In our coaching, practice we have seen hundreds of people who are truly afraid of public speaking. First, we ask people: How big is this fear of speaking in public, on a scale of 1-10 ?
Being a bit to moderately afraid of your next presentation is quite normal. It can even boost your performance because fear and excitement are actually good friends! But, if you are anywhere between 6 to 10 on the "fear scale" you definitely need to do something about it! You need to take the "fear monster" by the hand , look it straight in the eye and ask: What is going on? More concretely, here are some questions you should ask yourself to find out what lies beneath your fear of speaking in public:
- Am I more afraid with people I know or with people I don't know? Big or small audiences?
- Have I had a specific bad speaking experience which still haunts me?
- Is my fear related to a lack of self-confidence? Do I believe what I am saying?
- Is my work environment positive and supportive? If it is not, can my fear be related to that?
- Have I ever been ridiculed as a child? Bullied by friend to even family members? Were my parents/teachers too strict with me?
These are just some questions to start with. If you identify with any of these issues, then there is some personal work that you need to do on your own ( and with support from your Public speaking coach). But there is something else you can do- you can immediately start practising your public speaking skills in a safe group environment. So come to our next Group coaching session on May 21st. Inscriptions here. (register before May 14th!)
Have a very good week. Here is a quote to keep you motivated:
"Thinking will not overcome fear but action will." W. Clement Stone
Public speaking is about “providing every person in the audience a home in your eyes”. Lee Glickstein
Things are (almost) always going on in your head. When you speak and when you listen, you are often thinking often about “stuff”. Don’t worry, you can go on thinking. But the key to good public speaking is the ability to think about stuff while meeting the eyes of (all) the people in the audience.
How many speakers complain that audiences today are not what they used to be? Well, no wonder, I say. I have also been guilty of writing emails and even tidying my bag, while listening to someone presenting. But that’s not because I am a bad audience. It was because I sensed the speaker was not there. Not with me.
The best thing a speaker can do is look at people in the eyes while speaking. This is not easy because we are often afraid of eyes. The judging eyes of those people who, for some reason, didn’t like us. The blank eyes of those who seemed bored. The stare of the person who observes our every move. We see so many things in that sea of faces and eyes. But we need to stop worrying. These eyes are harmless. They just want to listen and learn and connect. They want to “find a home” in our eyes.
Connecting with the audience is not an effort. It is about understanding that we are all already connected – just like this image of the trees that are actually connected , through their roots, even if they stand apart.
We need to learn how to be comfortable when we speak and our listener is not responsive. When the listener is just looking back at you with a neutral face. This doesn’t happen often in one-to-one. But it happens almost always in group situations. Let’s stop putting expectations on the audience; let’s stop projecting on them our fears.
The next trick is to learn how to meet the eyes of as many audience members as you can. And this is not because you need to “connect” with them or convince them of anything, It is simply because this is the best way to show them you are there. For them. Not for yourself. Or your presentation or your company. Remember: you are there for them.
Most clients come to Target Talk because they really, truly dislike speaking in public. As a kind of doctor I carefully listen to them describing their symptoms. They tell me that once they start talking in front of an audience, things go from fine to very bad. In some cases they are not afraid before they have to speak and they still hope and believe that things will go fine. But, then things start happening that they cannot seem to control. Their voice starts shaking, chest tightens, eyes close in an effort to focus, hands move randomly and breathing quickens. By the time a minute or two have passed they seem to have lost the initial confidence and things just don't get better. Their presentation ends up being a flop, at least in their eyes. The audience doesn't look interested. Worse of all, my clients often start unjustly to feel as an overall failure. If you ever failed at anything, you know the vicious circle it begets. You know about getting it wrong, so for some reason you continue getting it wrong, and as you have no experience of success, it seems like you never will get it right. I would like to say- there is a magic solution and one day you will just wake up being a great presenter- but this would be a lie. What I can say is that fear of public speaking, when it is completely blocking and debilitating is a serious problem that has to be dealt with from an early age. We should encourage children and teens to speak to their class in schools on a variety of topics without ever ridiculing them. We should teach children how to be responsive and polite audiences. Most importantly we should push the idea that every, and I mean every person, has valid points to make, interesting stories to tell and important information to share. When we see that a child or a youngster has issues with speaking in public we should offer help immediately. As adults we cannot go back anymore to this sensitive time in our childhoods when wounds are inflicted and when fears are usually created. We can however look for people that can give us the positive push we all need- and public speaking coaches should fulfil this purpose. To help you find the hidden gems inside and get your confidence back. It is a long journey and a tough one, but anyone who decides to embark on it is brave.
