Mastering Spontaneous Speaking: Anxiety, Structure, and Engagement

[Music] welcome I'm very excited today to talk about effective speaking in spontaneous

situations I thank you all for joining us even though the title of my talk is grammatically incorrect I thought that

might scare a few of you away but I learned teaching here at the business school catching people's attention is

hard so something as simple as that I thought might draw a few of you here so this is going to be a highly interactive

and participative Workshop today if you don't feel comfortable participating that's

completely fine but do know I'm going to ask you to talk to people next to you there'll be opportunities to stand up

and practice some things because I believe the way we become effective communicators is by actually

communicating so let's get started right away I'd like to ask you all to read this sentence and as you read this

sentence what's most important to me is that you count the number of FS that you find in this sentence please count the

number of FS keep it quiet to yourself give you just another couple seconds

here 3 two one raise your hand please if you found three and only three FS excellent great did anybody find four

okay anybody find only five fs and anybody find six there's six FS what two-letter word ending in f did

many of us miss of we'll make sure to get this to you so you can torment your friends and family

at a later date when I first was exposed to this over 12 years ago I only found three and

I felt really stupid so I like to start every Workshop every class I teach with this to pass that feeling and no no

that's not that's not why I do this I do this because this is a perfect analogy for what we're going to be talking about

today the vast majority of us in this room very smart people in this room were not as effective as we could have been

in this activity we didn't get it right and the same is true when it comes to speaking in public particularly when

spontaneous speaking it's little things that make a big difference in being effective So today we're going to talk

about little things in terms of your approach your attitude your practice that can change how you feel when you

speak in public and we're going to be talking primarily about one typee of public

speaking not the type that you plan for in advance the type that you actually spend time thinking about you might even

create slides for these are the Keynotes the conference presentation the formal toasts that's not what we're talking

about today we're talking about spontaneous speaking when you're in a situation that you're asked to speak off

the cuff and in the moment what we're going through today is is actually the result of a workshop I created here for

the business school several years ago a survey was taken among the students and they said what's one of the what are

things we could do to help make you more successful here and at the top of that list was this notion of responding to

cold calls does everybody know what a cold call is it's where the mean Professor like me looks at some students

says what do you think and there was a lot of panic and a lot of Silence so as a result of that this Workshop was

created in a vast majority of first year students here at the GSB go through this Workshop so I'm going to walk you

through sort of a hybrid version of what they do the reality is that spontaneous speaking is actually more prevalent than

plann speaking perhaps it's giving introductions you're at a dinner and somebody says you know so and so would

you mind introducing them maybe it's giving feedback in the moment your boss turns to you and says would you tell me

what you think it could be a surprise toast or finally it could be during the Q&A session and by the way we will leave

plenty of time at the end of our day today for Q&A I'd love to hear the questions you have about this topic or

other topics related to communicating so our agenda is simple in order to Be an Effective Communicator

regardless of if it's planned or spontaneous you need to have your anxiety under control so we'll start

there second what we're going to talk about is some ground rules for the interactivity we'll have today and then

finally we're going to get into the heart of what we will be covering and again as I said lots of activity and I

invite you to participate so let's get started with anxiety

management 85% of people tell us that they're nervous when speaking in public and I think the other 15% are lying okay

we could create a situation where we could make them nervous too in fact just this past week a study from Chapman

University asked Americans what are the things you fear most and among being caught in a surprise terrorist attack

having identity your identity stolen was public speaking among the top five was speaking in front of others this is a

ubiquitous fear and one that I believe we can learn to manage and I use that word manage very carefully because I

don't think we ever want to overcome it anxiety actually helps us it gives us energy helps us Focus tells us what

we're doing is important but we want to learn to manage it so I'd like to introduce you to a few techniques that

can work and all of these techniques are based on academic research but before we get there I'd love to ask you what does

it feel like when you're sitting in the audience watching a nervous speaker present how do you feel just shout out a

few things how do you feel uncomfortable I heard many of you going

yes uncomfortable it feels very awkward doesn't it so what do we do now a couple of you probably like watching somebody

suffer okay but most of us don't so what do we do we sit there and we nod and we smile or we

disengage and to the nervous speaker looking out at his or her audience seeing a bunch of people nodding or

disengaged that does not help okay so we need to learn to manage our anxiety because fundamentally your job as a

communicator rather regardless of if it's planned or spontaneous is to make your audience comfortable because if

they're comfortable they can receive your message and when I say comfortable I am not referring to the fact that that

your message has to be sugarcoated and nice and them to hear it can be a harsh message but they have to be in a place

