Communicating With Power Verbally

Listening and Hearing: They Aren’t the Same Thing

If listening were simple and everyone did in the same way, the role of a presenter would be considerably simpler.  Today’s audiences are likely to be far more diverse.  Consider the audience that will hear your talks.  Being aware of such distinctions can assist you in preparing a presentation speech that minimises the possibility of misinterpretation.

To begin with, understand that listening and hearing are not the same thing.

Hearing is the act of perceiving sound by the ear. Assumingan individual is not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something that one consciously chooses to do. Listening requires concentration so that the brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning.

This is not always an easy task.The normal adult rate of speech is 100-150 words per minute, but the brain can think at a rate of 400-500 words per minute, leaving extra time for daydreaming, or anticipating the speaker’s or the recipient’s next words.Listening skills, however, can be learned and refined.

If you want to improve yourself as a speaker, one of the most important things you must know is that the audience have very different listening styles.  The disparity in listening techniques contributes to the possibility of misinterpretation.

Listening Styles

There are four types of listening styles: people, activity, material, and time.

People: The listener who is interested in people is drawn to the speaker. People-oriented listeners are interested in learning how the speaker thinks and feels about their message. For example, when people-oriented listeners hear an interview with a renowned rap artist, they are more likely to be interested in the artist as a person than in music, even if the people-oriented listener appreciates the artist’s work. If you are a people-oriented listener, you may have specific questions you want addressed, such as: Does the artist consider himself or herself successful? How does it feel to be famous? What kind of education has he or she received? Similarly, if we are listening to a doctor who reacted to the Haiti earthquake problem, we may be more interested in the doctor as a person than in the condition of circumstances for Haitians. What motivated him or her to travel to Haiti? How did he or she escape his or her usual practise and patients? How many lives was he or she able to save? We may be less concerned with the equally critical and pressing requirements for food, housing, and cleanliness in the aftermath of the earthquake.

People-oriented listeners are more inclined to pay attention to the speaker than to the message. If you are a kind of listener like this, recognise that the message is about what is essential to the speaker.

Action: Listeners that are action-oriented are mainly interested in learning what the speaker wants. Is the speaker looking for votes, contributions, volunteers, or anything else? Listening through the details, facts, and explanations with which a speaker makes his or her case may be challenging for an action-oriented speaker.

Task-oriented listening is another name for action-oriented listening. In it, the listener is looking for a clear message about what has to be done and may be less willing to listen to the reasoning behind the assignment. This is particularly true when the causes are complex. When you’re a passenger on an airline waiting to take off from the gate, for example, a flight attendant will give you a short lecture called the pre-flight safety briefing. The flight attendant does not read the results of a safety research or the seat belt requirements. The flight attendant fails to mention that the Federal Aviation Administration requires the substance of his or her speech.  Instead, the attendant just instructs us to strap up so that we may go.  A message about “buckling up” is more attractive to an action-oriented listener than a message on the underlying causes.

Content: Listeners who are content-oriented are concerned with the message itself, whether it makes sense, what it means, and if it is true. Many members of your classroom audience will be content-oriented listeners who want to learn from you when you deliver a speech. As a result, you have a duty to convey the truth as accurately as possible. You may highlight a point, but if you overdo, you risk losing confidence with your content-oriented audience. You may advocate for concepts that are essential to you, but if you leave out critical restrictions, you are hiding part of the truth and risk giving your audience an incorrect impression.

Assume you’re giving a speech on the suffering of orphans in Africa. If you just state that there are over 45 million orphans in Africa without explaining why, you will sound like an advertisement. In such a case, your audience’s reaction is likely to be less enthusiastic than you would prefer. Content-oriented listeners, on the other hand, like to hear well-developed material with strong explanations.

Time: People that listen in a time-oriented manner like a message that is brief and to the point. Listeners who value their time may feel irritated by sluggish delivery or extensive explanations. This kind of listener may be receptive for a short period of time and may become impolite or even angry if the speaker demands a longer period of concentration. Time-conscious listeners express their frustration by rolling their eyes, changing in their chairs, checking their mobile phones, and other improper actions. If you’ve been invited to talk to a group of middle-school pupils, keep in mind that their attention spans aren’t as lengthy as those of college students. This is a major reason why talks to young audiences must be shorter or more varied than addresses to adults.

Some of your audience members will have genuine time restrictions in the future, not just imagined ones. Assume you’ve been requested to give a speech to the board of directors of a local company about a new initiative. Most likely, the members of the board of directors are all overworked. If your speech is too lengthy and too comprehensive, time-conscious listeners will just shut you out while you’re speaking. Obviously, if time-conscious listeners begin shutting you out, they will not be hearing your message. This is not the same as being a time-conscious listener who is more concerned with the message’s duration than with its substance.

Dealing with Presentation Questions

Many normally incredibly skilled and confident presenters will tell you that they fear the presentation’s question and answer period.  They are looking for methods to ‘avoid’ being uncomfortable. But this does not have to be the case. Managing questions during a presentation is a skill that anybody can learn.

The basic guideline of question and answer sessions is to treat your audience with the respect you would want to be accorded, and to answer their questions directly and honestly.  If they’ve posed a question, it’s because they’re curious about the answer.  Although this does happen, it is quite uncommon that somebody would ask you a question deliberately to trip you up.  If a question is provocative, respond directly to it. Never be impolite or express your displeasure to the questioner. Maintain your point of view without compromising, and never lose your temper.  This strategy might be tough to sustain, but the key is to be assertive.

