As a public speaker, you can motivate people to work together by breaking down barriers between them. One of the fundamental things we can do when speaking in public is to use effective communication to bring people together despite their differences. When we bring people together, we can move forward as a team and achieve higher goals.
One of the ways to do this is to first break down the barriers between you and your audience. I often see public speakers creating barriers between themselves and their audience to establish themselves as “experts.” It is not necessary to do this. An obvious barrier immediately hits all of our minds: the podium. Please come out from behind the podium, create a physical and psychological barrier. Being at the front of the room and being the one who speaks, already sets you up as the expert, you don’t need a podium for that.
But let’s talk about the ways you can use your presentation content to break down barriers. Because if you are able to unite the audience and make them see that you are “one of them” and that you think about their best interests, your chances of success increase dramatically. One of your goals at the beginning of the presentation should be to unite the audience with a sense of shared goals.
So how do we do this?
1. Focus on commonalities. We’ve already discussed the importance of audience analytics – simply put, understanding who your audience is, what they want and need, why they’re there, and how to best present information to them. Now, use this information to focus on the commonalities between you and them (eg, everyone is a parent, everyone is a contributor, everyone is a rising star in the industry, etc. with common dreams and concerns).
2. Recognize perceived barriers. Recognize the sources of perceived discomfort early on (i.e. the elephant in the room). For example, “Yes, I am new here and many of you have years of experience with the company …” If you are comfortable using humor, then approach the problem with humor. Once the issue is on the table, you can get back to the important task of bringing people together.
3. Identify common ground that everyone can agree on. For example, “We can all agree that we provide important services to our clients.” These statements can provide strong ties between audience members and then with you.
4. Use shared experiences. Highlight shared experiences to create camaraderie. For example, “we all remember how hard we worked to get version 2.0 of our software to our customers.”
These are all techniques that you can use in your speech to build rapport with your audience. Another important thing to remember is to smile. Smiles are very powerful when trying to connect with your audience. It also makes you feel better (honestly, there has been research done on the chemical reaction in your brain when you smile, and just smiling really makes you feel better).