where they can receive it so it's incumbent on you as a communicator to help your audience feel comfortable and

we do that by managing our anxiety so let me introduce you to a few techniques that I think you can use right away to

help you feel more comfortable the first has to do with when you begin to feel those anxiety

symptoms for most people this happens in the initial minutes prior to speaking in this situation what happens

is many of us begin to feel whatever it is that happens to you maybe your stomach gets a little gurgly maybe your

legs begin to shake maybe you begin to perspire and then we start to say to ourselves oh my goodness I'm nervous

uhoh they're going to tell I'm nervous this is not going to go well and we start spiraling out of

control so research on mindful attention tells us that if when we begin to feel those anxiety symptoms we simply greet

our anxiety and say hey this this is me feeling nervous I'm about to do something of

consequence and simply by greeting your anxiety and acknowledging it that it's normal and natural heck 85% of people

tell us they have it you actually can stem the tide of that anxiety spiraling out of control it's not necessarily

going to reduce the anxiety but it will stop it from spinning up so the next time you begin to feel those anx anxiety

signs take a deep breath and say this is me feeling anxious I notice a few of you taking some notes

there's a handout that will come at the end that has everything that I'm supposed to say okay can't guarantee I'm

going to say it but I you'll have it there in addition to this approach a technique that works very well and this

is a a technique that I helped do some research on way back when I was in graduate school has to do with reframing

how you see the speaking situation most of us when we are up presenting planned or spontaneous we feel that we have to

do it right and we feel like we are performing how many of you have ever acted done singing or dancing I'm not

going to ask for performances now okay many of you have we should note that we could do next year maybe a talent show

of alums it looks like we got the talent there that's great so when you perform you know that

there's a right way and a wrong way to do it if you don't hit your the right note or your right line at the right

time at the right place you've made a mistake it messes up the audience it messes up the people on stage but when

you present there is no right way there's certainly better and worse ways but there is no one right way so we need

to look at presenting as something other than performance and what I'd like to suggest is what we need to see this as

is a conversation right now I'm having a conversation with a 100 plus

people rather than saying I'm performing for you but it's not enough just to say this is a conversation I want to give

you some concrete things you can do first start with questions questions by their very nature are dialogic they're

two-way what was one of the very first things I did here for you I had you count the number of fs and raise your

hands I asked you a question that gets your audience involved it makes it feel to me as the presenter as if we are in

conversation so use questions they can be rhetorical they can be polling perhaps I actually want to hear

information from you in fact I use questions when I create an outline for my presentations rather than

writing bullet points I list questions that I'm going to answer and that puts me in that conversational mode if you

were to look at my notes for today's talk you'll see it's just a series of questions right now I'm answering the

question how do we manage our anxiety Beyond questions another very useful technique for making us

conversational is to use conversational language many nervous speakers distance

themselves physically if you've ever seen a nervous speaker present he or she will say something like this welcome I

am really excited to be here with you they pull as far away from you as possible because you threaten us

speakers you make us nervous so we want to get away from you we do the same thing linguistically we use language

that distances ourselves It's Not Unusual to hear a nervous speaker say something like one must consider the

ramifications or today we're going to cover step one step two step three that's very

distancing language to be more conversational use conversational language instead of one must consider

say this is important to you we all need to be concerned with do you hear that inclusive conversational language has to

do with the pronouns instead of step one step two step three first what we need to do is this the second thing you

should consider is here use conversational language so being conversation can also help you

manage your anxiety the third technique I'd like to share is research that I actually

started when I was an undergraduate here I was very fortunate to study with Phil zimbardo of the Stanford Prison

Experiment Fame many people don't know that Zim actually was instrumental in starting one of the very first shinness

institutes in the world and especially in the country and I did some research with him that looked at how your

orientation to time influences is how you react and what we learned is if you can bring yourself into the present

moment rather than being worried about the future consequences you can actually be less

nervous most of us when we present are worried about the future consequences my students are worried they're not going

to get the right grade some of you are worried you might not get the funding you might not get the support you might

not get the laughs that you want all of those are future States so if we can bring ourselves into the present moment

we're not going to be is concerned about those future States and therefore will be less nervous there are lots of ways

to become present oriented I know a professional speaker he's paid

$10,000 an hour to speak it's a good gig he gets very nervous he's up in front of crowds of thousands behind the stage

what he does is a hundred push-ups right before he comes out you can't be that physically active and not be in the

present moment now I'm not recommending all of us go to that level of exertion cuz he starts out of breath sweaty right

but a walk around the building before you speak that can do it there are other ways if you've ever watched athletes

perform and get ready to do their event they listen to music they focus on a song or a playlist that helps get them

in the moment you can do things as simple as counting backwards from a hundred by tough numbers like

