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Masters
of the Pause
When
you pause, you establish the pace from the beginning of your
talk. You let the audience know that the information is going to
be coming at them at a pace that they can handle. You let them
know right up front that you will be delivering your story in
the form of a newspaper - not a textbook.
So
to put the process all together, speaking properly is about is
finding one person, giving one thought, and then taking one
pause. One pause long enough for them to ingest the last thing
you said, reference it and catalog it, before you ask them to
open up to new information.
One
person, one thought, one pause.
When
you engage these behaviors, you will find that your relationship
with the audience changes in many ways. Not only does the group
dynamic change, but also the types of feedback you get from the
group, because in many cases, you'll find people in the audience
who've been through lifetimes of presentations and never felt
engaged at that same level.
When
you master Lock, Talk, & (especially) Pause, what you find
is that people actually come up to you at the end of the meeting
say things like, "You know, Jane, I've heard this
information before, but nobody's ever explained it in quite the
same way. Somehow, you made it all understandable". Or,
"Somehow, I felt that you really cared about my
understanding what you had to say. This was a great
presentation". That "somehow" was your giving
them the ability to actually hear what you said.
The
positive feedback you'll get is a good thing, too, because the
more of it you get, the more it will reinforce your desire to
hone The Skills every time you speak. And you will get a little
bit better every time you do. In fact, speaking well is a
lifelong process - but one that just keeps on getting better as
long as you do it.
Mark
Twain gets a lot of quotes attributed to him that he never said,
but one of the things he did say was:
"The
right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective
as a rightly timed pause".
Way
back then, Mark Twain knew good old Rule #3, that people only
start listening when you stop talking.
The
Great One
When
we ask our on-site participants to name the person they consider
to be the most effective speaker in public life today, Bill
Clinton is the name that most often rises to the top. People
think of Bill Clinton, regardless of his politics (which we
won't discuss here) as a great public speaker. And the reality
is Bill Clinton was some poor kid from
Arkansas
who made it to a pretty high office because one thing he figured
out how to do is speak.
Bill
Clinton is thought of as a great speaker for good reason. Bill
Clinton is the Master of the Pause. There's no speaker today who
knows more about how to get a message across by saying a few
words and then pausing to let it sink in. In fact, Bill Clinton
probably says fewer words between pauses than any other
politician. [Editor's note: Barack Obama is fast on his heals,
but still has a ways to go before he can steal the mantle. We
suspect history will weigh in on this in time.]
When
you listen to Clinton speak, you find yourself not just hearing
what he just said, but also waiting in anticipation for his next
words. And that is the second reason that the pause is so vital.
When you don't give the audience frequent breaks in the stream
of your words, foremost on their minds is when you are going to
stop talking so their brains can have a rest.
But
when you fill your stream of thoughts with opportunities for
them to rest between each one, you will find your audience
actually waiting to hear your next words. They are primed to
listen, so the impact of the words when they do arrive is much,
much greater.
Bill
Clinton learned The Skills, and learned how to be a master, by
listening to his hero in life - John F. Kennedy. Coming up, you
will hear for yourself how each of these masters deliver their
words not to hear themselves speak, but with their audience's
ability to hear and comprehend foremost in mind.
Bill
Clinton is an effective speaker because he gives everyone in the
audience all the time each needs to absorb what he said before
he asks them to pick up on the next thing he's going to say. He
gives them the time to absorb it, process it, and form a clear
picture of the words before he asks them to take in new
information.
Bill
Clinton, and Jack Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther
King and just about anybody that has ever really moved you by
their style of speaking all know one thing: the most effective
thing you can do when you speak is to NOT.
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