that is too long l Correcting yourself when the detail isn’t important
The Anatomy of a Joke Now that you have the foundation for humor established, let’s look at the formula for a joke. There are three elements to a joke, the Premise, the Set-up, and the Punchline. How well you manage these three elements will dictate whether you get stares from the audience or laughs. The Punchline. The punchline is the funny line. Most often it is the last line unless the story is long, in which case there may be multiple punchlines. The punchline works in harmony with the set-up to deliver the laugh. It takes the expectations developed by the set-up and surprises the audience with a twist. It is in the punchline that the target of the joke is attacked. The set-up will let us know who the subject of the joke is, but the punchline delivers the killing blow. If a comedian is told to “tighten up his act,” it means the set-up is too loose. If he is told to “punch up” the story, it means the punchline isn’t strong enough. The punchline achieves its goal through two techniques: Contrast and Exaggeration. Contrast is a basic element of all comedy. The pairing of two unconnected ideas is a necessary component of humor. The contrast in a joke is usually between the set-up and the punchline. If the set-up is vague, the punchline is very specific; if the set-up is factual, the punchline is fictional. Contrast can also occur in the delivery of the punchline, such as a very spiteful comment being made with a smiling face, or a performer with a seemingly goofy character delivering a line that has intelligent satire. Contrast provides another important comedic element: incongruity. Incongruity, absurdity, or an out-of-placeness in the joke creates a twist in our brain. When we straighten out the twist, the realization of the incongruity causes a laugh. Exaggeration provides the sense of fun and lightheartedness needed for laughter. If a friend told us that it took twenty minutes to get served at a restaurant, we would not see much humor because it is not an unusually long wait. If the friend said that he waited so long for the waiter that he needed a walker to get to the buffet, the exaggeration is funny. If used carefully, exaggeration provides the spice that distinguishes humor from simply reporting the news of the day. If used to excess, exaggeration can paint someone as too eager to get a laugh. It is difficult to know just how much exaggeration will work. If you say it took two hours to get your foot unstuck from a bathtub drain, the audience may laugh. If you say it took two days, they may laugh harder. If you say it took two months, you might lose them with the over-exaggeration. Comedians are usually left to simple trial-and-error to determine how far an exaggeration can go before it enters the not-funny zone. They start out with a small exaggeration for a joke and increase the exaggeration each time they tell it. The audience is relying on the Laughter of Recognition to find humor in a story. Exaggeration is where the concept of suspension of disbelief is important. When we converse in a non-comedic setting we employ natural built-in reality checks. We believe what we think is real and disbelieve what is false. Our internal filters process everything we hear and warn us of the fake stuff. Mental filters are necessary to protect us from harm, but they aren’t very fun. Suspension of disbelief means the audience will believe fantastic situations for the sake of entertainment. They will believe a man can fly for the sake of a science fiction movie. They will believe someone can get hit on the head with a hammer for the sake of a laugh. You can’t stretch suspension of disbelief too far, however. If you say it took two days to get unstuck from the drain, they can envision you sitting in the bathtub for two days, stupidly waiting for help. When you cross into two years, it is too difficult to envision, and the Laughter of Recognition is lost. Even a wildly exaggerated situation must still seem somewhat plausible to the audience. The audience gives up just enough control to have fun and laugh, but not enough that they lose complete control.
Common Punchline Mistakes l Not enough of a surprise; lack of contrast l Too little exaggeration l Too much exaggeration l No clear target for the joke (Laughter of Superiority)
Let’s take a look at a story that demonstrates premise, set-up, and punchline, as well as some other comedy techniques. This is actually a story told by a student in one of my stand-up comedy classes. The first draft broke almost every rule of comedy. Following the first draft is the revised version.
First Draft: I always wanted to be my own boss because you don’t have anyone telling you what to do and you can earn your own money. So I really wanted to be my own boss and run my own business. I started my own lawn mowing business because I wanted to be my own boss. You know, be your own boss, set your own hours, no one hassling you. So I went to a Coast-to-Coast hardware store…or was it Hardware Hank? No, it was Coast-to-Coast. And I got myself a used lawn mower…no…two used lawn mowers ‘cause I wanted a partner to help with the mowing and a used lawn mower was cheaper. So I put an ad in the paper for a lawn mowing partner to help me mow the lawns. A guy named Charlie answered the ad and I asked him if he knew what he was doing and he said, “Sure.” This is a true story. Now, when I was at the hardware store I picked up a file just in case the blades on the mower were dull. We went to our first job at this lady’s house—this is a true story, too. We started cutting her grass. Well, she was watching us the whole time right from her front window. The blades were kind of dull and they weren’t cutting that well so I turned my mower over and started sharpening the blade with the file I got from the hardware store. And the lady’s watching us the whole time. Charlie says, “Hey, Ray, you don’t need to do that. I’ll take care of this.” And he pulled out a switch blade and started cutting the grass with it. That’s a true story.