Keeping Command of the Questions

The majority of individuals dread the question session because they are afraid of losing control.

This danger may be avoided with some forethought and preparation ahead of time. However, you may prevent it by recognising that each presentation is an exchange of information. It is just as important for you to know what others want to know as it is for them to hear from you.

However, if an intriguing topic begins to derail your presentation, consider stating something like: “I believe we’re going off track here. Let’s set it aside for now and talk about it later. Come find me at the conclusion, and we’ll exchange contact information.”

Alternatively: “I’d want to get started on the presentation since I may not have time to complete it otherwise, but let’s discuss this later.”

Establishing Ground Rules

You should state at the beginning of your presentation if and when you like to deal with queries – as you go along or at the finish.

Some presenters like to answer questions as they occur throughout the session. The benefit of this strategy is that any misconceptions can be addressed right away. However, there is a risk that the question could disturb or distract the speaker, or that it will create issues that will be addressed later in the presentation.Other presenters would rather answer questions at the conclusion of their presentation.

If you choose this technique, be sure to provide enough time for questions while also limiting the amount of time available. The length of time will vary depending on the style of presentation, but 10 minutes of question time should be plenty. The main benefit of this strategy is that if you speak too fast, you will simply have a longer question session: a strong incentive to speak slowly and deliberately, making sure that your audience understands everything as you go.

Managing Issues

Pay close attention to the question and, if the audience is big, repeat it to ensure that everyone has heard it. Whether you’re not sure if you understood properly, repeat it back to the questioner and double-check. Respond succinctly and to the point. If you don’t know the solution, say so and volunteer to look into it. Then make certain that you follow up. You will need the questioner’s name and email address to answer, so make sure you talk with them before they or you depart.

“I don’t know” is a perfectly fine response to certain tough inquiries, much superior than bumbling through an answer or making something up. “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out and let you know,” is much better. Relax and don’t feel obligated to know everything. If you don’t know, it’s better to be honest than to attempt to seem like you do. Trust takes time to develop, but it can be destroyed in an instant, and audiences will almost always recognise when you are not being honest.

A Different Approach: Involve Your Audience

If you’re speaking to a well-informed audience, such as a professional group, and the topic is rather broad and you don’t know the answer, try asking the room if anybody else wants to reply. You may be seated next to a global authority on that topic who would be pleased to share their knowledge with you all. You may even say: If you’ve seen someone in particular, “I saw Professor X is in the room, and I was wondering if he would mind commenting on it to avoid me from revealing my ignorance.” or “My colleague over there is more acquainted with that region than I am, so, although I don’t want to put him on the spot, maybe he’d be willing to throw some light on this?” Most people will be happy with that approach, particularly if they really know more about it than you, and it will result in a far better reaction in the room. Yes, you’re the one in charge, but you don’t know everything.

Useful Presentation Question Types

Three types of questions are useful in a presentation; open questions, clarifying questions, and closed questions.

Open Questions: Open questions stimulate thinking and discussion or responses including opinions or feelings. They pass control of the conversation to the respondent. Leading words in open questions include:

Why, what, or how. A statement such as “describe the characteristics of the car” is really an open question. Examples of open questions include:

• Describe the style of the leader of the meeting.
• How do you feel when you hit a home run?

 
Asking questions is both an art and a science.Your questions in a presentation should be:

• Clear and concise, covering a single issue
• Reasonable, based on what participants are expected to know
• Challenging, to provoke thought
• Honest and relevant, eliciting logical answers

Clarifying Questions: A clarifying question helps to remove ambiguity, elicits additional detail, and guides you as you answer a question.Below are some examples:

• You said you liked apples more than oranges, why is that?
• What sort of savings are you looking to achieve?

Closed Questions: Closed questions usually require a one-word answer, and shut off discussion.Closed questions provide facts, allow the questioner to maintain control of the conversation, and are easy to answer. Typical leading words are: Is, can, how many, or does.Below are several examples of closed questions:

• Who will lead the meeting?
• Do you know how to open the emergency exit door on this aircraft?

Phrasing: To evoke an answer, your question should use phrasing that is:

• Clear and concise, covering a single issue
• Reasonable, based on what participants are expected to know
• Challenging, to provoke thought
• Honest and relevant, directing participants to logical answers.

Directing Questions appropriately: Should you direct your questions to individuals or to an entire group?When you direct a question to an individual, you:

• Stimulate one participant to think and respond
• Tap the known resources of an “expert” in the room

If you choose to direct your question to the group instead, you:

• Stimulate the thinking of all participants
• Provide participants the opportunity to respond voluntarily
• Avoid putting any one person on the spot.

It’s been said that you have between thirty seconds and two minutes to capture your participants’ attention. It’s critical to engage people from the beginning.

GETTING YOUR VOICE READY

Your voice, like the rest of your body, will perform best when it is properly prepared for its role. Humming scales and drinking some water before your speech, for example, may help you sound your best. You may have your own set of preferred warm-up activities. Whatever warm-up strategy you choose, be sure your voice is ready to go before you begin speaking.