17 I'm going to pause because I know people in the room are trying yeah gets hard after that third or fourth one I

know my favorite way to get present oriented is is to say tongue twisters saying a tongue twister forces

you to be in the moment otherwise you'll say it wrong and it has the added benefit of warming up your voice most

nervous speakers don't warm up their voice they Retreat inside themselves and start saying all these bad things to

themselves so saying a tongue twister can help you be both present oriented and warm up your

voice remember I said today we're going to have a lot of participation I'm going to ask you to repeat after me my

favorite tongue twister and I like this tongue twister because if you say get wrong you say a naughty word and I'm

going to be listening to see if I hear any naughty words this morning repeat after me it's only three

phrases I slit a sheet a sheet I slit and on that slitted sheet I

sit oh very good no shits excellent very good now in that moment in that moment

you weren't worried about I'm in front of all these people this is weird this guy's having me do this you were so

focused on saying it right and trying to figure out what the naughty word was that you were in the present moment

that's how easy it is so it's very possible for us to manage our anxiety we can do it initially by greeting the

anxiety when we begin to feel those signs we can do it when we reframe the situation as a

conversation and we do it when we become present oriented those are three of many tools that exist to help you manage your

anxiety if you have questions about other ways I'm happy to chat with you and at the end I'm going to point you to

some resources that you can refer to to help you find additional sources for you so let's get started on the core

part of what we're doing today which is how to feel more comfortable speaking in spontaneous situations some very simple

ground rules for you first I'm going to identify four steps that I

believe are critical to becoming effective at speaking in in a spontaneous situation with each of those

steps I'm going to ask you to participate in an activity none of them are more painful than saying the tongue

twister out loud they may require you to stand up they might require you to talk to the person next to you but none of

them are painful and then finally I'm going to conclude with a phrase or saying that comes from the wonderful

world of improvisation through the continuing studies program here at Stanford for the

past 5 years I have co-taught a class with Adam Tobin he is a lecturer in the uh creative arts department he teaches

film and New Media and he's an expert at improv and we've partnered together to help people learn how to speak more

spontaneously we call it improvisationally speaking and Adam has taught me wonderful phrases and ideas

from improv that I want to impart to you they really stick that's why I'm sharing them with you to help you remember these

techniques and again at the end of all this you'll get a handout that has this listed so let's get started the very

first thing that gets in people's way when it comes to spontaneous speaking is themselves we get in our own way we want

to be perfect we want to give the right answer we want our toast to be incredibly memorable these things are

burdened by our effort by our trying the best thing we can do the first step in our process is to get ourselves out of

the way easier said than done most of us in this room are in this room because we are type A personalities we work hard we

think fast we make sure that we get things right but that can actually serve as a disservice as we try to speak in

the moment I'd like to demonstrate a little of this for you and I need your help to

do that so we're going to do our first activity we are going to do an activity that's called Shout the wrong name in a

moment if you are able and willing I'm going to ask you to stand and I am going to ask you for about 30 seconds to look

all around you in this environment and you are going to point at different things and I know it's rude to point but

for this exercise please point I want you to point to things and you are going to call the things you are pointing to

out loud anything but what they really are so I might point to this and say refrigerator I might point to this and

say cat I am pointing to anything in your environment around you can be the person sitting next to you standing next

to you you will just shout and shouting is important the wrong name so in a moment I'm going to ask you

to stand and do that please raise your hand if you already have the first five or six things you're going to call

out yeah that's what I'm talking about we stockpile you all are excellent game players I told you the game shout the

wrong name and you have already begun figuring out how you're going to master the game that's your brain trying to

help you get it right I'd like to suggest the only way you can get this activity wrong is by

doing what you've just done there is no way to get this wrong okay even if I call this a chair no

penalty will be bestowed upon you okay CU I won't know what you were pointing at you could have been pointing

at the floor under the chair and you called the floor the chair and you were fine the point is we are planning and

working to get it right and there is no way to get it right just doing it gets it right okay so let's try this now

we're going to play this game twice again it's for 30 seconds if you are willing and able will you please stand

up you can do this seated by the way but if you're willing and able let's stand up okay in a moment I am about to say go

and I would like for you to point at anything around here including me it's okay to point at me I hope it's not a

bad thing you say when you point at me but point at different things and loudly and proudly call them different than