He got the same reaction from the class that you are giving right now: a blank stare. Let’s spotlight specific problems.
“I started my own lawn mowing business because I’ve always wanted to be my own boss. You know, be your own boss, set your own hours, no one hassling you.” Unnecessary information. You have to assume that the audience understands what you mean. We all know the benefits of wanting to be your own boss. Too much explanation will destroy humor.
“So I went to a Coast-to-Coast…or was it Hardware Hank?” Too much detail. This section is as bad as when Aunt Flo starts telling us about our “cousin Milton’s bicycle accident when he was thirteen…or was it fourteen? No, it was twelve. I think he was twelve. Hey, Roger! Was Milton twelve or thirteen when he had that bicycle accident?” No one cares about the minor details. People usually include these useless details because the story actually happened to them and they think they need to explain everything in order for the listener to understand. If a detail is not important for the punchline, leave it out.
“No, it was Coast-to-Coast.” Get it right the first time. Uncertainty of facts causes the listener to lose suspension of disbelief. How can we believe someone lived the story when they can’t get simple facts straight? Mixing up facts also makes the story hard to follow. If you make listening difficult, we won’t listen.
“So I put an ad in the paper for a lawn mowing partner to help me mow the lawns.” Unnecessary information. This can be shortened simply by telling us, “I got a partner to help me.”
“A guy named Charlie answered the ad and I asked him if he knew what he was doing and he said ‘Sure.’” By now we’ve lost interest in the whole story, regardless of Charlie’s lawn care abilities.
“This is a true story.” Never tell the listener it is a true story. We are engaged in suspension of disbelief and you ruin the fantasy by reminding us that we are listening to a story. Telling us that a story is true also reveals that you are insecure. Anytime a story is followed with, “It really happened,” the joke was boring and unfunny so the speaker needed an excuse for telling it to us.
“Now, when I was at the hardware store I picked up a file just in case the blades on the mower were dull.” Information that doesn’t matter, and is being told out of sequence to the order of events.
“We went to our first job at this lady’s house—this is a true story, too.” A mistake to say the first time, deadly to say it the second.
“Well, she was watching us the whole time right from her front window.” We are lead to believe that the story is about her watching him and that the punchline will relate to her somehow. The set-up of the story is supposed to guide our thoughts in a straight line to the conclusion. The line about being watched by the lady makes us think the punchline is related to the lady. If the punchline is not about her, don’t mention her in the story.
“The blades were kind of dull and they weren’t cutting that well so I turned my mower over and started sharpening the blade with the file I got from the hardware store.” Repeat information.
“And the lady’s watching us the whole time.” We know, we know. We are waiting for the punchline!
“Charlie says, ‘Hey, Ray, you don’t need to do that. I’ll take care of this.’ And he pulled out a switch blade and started cutting the grass with it.” The word “switch blade” isn’t funny. The story has no feeling of conclusion.
“That’s a true story.” Yes, but it’s not funny.
He honed the story and got it to work with a shortened version, a tighter delivery, plus some additional techniques.
Second Draft: I’ve always wanted to be my own boss, so I started a lawn mowing service. I got a couple of used lawn mowers and an assistant out of the want-ads. We went to our first job and started mowing. Well, the blades were so dull they weren’t cutting so well, so I turned my mower over and started to file the blade down when this guy says, “Hey, Ray, don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.” And he starts cutting the grass with a scissors. (He pauses and looks at his watch) He’s still there. (Pause during laughter) What the heck, I got the check.
Notice how much information was removed. We also replaced the harsh, unfunny image of a switch blade with the more humorous scissors. The audience can visualize the poor assistant still cutting a lawn with a scissors in the middle of the night, and the attitude of superiority of Ray, who took the money and left him there. Ray also utilized an important technique of comedy, the one Goethe refers to in the quote at the beginning of the chapter. For a story to resonate with the audience, comedians must draw from real-life experiences. We “must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.”
