Silence: friend or foe?

I spend a lot of time telling my clients not to be afraid of silence, how a pause reinforces your point and gives the audience time to take in what you’ve said. This is true. Silence is a powerful tool in public speaking – but you have got to be in control of it.

Some years ago, I took an evening course in freelance journalism and I often think about the lesson in interview techniques. Silence is a powerful tool in journalism too. At what the person intended to be the end of an answer, if you, the journalist, remain silent, the discomfort of that silence can all too easily prod the hapless interviewee into blurting out all sorts of indiscretions.

And this is one to one. Imagine how much more pressure there is when you’re faced with a whole crowd of people waiting for you to speak. The urge to say something – anything – to fill the space becomes unbearable. Say something clever, something witty, something apt, now! I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this can be.

Even if you’re going to be saying only a few words – to introduce a speaker, to give the vote of thanks, to propose a toast – it’s essential you plan in advance exactly what you’re going to say. Sometimes – for example, if you’re thanking someone – you may not have much time to plan, but even a few seconds’ thinking can make the difference between saying and not saying something you regret.

Less is more! Don’t speak too long

On the Public Speaking Skills Facebook page, Hugo raised an excellent point about speakers who exceed their allotted time – or “waffle on interminably”, as he put it.

However mesmerising your speech or presentation may be, it’s never a good idea to go over time. You may be driven by the best of intentions to give your audience more than they bargained for but, actually, it’s unprofessional and it can result in your talk tailing off as the audience gets restless. Depending on the context, they may have homes to go to, trains to catch, other appointments to attend. Or they may be tired from so much concentrating and need some fresh air.

When preparing and practising your talk, aim to come in just under the time allocated to you. This will give you a bit of leeway in case things take longer than expected on the day and, from the audience’s point of view, it will make a welcome change.

Anything you can say well in 10 minutes, you can say well in 9 minutes 30 seconds. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ll say it better in the shorter time because you’ve focused and sharpened what you want to say that bit more.

Never assume!

As I was saying in the previous post, if you’re a woman speaking to a predominantly female audience, don’t ignore the men who’ve come to listen to you.  And, of course, if you’re a man addressing a predominantly male audience, be aware of the women present. Nobody likes to feel overlooked or of marginal importance.

A more subtle variation on this theme of including your whole audience is to remember that everyone is different. If two or three men in a sea of women – or vice versa – can be missed by a nervous or inexperienced speaker, what about the differences that don’t show?

At a magic convention a few years ago, a magician was explaining how this trick was a sure-fire winner because “everyone has a mom and everyone’s happy to celebrate her”.  This is just not true, even in America.

In the same way, not everyone has a partner, children, a mortgage.

From the public speaking point of view, there are two aspects to be wary of.  The first is that, especially in the realm of things our listeners might wish they had, or might feel they ‘ought’ to have, we have to be careful not to trigger any negative responses in them.  Of the two magicians I was sitting with in the lecture just mentioned, one’s mother had recently died and the other had such a difficult relationship with his that ‘celebrating’ her was out of the question.

By rephrasing slightly – for example, by saying perhaps “a lot of people” or “most of my clients” instead of “everyone” – we can avoid giving the impression of ignoring anyone who doesn’t fall into the category we’re talking about.  Anything to show it’s OK to be different.

The other aspect to this is, we need to make what we’re saying as relevant as possible to the whole audience.  Assuming everyone watches Downton Abbey, for instance, probably will not actually offend people who don’t – or even those who haven’t got a television – but by making a reference to something in that programme, you risk non viewers missing your point.

In everyday chat, it’s easy to make all sorts of mistakes like this.  One of the joys of public speaking is that we get to plan what we’re going to say and reap the benefit of thinking before we speak.