what they are ready begin porcupine

California salt shaker car

Library tennis racket per purple

orange putrid hello

time time let's you can stay standing because in a mere moments we're going to do it

again so if you're comfortable standing we're about to do it again first thank you that was wonderful I heard great

words being called out it was it was fun and some of you in the back were doing it in sync so it looked like you were

doing 7s disco dance it was awesome okay this this was great now let me ask you just a few questions did you notice

anything about the words that you were saying did we find patterns perhaps maybe some of you were going through

fruits and vegetables a few of you were going through things that started with the letter

a right that's your brain saying okay you told me not to stockpile so I'm going to try to be a little more devious

and I'm going to give you p patterns okay same problem when we teach that class I told

you about that improvisationally speaking class we like to say your brain is there to help you these things it's

doing have helped you be successful but like a windshield wiper we just want to wipe those suggestions away and see what

happens okay so we're going to do this activity again this time try the best you can to

thank your brain if it provides you with patterns or stock piles and just say thank you brain

and disregard them okay so let's see what happens when we're not stockpiling and we're not playing off patterns we'll

do this for only 15 seconds see how this feels baby steps ready begin

Kodak bicycle chain skateboard bananas

purple putrid time please have a seat thank you again did you notice a

difference between the second time and the first time yes was it a little easier that second time

no that's okay we're just starting these skills are not like a light switch it's not like you learn these SKS skills and

then all of the sudden you can execute on them this is a wonderful game this is a wonderful game to train your brain to

get out of its own way you can play this game anywhere anytime I like to play this game when I'm sitting in

traffic makes me feel better than the I shout things out they're not the naughty things that I want to be shouting out

but I shout out things and it helps you're training yourself to get out of your own way you're working against the

muscle memory that you've developed over the course of your life with a brain that acts very fast to help you solve

problems but in essence in spontaneous speaking situations you put too much pressure on yourself trying to figure

out how to get it right so a game like this teaches us to get out of our own way it teaches us to

see the things that we do that prevent us from acting spontaneously in essence we are reacting

rather than responding to react means to act again you've thought it and now you're acting on it that takes too long

and it's too thoughtful we want to respond in a way that's genuine and authentic so the maxim I would like for

you to take from this and again these maxims come from improvisation is one of my favorite dare to be dull and in a

room like this telling you dare to be dull is offensive and I apologize but this will help rather than stre striving

for greatness dare to be dull and if you dare to be D D and allow yourself that

you will reach that greatness it's when you set greatness as your target that it gets in the way of you ever getting

there because you over evaluate you overanalyze you freeze up so the first step in our process today is to get out

of Our Own Way dare to be dull easier said than done but once you practice in a game just as simple as the one we

practiced is a great way to do it but that's not enough getting out of our own way is important but the second

step of our process has us change how we see the situation we find ourselves in we need to see the speaking opportunity

that we are a part of as an opportunity rather than a challenge and a threat when I coach Executives on Q&A

skills when they go in front of the media or whatever investors they see it as an adversarial

experience me versus them and one of the first things I work on is change the way you

approach it a Q&A session for example is an opportunity for you it's an opportunity to clarify it's an

opportunity to understand what people are thinking so if we look at it as an opportunity it feels very different we

see it differently and therefore we have more freedom to respond when I feel that you are challenging me I am going to do

the bare minimum to respond and protect myself if I see this as an opportunity where I

have a chance to explain and expand I'm going to interact differently with you so spontaneous speaking situations are

ones that afford you opportunities so when you're at a corporate dinner and your boss turns to

you and says oh you know him better than the rest would you mind introducing him you say great thank you for the

opportunity rather than right I better get this right so see things as an opportunity

commity I have a game to play to help us with this this is a fun one the holidays are approaching we all in this room are

going to give and receive gifts here's how this game will work it works best if you have a partner so I'm hoping you can

work with somebody sitting next to you if there's nobody sitting next to you turn around introduce yourself great way

to connect if not you can play this game by yourself it's just a little harder and you can't do the second part of the

game so after I explain the game this gives you a chance to to get to know somebody here's how it works if you have

a partner you and your partner are going to exchange imaginary gifts okay pretend you have a gift can be a big gift can be

a small gift and you will give your gift to your partner your partner will take the gift

and open it up and will tell you what you gave them because you have no you just gave them a gift so you are going

to open up the box and you're going to look inside and you are going to say the first thing that comes to your mind in

the moment not the thing you have all just thought of or the thing after that remember what

we talked about before that still plays that's still in play okay you're stockpiling look in there my favorite

that I said somebody gave me this a gift during playing this game I looked inside and I saw a frog leg I don't know why I