My book, What We Laugh at…and Why covers the subject of humor from front to back. If you aren’t interested in digging that deep, I strongly encourage you to practice this simple technique that will greatly improve your use of humor. Whenever you make a group of friends laugh, take note of what you said and how you said it. You may want to start carrying a small notepad with you. Then, tell the story to a different group of friends. Don’t tell them you are working on something funny; that will take them out of the moment and you won’t get an accurate judgment of the material. Retell the same story to as many different friends, in as many different settings as you can. Creating laughter is equal parts spontaneity and repetition. Of course you will have moments where a witty comment will pop into your head; certainly use those. However, professional comedy is not about being funny only when you feel funny. A comedian must create laughs at five o’clock on a Friday evening at a VFW dinner, then the next night at ten o’clock at a nightclub. Comedy is not just about creating laughs, it involves recreating a funny moment. When you retell a funny story to different groups of people you hone your abilities to recreate the moment. In order to fine tune your comedic skills, each time you retell the story you should tweak it a bit. Take out unnecessary information, push the punchline a bit, and experiment to see what techniques might get you more laughs. You will be surprised at how much concentration this exercise takes. When we chat with friends we don’t usually pay attention to the laugh quotient. So this will take a shift in your concentration. If you are diligent, however, and make this a regular practice, you will discover an additional benefit; your regular speaking will become tighter. Comedy is a form of communication that demands succinctness. Delivering information in a concise manner is a skill that can benefit any speaker.
Is my presentation alive? How do you know if you have effectively employed all of the above techniques to Bring It to Life? Some techniques are easy to evaluate: your humor works when you the audience laughs. The rest might seem more elusive to judge, but I have a foolproof gauge: watch the audiences’ heads. You are looking for the nod. There are two kinds of head nods. The first kind is the nod of agreement or excitement. The audiences’ eyes are focused directly on you and their nod is deliberate. The eyes narrow a bit because the person is concentrating on what you say and linking it to a personal experience. This kind of nod is often accompanied with a quick look to the audience member next to them. When people strongly approve or agree with something they tend to want to share their feeling with someone so they turn to each other and nod. You see this at a movie when a great scene or funny line is said, everyone looks to their date to share their appreciation of the moment. Once you have someone making the connection between your words and their experience, you have buy-in and get the good nod. The second kind of nod is the kind that means, “I know, I know. Move along.” This nod has less energy and the movement is vague. The eyes aren’t squinted with concentration; they are glazed over with boredom and may either be directed at the speaker or wandering around the room. This is the kind of nod an audience gives to a speaker who is repetitious, uninspired, talking down to the audience, or lacking in direction. Another response doesn’t involve a nod, it involves no movement at all. If your audience is frozen in place it is either good (They are enthralled. Their eyes are clear and open, their posture is forward in their chairs), or bad (They are so bored they have become catatonic). This will be accompanied by droopy eyes, a slouched posture, and a brain wave similar to a dial tone. When bad speakers encounter signals that they are losing the audience, they panic. They either rush through the rest of the speech and slink offstage, or worse, they lose all energy and allow their panic to shut them down. Either reaction leaves the audience with a bad taste. Use the techniques above to make sure you get the good nod. Now let’s talk about how to keep the audience right where you want them.
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“In my position, the delivery of the message is as important as the the content of the message itself. |
Stevie Ray 612-825-1832 Business Entertainer • Paula Poundstone • Marsha Warfield of Night Court • Rich Hall of Saturday Night Live • "Weird Al" Yankovic The only person in the country to design his own college degree in Theory and Performance of Comedy at Moorhead State University in Minnesota Master of Ceremonies for: • Twin Cities Public Television The Minnesota Channel (2003-04) "In this, the most difficult comic art form, Stevie Ray makes improv performance skills seem like second nature. He slips in and out of personas, international accents, and situations the same way Harry Houdini slipped in and out of padlocked chains and steel cages - effortlessly, almost magically."
Affiliations and Publications Preferred Partner of the National Concierge Association • "Speaking in Public without Sweating in Private," a book that helps you develop presentation and public speaking skills Extras • Former bodyguard for Pee Wee Herman (yes, really) • Owner of "Steve's Bees Minnesota Honey," producing natural honey from his own beehives • Volunteer for the Minnesota State Services for the Blind, recording books on tape • Volunteer for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, bringing hope, strength, and joy to children with life-threatening illnesses. Stevie Ray is: |
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 ©2008 Stevie Ray’s Improv Company • 612-825-1832 • stevie@stevierays.org |
