[0:05]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 F's that you find in this sentence. Please count the number of F's. Keep it quiet to yourself.
[1:07]I'll give you just another couple seconds here. Three, two, one. Raise your hand, please, if you found three and only three F's. Excellent. Great. Did anybody find four? Okay. And anybody find only five F's? And anybody find six? There's six F's. 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 along. No, no. 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 type 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 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, 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, and 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 planned 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'll be covering and again, as I said, lots of activity and I invite you to participate. So, let's get started with anxiety management. Eighty-five percent of people tell us that they're nervous when speaking in public. And I think the other 15% are lying. Hey, 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, 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 disengage, that does not help. 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 sugar-coated and nice and for 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. Uh-oh, 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 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 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 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. No. 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 hundred 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 F's 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. 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'll 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? It 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 conversational 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 shyness 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 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 as concerned about those future states and therefore we'll 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 100 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 because he starts out of breath and sweaty. 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 100 by tough numbers like 17. I'm going to pause because I know people in the room are trying. Yeah. It gets hard after that third or fourth one, I know. My favorite way to get present-oriented 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 it 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. I slit a sheet. A sheet I slit. A sheet I slit. And on that slitted sheet I sit. 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 that. 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 situation. 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 five years, I have co-taught a class with Adam Tobin. He is a lecturer in the 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 that 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, it 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 stock pile. 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? Because 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. Purple. Orange. Putrid. Hello.
[20:09]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 some '70s 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 stock pile, so I'm going to try to be a little more devious and I'm going to give you 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 that 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. So let's see what happens when we're not stock piling and we're not playing off patterns. We'll do this for only 15 seconds. See how this feels. Baby steps. Ready? Begin. Codak. Bicycle chain. Skateboard. Bananas. Purple. Putrid. Time. Time.
[22:08]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 squirrels skills and all of a 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 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. In a room like this, telling you dare to be dull is offensive and I apologize. But this will help. Rather than striving for greatness, dare to be dull. And if you dare to be dull and allow yourself that, you will reach that greatness. It's when you as set greatness as your target that it gets in the way of you ever getting there because you over evaluate, you over analyze, you freeze up. So the first step in our process today is to get out of our own way. Easier said than done, but once you practice and 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.
[25:01]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. 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.
[26:16]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. It can be a big gift, it 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 we'll 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's still plays that's still in play. Okay, you're stock piling. 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. And you will give a reason that you got them whatever they decided you gave them. Makes sense?
[28:10]All right. So, get with your partner, one of you will volunteer to sell to the other.