saw a frog leg but that's what I said that's the first part of the activity now the opportunity is twofold in this

game the opportunity is for you the gift receiver to name a gift that's kind of fun that's an opportunity it's not a

threat but the real opportunity is for the Gift Giver because the Gift Giver then has to

say so you look in you say thank you for giving me a frog's leg and the person will will look at you and say I knew you

wanted a frog's leg because so whatever you find the person who has received it is going to say absolutely I'm so glad

you're happy I got it for you because so you have to respond to whatever they say right what a great opportunity now some

of you are sitting there going oh that's hard I don't want to do I'm going to make a fool out of myself others of you

are if you're following this advice are saying what a great opportunity right so the game again is played like this you

and your partner will exchange a each will exchange a gift one will start then the other will follow the first person

will give a gift to the second person second person opens the Box however big the box is and if the box is big and you

find a penny in it perfect doesn't matter if the box is heavy and you find a feather in it fine it does there's no

way to get it wrong wrong okay whatever's in the box is in the Box you can return it and get what you wanted

later okay the person then you will name it you will say thank you for the whatever

you saw in the Box the person who gave it to you will say I'm so glad you're excited I got it for you

because and you will give a reason that you got them whatever they decided you gave them make sense all right so very

quickly just in 5 seconds find a partner if you're willing to do this with a partner everybody have a partner

okay all right in your Partnerships in your Partnerships pick an a person and a b

person you may stand or sit it's totally up to you pick an A and pick a

b okay B goes first all right B give a a gift B give a a gift a

thank them and then B will name and give the reason they gave it to him [Applause]

[Applause] if you have not switched switch please if you have not switched switch please

let's wrap it up in 30 seconds please let's wrap it up all right if we can all have our

seats if we can all take our seats

please I know I'm telling a room of many MBA alums to stop talking and that's

hard all right ladies and gentlemen did you get what you wanted pretty neat huh you always get

what you want now for some of you this was really hard because you you were really taking the

challenge and not seeing what was in the Box until you looked in there okay was anybody surprised by what you found in

the Box what did you find sir what was in the Box

what uh wow nice nice if you've got a Ferrari you need a transmission I like it who

else found something that was surprising what did you find a live unicorn a live unicorn that's a great gift right how

was it as the Gift Giver were you surprised at what your partner found in the Box isn't it interesting that when

we give an imaginary gift knowing that the person's going to name it we already have in mind what they're going to find

and when they say live unicorn we go well that's interesting right so the point of this game is to one

remind ourselves we have to get out of our own way like we talked about before but to see this as an opportunity and to

have fun I love watching people play this game the number of smiles that I saw amongst you and and I have to admit

when I first started some of you looked a little dower a little doubting okay but in that last game you were all

smiling and looked like you were having fun so when you reframe the spontaneous speaking opportunity as as an

opportunity as something that you can co-create and share all of the sudden you are less nervous less defensive and

you can accomplish something pretty darn good in this case a fun outcome this reminds us of perhaps the

most famous of all improvisation sayings yes and a lot of us live our communication lives saying no

but yes and opens up a tremendous amount of opportunities and this doesn't mean you have to say yes and to a question

somebody asked this just means the approach you take to the situation so you're going to ask me

questions that's an opportunity yes and will follow through versus no in being defensive so we've accomplished the

first two steps of our process first we get out of our own way and second we reframe the situation as an

opportunity the next phase is also hard but very rewarding and that is to slow down and listen you need to understand

the demands of the requirement you find yourself in in order to respond appropriately

but often we jump ahead we listen just enough to think we got it and then we go ahead starting our to think about what

we're going to respond and then we respond we really need to listen because fundamentally as a communicator your job

is to be in service of your audience and if you don't understand what your audience is asking or needs you can't

fulfill that obligation so we need to slow down and listen I have a fun game to play

in this game you are going to s p l l e v r y t h i n g y o u s a y t o y o u r p a r t n e

r i will translate you're going to get with the same partner you just worked with and

you are going to have a very brief conversation about something fun that you plan to do today I know this is the

most fun you're going to have all day but the next fun thing you're going to do today you are going to tell your

partner what you are going to do that will be fun today but you are going to do so by s p l l i n g it

t okay so you're going to spell it it's okay if you are not a good speller okay the I you'll see the

benefit of doing this so with the partner you just worked with person a is going to go first this time you are

simply going to tell your partner actually you're going to expell to your partner what it is of fun something of

fun that you're going to do today okay do what you were really going to do for fun and not do things like Fe d t h e c

