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Perception in Effective Public Speaking
by Ellen Dowling
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Overview
Have you ever experienced the "actor's nightmare"? It goes something like this: You're onstage, and suddenly you can't remember your lines, you don't even know what play you're in and you're naked. Like actors, public speakers also suffer from performance anxiety; the perception that the audience is judging you can make you lose your train of thought and panic. That perception exists only in your mind. And you can change your mind.
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Focus on Your Message, Not Your Fears
"When what you have to say becomes more important than the fact that your knees are knocking," Eleanor Roosevelt once advised, "fear becomes irrelevant." If you truly believe in your subject matter, if you fervently wish to persuade your audience to accept your point of view, you will consequently want to make eye contact with everyone (and not simply read your PowerPoint slides to them). While it might be tricky to fire up enthusiasm for a presentation on the new online medical billing program, this is where perception is most powerful: If you really do feel that the information in this speech is vitally important to the medical office assistants in your audience, focus on that feeling and let the data back you up.
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Focus on Your Audience, Not Yourself
Many stage-fright-afflicted speakers contribute to their own anxiety by spending the moments before they go on talking to themselves like this: "Oh, dear, I think I'm going to be terrible. They're going to hate me. I'm going to look like a fool." If you perceive yourself to be an ill-informed idiot, you most likely will live up to your expectations. You will be a far more effective speaker if you spend your time thinking about your audience's needs instead of your own imagined shortcomings. Ask yourself: Who are these people? Why are they here? What will they want to know? How much do they already know?
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Transform Your Presentation into a Conversation
If you perceive that you will be up there all alone in the spotlight, expected to bestow wisdom upon your rapt audience, you're bound to have butterflies in your stomach. The simple perception that a public speaking event is a "me" versus "them" situation will surely set you up for overwhelming anxiety.
Resist the urge to do ALL the talking. As soon as you can, engage your audience by asking them to respond to you. You can do this by asking open-ended questions: "So how are you all feeling about this new online system?" Or you can try some survey questions: "How many of you here think the old way worked perfectly fine?" The quicker you get the audience involved in your presentation, the sooner your stage fright will fade. If you perceive that you are communicating with (instead of talking to) other like-minded human beings, you will be a most effective public speaker.
Involve the Audience
