Matt Abrahams at TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool
Here is the full transcript of communication professor Matt Abrahams’ TEDx Talk: Think Fast. Talk Smart at TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio: Think Fast. Talk Smart by Matt Abrahams at TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool
TRANSCRIPT:
People hate me. People fear me. You see, I’m a communication professor. And these people who fear me and hate me are some of the brightest, most creative, most entrepreneurial people I know. I wield a tool. And that tool I wield is what makes them fear and despise me.
As a professor, I have the ability to do what’s called “cold calling.” That’s where I look at a student and say, “What do you think?” “What do you feel about what we just discussed?” “How does this impact you?” And this causes panic, not just for my students but for everybody. That moment when we are called upon to speak articulately: Can we do it?
Now, rest assured, I never cold call on my students. I think it’s rude. And I know it’s hard. But people fear it. 85% of people say they fear speaking in public. And, quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying. I think we could find a situation that makes them nervous too.
So today, my goal is to share with you some tips and techniques that you can use to help you be more comfortable and confident when you are speaking. In other words, to be able to think fast and talk smart. To do this, we are going to look at four different steps.
First, we are going to talk about the approach we take. Then, we’ll speak about the audience we talk to, the context in which we find ourselves. And, finally, the structures we use to help our messages get across. So, let’s start by talking about approach.
You know, I was reminded about the importance of approach. Many, many years ago, when my wife and I first moved in with each other, we fought a lot, over little things. Things mostly that happened in our bathrooms. We called these our bathroom brawls: “Is the toilet seat up?” “Is the toilet seat down?” By far, the biggest fight my wife and I ever had was over toothpaste. You see, my wife’s a roller and I’m a squeezer. And all of you out there who are rollers, I appreciate the fine artwork you create out of your toothpaste. But you know that the most awful thing that can happen to you is to have a squeezer come by and ruin all that effort you’ve put in.
But to me, getting toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube is an act of aggression. I feel powerful in the morning and in the evening. And we would fight incessantly over little things like this. And finally, my wife, who is much smarter than I, said, “Timeout. What are we doing here? We’ve just been married. We love each other, yet we’re fighting all the time. We need to look at this differently.”
And as soon as we started looking at our bathroom brawls as opportunities: opportunities to learn about each other, to make concessions, to collaborate, things changed. And I am happy to say, after 15 years of marriage, we no longer fight over toothpaste. This same approach is true in communication. Most of us, when we are in situations where we need to communicate, we see them as threatening. We see them as opportunities for failure. And I’d like to suggest we need to change that.
We need to approach communication in an open way, see it as an opportunity to share our ideas, our beliefs, our innovations. And when we take a perspective of openness, all of a sudden, something that we dread become something that we embrace.
The first step to effective communication is to approach it in an open way. But that’s not enough. We need to think about the audience that we are speaking to. And, to me, the way to approach it is the opposite the way most people do. Most of us think about, “Here’s what I want to say.” Or, “Here’s what I need to say.” I would suggest that’s exactly wrong. You need to think about what does my audience need to hear. And it sounds like verbal jiu jitsu, where I’m moving words around. In fact, it’s a fundamental difference.
If I ask myself what does my audience need, it puts me in service of my audience. It’s about their needs. In order to understand those needs, I have to do some reconnaissance. I have to ask myself, “Who they are?” The three things I think we need to ask about our audience are: “What is their knowledge? What is it that they know? And if they don’t know enough, what can we do to scaffold that information so that they have the tools they need?”
In addition to knowledge, we need to be thinking about their expectations. By expectations, I mean what is it that they expect of me? Most audiences have heard the types of presentations you are giving: maybe it’s a pitch, maybe it’s some kind of advertisement or marketing, maybe it’s a TED talk. Your audience has heard those kinds of presentations before, so what do they expect of you? And you can choose to conform to those expectations or not.
I have two young kids. I learned that sometimes violating their expectations actually is the most effective thing I can do for the communication we need. My boys sometimes make me upset. And when they make me upset, I used to raise my voice to no avail. Nothing happened. I was ignored. And that’s tough for a communication guy.
So what I started to do: When I’m really upset with my boys, I lower my voice. And they stop dead in their tracks. Violating expectations sometimes can actually help you as a communicator.
The final thing we need to think about – “What are their attitudes?” The way you approach your communication is influenced by what your audience thinks about what you are talking on: Are they in favor of it? Are they against it? Or they are hesitant? Agnostic? Those are the things you need to be asking yourself when you communicate. So we need to appreciate our audience.
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