a t right just because you don't want to spell right so you can use big words all right 30 seconds each spell to your

partner something fun that you're going to do today would you like to play

go g o t h e g a m e oh my goodness say it again spell it again o y t h yep g a m e ex c e l l n t

i h o p e t h a t t h e y w i n c l n thank you that was very good thank you

if you have not switched switch take 30 more seconds with the new partner spelling

g a t exclamation point t a n k y o u p l e a s e t a k e y o u r s e a t so what did we

learn what did we learn besides that we're not so good at spelling got to pause between the words you have to

pause between the words how did this change your interaction with the person you were

interacting with what did you have to do Focus FOC focus and listen and you can't be thinking ahead

you have to be in the moment when you listen and truly understand what the person is trying to say then you can

respond in a better way a more targeted response we often don't listen so we start by getting out of our

own way we then reframe the situation as an opportunity those are things we do inside our head but in the moment of

interacting we have to listen first before we can respond to the spontaneous request perhaps my most favorite

Maxim comes from this activity don't just do something stand there

listen listen and then respond now how do we respond that brings us to the fourth part of our

process and that is we have to tell a story we respond in a way that has a structure all stories have structure we

have to respond in a structured way the the key to successful spontaneous speaking and by the way planed speaking

is having a structure I would like to introduce you to two of the most prevalent and popular

and useful structures you can use to communicate a message in a spontaneous situation but before we get there we

have to talk about the value of structure it increases what is called processing fluency the effectiveness of

which or through which we process information we actually process structured information roughly 40% more

effectively and efficiently than information that's not structured I love looking out in this audience because you

will remember as I remember phone numbers when you had to remember them if you wanted to call somebody okay Young

Folks today don't need to remember phone numbers they just need to look at a picture push a button and then the voice

starts talking on the other end 10-digit phone numbers it's actually hard to remember 10-digit phone numbers how did

you do it you chunked it into a structure three three and four structure helps us

remember the same is true when speaking spontaneously or in a planned situation so let me introduce you to two useful

structures the first useful structure you have probably heard or used in some Incarnation it is the problem solution

benefit structure you start by talking about what the issue is the problem you then talk about a way of

solving it and then you talk about the benefits of following through on it very persuasive very effective helps you as

the speaker remember it helps your audience know where where you're going with it when I was a tour guide on this

campus many many many years ago what do you think the single most important thing they drilled into our

head it took a full quarter by the way to train to be a tour guide here they used to line us up at one end of the

quad and have us walk backwards straight and if you failed you had to start over to this day I can walk backwards in a

straight line because of that as part of that training what do you think the most important thing they taught us

was never lose your tour group I'm not Jo never that's never lose your tour

group the same is true as a presenter never lose your audience the way you keep your audience on track is by

providing structure none of you would go on a tour with me if I said hi my name is Matt let's

go you want to know where you're going why you're going there how long it's going to take you need to set

expectations and structure does that problem solution benefit is a wonderful structure to have in your back

pocket it's something that you can use quickly when you're in the moment it can be reframed so it's not

always a problem you're talking about maybe it's an opportunity maybe there's a market opportunity you want to go out

and capture it's not a problem that we're not doing it but maybe we'd be better off if we did so it becomes

opportunity solution which are the steps to achieve it and then the benefit another structure which works

equally equally well is the what so what now what structure you start by talking about what it is then you talk about why

it's important and then what the next steps are this is a wonderful formula for

answering questions for introducing people so if in the moment somebody ask me to introduce somebody I change the

what to who I say who they are why they're important and what we're going to do next maybe listen to them maybe

drink our wine whatever right what so what now what the reality is this when you are in a spontaneous speaking

situation you have to do two things simultaneously you have to figure out what to say and how to say it these

structures help you by telling you how to say it if you can become comfortable with

these structures you can be in a situation where you can respond very a to spontaneous speaking

situations we're going to practice because that's what we do here's the situation is everybody familiar with

this child's toy it's a Slinky okay you are going to sell this Slinky to your partner using either problem solution

benefit or opportunity solution benefit what does the slinky provide you or you could use what so what now

what what is it why is it important and the next steps might be to buy it okay so by using that structure see how

already it helps you it helps you focus get with your partner and we're only going to have one part partner sell

to the other partner okay so get with your partner one of you will volunteer to sell to the other okay sell a slinky

using problem solution benefit or what so what now what please begin yeah so we have the handouts but I'm

also going to be doing the the microphone so uh when I debrief this you can go ahead and pass them out does that

make sense after after QA no no um after this activity okay and after that we'll do

correct e 30 more seconds please excellent let's all close the

deal seal the deal I have never seen more people in one place doing this

at the same time I love it I teach people to gesture and gesture big it's great I love it so

if you were the recipient of the the sales pitch thumbs up did they do a good job did they use the structure awesome