You have managed to pass those dreaded numerical, abstract and verbal reasoning test and have received the invitation to the EPSO assessment centre in Brussels. Congratulations! The last step consists of showing the assessors that you are competent in the way EPSO defines their seven competencies. So to prepare for the structured interview, take your CV and the seven competencies side by side. Look very closely at the seven EPSO competences and their definitions. Can you recognise one that you really excel in ? For that one you are good at, you should be able to give at least 3 examples from your working history (or studies, volunteering, internships and personal challenges in case you have never worked before).
The hard part is to find examples that prove your competencies in those that you know you are not very skilled in. My particular thorn was the one about prioritising and organising. But even if I know I am not good at this one, the key is to dig and find some examples that could prove the interviewer otherwise. You need to be able to tell your employment history as a story where the seven competencies are the constant pattern and you are a consistent kind of hero.
Let's admit it, your work experience will not always be a picture perfect story and you are probably not equally competent in all the areas. However, what they really need is a candidate whose competencies, strengths and defaults are well-balanced, not someone who is perfect ( you will never get a 100% anyway). So at times- and I know it is not a popular thing to say- you will need to make reality a bit nicer. A bit of frosting on the cake. If one one occasion you really lost it or just felt really down, use the example to show how you got up later. If you want to have a good chance at the structured interview you will need to show you are a very strong candidate- very resilient, organised, motivated, determined, flexible, communicative and cooperative. The only way to do this is having your script ready. Do you need help with preparing your EPSO Structured interview? Contact us.
We see too many presenters stuck in a long loveless relationship of convenience with... their computer.
Falling back on your recycled set of Powerpoint slides once again is not enough. Wasting the audience's time with long tales on what you do, what your organisation does, what should be done, bla bla. We are bored. So bored that people actually only go to conferences in order to get out of their office, be invited for lunch, meet people and travel to a sunny place. They don't go because they are looking forward to your presentation. Unless you’re Obama's spokesperson or Sir Ken Robinson ( 19 million views!) they simply do not care.
So how can you make them care? Change your way of thinking. Why were you invited to speak at this event in the first place? Do you really need to speak at this conference? Is there any other benefit obvious to you apart from getting a free trip, getting paid to speak ( extremely rare) and having your picture and bio on the conference website? And will your presentation help the conference reach its objective? Oops, you never bothered to check what the organisers want to achieve with this event. Well, please do. Think why your presentation will matter that day in the whole order of things. Put meaning in EVERYTHING you do.
Imagine yourself getting the audience really interested in what you are saying, the points you are making, the ideas, the observations, the solutions... Put your old powerpoint in the trash and press empty. Done. Start from scratch. Go to the origins, use little cards, use a pen. And once you are up there please stop fidgeting with the computer, the cable, the beamer, the mike. Just talk to us. We are here, we are waiting. For you to challenge our mind.
It is a good thing to be Croatian these days. European Institutions are busy looking for Croatians that are capable and motivated to work on EU policies and programmes. Getting a job interview based on your nationality is strange enough but this is not the only odd feature of job interviews for an EU post. Of course, everything else is just the same: the awkward moment in the office or elevator while you wait for the interview to start, the glass of water you may or may not get, the usual questions and the usual answers.
But what strikes the job candidate in Brussels nowadays, wherever they go for an interview, is the enormous emphasis EU institutions put on people and communication skills. Not only do they want you to be a team player- you need to prove it. And if you don't have a story up your sleeve better run home and think of one. The old wisdom, the one our parents still believe in, says that the best person for the job is the most qualified. This is not going to land you a job in the EU. Your older brother may warn you about the many years of experience you need to have. The employers look at your short CV and don't even blink. They don't care much about where you worked and for how long. What counts is who you worked with, how well you got on with them, how quickly you learned about your job and how well you swam when someone pushed you in the water (preferably water full of sharks).
So next time you need to go to the assessment centre and have an EPSO Structured interview, don't waste your time memorising their website or reading the reports they already forgot they wrote. Jump straight to the point and prepare your Oscar winning script in which you fought the dragons and won. Contact us and let Target Talk help you through EPSO interview coaching.
Speeches seem to be "the dinosaurs of communication" these days, rarely seen (if at all) at weddings, funerals and the local Toastmaster club. We have become so captivated by the wonders of the digital world, with its speed and brevity, that most people’s public speaking skills have unfortunately gone rusty.
Nobody expects you to speak on important occasions nowadays, and certainly your boss won’t be asking you to make a speech anytime soon. Instead you are asked to make a presentation.
Packaging a speech opportunity into short presentations may get the whole affair to sound more professional, less scary and to-the-point. But let us not forget that a presentation is actually a new form of a public speech. There is no technology or presenting gimmick that will make your presentation worthy if you get out there without having prepared it… as a speech. If your PowerPoint fails you and your presentation is somehow lost, you need to be capable of presenting your message without losing face.