I'm recruiting you all for my next business as my salese please try to ignore this but as

we're speaking the handout I told you about is coming around on the back of that handout you are going to see a list

of structures the two we talked about and several others that can help you in spontaneous speaking situations these

structures help because they help you understand how you're going to say what you say structure sets you free and I

know that's kind of ironic but it's true if you have that structure then you're free to think about what it is you're

going to say it reduces the cognitive load of figuring out what you're saying and how you're going to say it all of

this is on that handout okay so what does this all mean it means that we have within our

ability the tools and the approaches to help us in spontaneous speaking situations the very first thing we have

to do is manage our anxiety because you can't be an effective speaker if you don't have your anxiety under control

and we talked about how you can do that by greeting your anxiety reframing as a conversation and being in the present

moment once you do that you need to practice a series of four steps that will help you speak spontaneously first

you get out of your own way I would love it if all of you on your way from here to the football game point at things and

call them the wrong name it'll be fun if most of us do it then it won't be weird if only one and two of us do it it'll be

weird right second give gifts by that I mean see your interactions as ones of opportunity not

challenges third take the time to listen listen and then finally use structures

and you have to practice these structures I practice these structures on my kids I have two kids when they ask

me questions I usually answer them in what so what now what they don't know it but when they go over to their friends

houses and they see their friends ask their dad's questions they don't get what so so what now what so you know you

have to practice the more you practice the more comfortable you will become ultimately you have the

opportunity before you to become more compelling more confident more connected as a speaker if you leverage these

techniques if you're interested in learning more this is where I do a little plug okay I've written a book

many of the MBA students who take the Strategic communication classes here that I and others teach read it it's

called speaking up without freaking out more importantly there's a website here that I curate called no freaking

speaking and it has lots of information that I've written and others have written about how to become more

effective at speaking so that's that's the end of my plug what I'd really like to do is enter into a spontaneous

speaking situation with you and I would love to entertain any questions that you have there are two people who are

running around with microphones so some of us who remember the Phil Donahue show uh we're going to do a little bit of

that uh if you have a question the microphone will come and I'm happy to answer

it I think if it on yeah we can hear you great um can you talk about hostile situations hostile situations yes so

when you find yourself in a challenging situation first it should not become a surprise to you it should not be a

surprise before you ever speak you should think about what is the environment going to be like so it

shouldn't surprise you that there might be some challenges in the room when there are hostile situations

that arise you have have to acknowledge it so if somebody says that's a ridiculous idea why did you come up with

that to Simply say so the idea I came up with was right acknowledge the emotion I recommend not naming the

emotion okay so you sound really angry person say I'm not angry I'm frustrated now we're arguing over their mental

state right emotional state so so I say something like I hear you have a lot of passion on this issue or I hear there's

great concern from you so you acknowledge the emotion because otherwise it sits in the room and then

reframe a respond the way that makes sense so if somebody raises their hand and says your product is ridiculously

priced why do you charge so much I might say I hear great concern and what you're really asking about is

the value of our product and I would give my value proposition and then I would come back and say and because of

the value we provide we believe it's priced fairly so you answer the question about price but you reframe it in a way

that you feel more comfortable answering it so the way to do this is to practice all the skills we just talked about the

only skill that I'm adding to this is the awareness in advance that you might be in that situation first I have to

truly listen to what I'm hearing right it's very easy for me when I hear a challenging question to get all

defensive and not hear what the person's asking I see it as an opportunity to reframe and explain okay so again you

have to practice but that's how I think you address it are there other questions I see a question back here yes please

yes first of all thank you very much great great presentation uh for a lot of the the um the speaking I do I have

remote audiences audiences distributed all over uh the country with uh Telecom any tips for those kinds of audiences so

when you are speaking in a situation where not everybody is collocated okay in fact right at this very moment there

are people watching this presentation remotely what you need to do is be mindful of it second try to include

engagement techniques where the audience actually has to do something so So Physical participation is what we did

here through the games you can ask your audience to imagine something imagine what it would be like if when we try to

achieve a goal rather than saying here's the goal we're trying to achieve say imagine what it would be like if see

what that does to you it pulls you in I can take polling questions most of the technology that you're referring to has

some kind of polling feature you can open up some kind of Wiki or Google doc or some collaborative tool where people

can be doing things and you can be monitoring that while you're presenting so I might take some breaks I talk for