So we are not living in an age where speeches are used as a powerful tool of communication. No need to get nostalgic over that. But as an educated audience, with a universal need to learn and communicate, we at least have the right to expect presenters at conferences to prepare their presentations as if they are authentic public speaking occasions. This means that presenters really should write their speeches down, summarise them, rehearse and possibly ask someone (e.g.. a Public speaking coach) to give them honest feedback on the delivery, content, pronunciation of tricky words, body language and the like.
Once you get in the habit of carefully preparing your presentations, you can start to focus on other things. Instead of worrying about your breathing or sweaty palms you can even use anecdotes to get people to laugh or inspire people with something you say. But if you conform yourself with presenting the usual recycled presentation slides what you will get is an audience that, at best, likes your slides but has come out of your presentation in the same state of mind as when they came in. What a missed opportunity!
When we talk about work and career satisfaction, we often forget to analyse the culture of the organisation in which we work in and, more importantly, we forget to think about what kind of workplace culture would suit our own personality. We talk about salary, holidays, work-family balance and intellectual challenges and as if these are the key words that explain how happy we are at a certain job. But there is so much more to career happiness. If we look at all our working life, since its beginnings until now, the most important factor that explains it all- our successes and our failures- is the workplace culture(s) we have inhabited.
The best employee is not the most educated, most resilient, most productive, most communicative or the most flexible person in the group. It is actually the employee who will intuitively understand or, better yet, make the effort to understand (= learn) their workplace culture: the "rules of the game" of their workplace. This person will know the days when things should be said to superiors and the days when one needs to keep quiet. They will make an effort to understand what the boss, colleagues, clients, customers and/or stakeholders really expect from them and how they can do even more. Who they need to talk to in certain situations, who to avoid, and what communication mode to use with each person. When it is time to insist on an issue (=when change is possible) and when it is time to give up (but not give in to frustration).
This kind of employee is not that easy to find, but if you have someone like that working in your organisation, it shouldn’t matter if you personally like them or not. You can be almost certain that they will get very far. And if they have good intentions for your organisation, you will all get very far together.
In most workplaces however, we find an abundance of the other kind of employee: the unhappy one. The one who would rather be doing something else. The employee who hates the rules of office politics and the unfairness of it all. The one who has been so unhappy that they don’t even care anymore. The one who would rather be doing something else, somewhere else, for someone else, or, why not, for themselves. The one who dreams of the grass being greener on their neighbour’s side, but doesn’t know what kind of house they should be living in or what they need to do to keep that grass green and healthy.
The key to being happy in your career and with your workplace, is taking the time to understand you current workplace culture and asking yourself how your personality fits in. If there could be a match between you and them: BINGO. You can start learning more about their office politics and how to live with it. You can learn to see what makes your boss tick, and not take things personally. You can be happy. But if there is no love between you and them, and their workplace culture is one you can never truly adapt to… why suffer? It may be time to move to a sunnier place.
Driving is a skill that most people eventually manage to learn. Experienced drivers aren’t anxious about what might happen to them when they sit in the car every morning. Driving becomes a natural thing to do. They easily forget about how they learned to drive in the first place: the slow confidence building, the occasional fears and tears, their instructor’s shrieks when things got our of hand…Most people even forget how many attempts it took them to finally pass the exam and they assure you they passed it at their very first attempt.
But for some people, including myself, driving is a big deal. The skill doesn’t click for a long time. We need to take hundreds of lessons with different driving instructors. We almost hire a hypnotherapist to get rid of the fears and doubts. And when we get to the driving test our supposed confidence and skill is nowhere to be found. We get very anxious. Or we get paralysed and our legs don’t respond well.
Sometimes the failing goes on for ages. Frustration sets in. But then you need to stop and say to yourself: passing the test is not what counts. What really matters is to overcome your fear and to improve your skill. You have succeeded when you have mastered the skill to your level of ability and when you are not afraid anymore. Just getting the driving licence will not magically get you there. Confidence alone won’t do the trick for you. It takes focus, determination and continuous learning. A good driving instructor can sometimes coach you to achieve this.
Public speaking is very similar. My public speaking clients rarely know where their fear comes from. Their colleagues and friends, who don’t share the same public speaking anxiety, don’t seem to understand. But if you have an issue with this, I can assure you that looking for personalised help with your fear of public speaking is a very brave thing to do. Being open to honest feedback is important. The determination to master the skill and get really good at it is a key to making it happen. It takes a lot of courage to say: " I am not good at this, but I want to improve. I have something to say and I deserve to be heard".
Just like I needed a great driving instructor, if you fear public speaking you need a person who will understand your doubts and who will gently push you to speak in public. Contact me if you want to know more!