10 15 minutes and say okay let's apply this and let's go into this Google doc I've created and I see what people are

doing so it's about variety and it's about engagement those are the ways that you really connect to people who are

remote from you okay other questions who you're pointing oh I've got to look for where the mic is yes

please um this may be a similar to the first question but um I do a lot of expert witness testimony what's your

recommendation for handling cross-examination specifically specifically being cross-examined right

that's very hostile so in any speaking situation that you go into that has some planned element to it I recommend

identifying certain themes that you think are important or believe need to come out and then with each one of those

themes have some examples and concrete evidence that you can use to support it you don't go in with

memorized terms or ways of saying it you just have ideas and themes and then you put them together as necessary so when

I'm in a situation where people are interrogating me uh I have certain themes that I want to get across and

make sure that I I can do that in a way that fits the needs in the moment if it's hostile again you the the single

best tool you have to buy yourself time and to help you answer a question efficiently is paraphrasing the

paraphrase is like the Swiss army knife of communication if you remember the show mcgyver it's your mver tool right

so when a question comes in the way you paraphrase it allows you the opportunity to reframe it to think about your answer

and to pause and make sure you got it right so when you're under those situations if you have the opportunity

to paraphrase say so what you're really asking about is X Y and Z that gives you the opportunity to employ one of these

techniques now I've never been an expert witness because I'm not an expert on anything but those tools I believe could

be helpful the the microphone is back there thank you thank you so much this has been so helpful and enjoyable this

morning thank you would would you please show the last screen so we can get down the name of the book that you've written

and the information absolutely thank you I think they actually there you might even have an opportunity to it's on the

sheet too everything I said is on the back of that sheet but I'm happy to have this behind me while I while I talk

other questions yes please yes um I work with um groups that from that represent many different cultural backgrounds yes

so are there any caveats or is this a un unversal strategy so in terms of from your

perspective as the speaker I believe this applies but when you whenever you communicate part of the listening aspect

is also thinking about is who is my audience and what are their expectations so what are the cultural expectations of

the audience that I'm presenting to so there might be certain norms and rules that are expected so when I travel and

do talks I have to take into account where I'm doing the the presentation so I I'm I help present in the ignite

program and if you have not heard about the ignite program here at the GSB it's fantastic and I just did a presentation

standing in one of these awesome classrooms that have all these cameras and I just taught 35 people in Santiago

Chile right and I needed to understand the cultural expectations of that area and what they expect and what they're

willing to do when I ask them to participate so it it's a part of that listening step where you reflect on what

are the expectations of the audience I think we have for two more questions and then I'm going to hang afterwards if

anybody has individual questions but some of these folks really want me to keep on schedule yes please I wanted to

ask a question one of the things that you've done effectively in your talking and I've seen other effective speakers

do is interject humor in their talk how what are the risks and rewards of trying to do that well first thank you and I

appreciate all of you laughing those are that's the sum total of all my jokes you've heard them I am not funny Beyond

those jokes so humor is wonderfully connecting it's wonderfully connecting it's a great tool for connection it is

very very risky cultural reasons get in the way sometimes what you think is funny isn't funny to other people what

research tells us is that if you're going to try to be funny self-deprecating humor is your best bet

okay because it is the least risky there is nothing worse than putting out a joke and having no response it actually sets

you back farther than if you would have gotten where you would have gotten if the joke would have hit

so basic fundamentals you need to think about with humor one is it funny how do I know I ask other people first second

what happens if it doesn't work have a backup plan right and then third if you're worried about the answers to

those first two don't do it right one last question please the microphone is right here and then like I said I will

hang around afterwards yes please I um I'm sort of on the opposite side of this since I am a journalist and I frequently

have to ask spontaneous questions of people who have been through media training yes

so so any tips for chinks in the armor way to ask ask a question without being antagonistic but get a fact simile of a

straight answer well so let me give you two answers one is I I have young boys and the power of the why is great just

ask why a couple times and and you can get through that first two layers of training you know why do you say that

well how do you feel about that uh the the second bit is to what I have found successful in

getting people to I do this to get people to answer in a more authentic way what I'll do is I'll ask them to give

advice so what advice would you give somebody who's challenged with this or what advice would you give to somebody

in this situation and by asking for the advice it changes the relationship they have to me as the question asker and I

often get much more Rich detailed information so the power of the why and then put them in a position of providing

guidance and that can really work with that I am going to thank you very much I welcome you to ask questions

later and enjoy the rest of your reunion weekend thank you [Applause]

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