Public Speaking Skills: Oh balance, where art thou?

My sun sign is Libra–the scales.  Whether my need for balance derives from the accident of my birth, or my experience as a speech coach is hard to say.  But from where I sit, most presenters are out of balance.

We have too much substance, and not enough style.  Too much anxiety, not enough expression.  Too many slides, not enough imagery.  Too much abstraction, not enough concretion.  Too much masking, not enough connection.  We have data, data everywhere, and not a thought to think.

Balance is the preferred human condition. We need physical balance to walk and run, but we also need balance in our faculties and judgment–a well-rounded mixture of imagination, reason, feeling and will.

We seek work-life balance, a balanced checkbook, a balanced diet.  To say a man is unbalanced is to say he’s unreliable, inconsistent, even dangerous.  When a company can’t balance its books, it’s in trouble.

Yet when we present to those who are critical to our success–high stakes presentations–we are out of balance.

And when out of balance, we have less ability to bring our ideas to life–and thus we lose influence and persuasive power.

Classical Greek rhetoric tells us that we need to appeal to our listeners in three ways:

1. We need Ethos–an ethical appeal.  We need to convince the audience that we are a trustworthy and reliable source of information. We can accomplish this with our resumes, our reputation, a good introduction from a reputable person, a distinguished title appearing after our name on the first slide, and by being known by the audience.  We can also build our ethical appeal by speaking with confidence, by demonstrating that we are well prepared for the occasion, and by speaking to the audience as an equal–neither speaking down to them, or appearing intimidated.  Good manners are also effective–civility is inherently persuasive. In court, male defendants tend to do better dressed in suits and ties rather than orange jump-suits.
2. We need Logos–intellectual appeal.  We need to have our ideas in marching order–to advance our propositions and defend them with reasons, information, and data.  This is what most of us are good at–we are LOIs: Logos-oriented individuals.  Logos is frequently necessary for persuasion, but hardly ever sufficient.
3. Finally, we need Pathos–emotional appeal.  We get the word empathy from pathos.  We need to know why our listeners should care about what we have to say, and we must remind them diplomatically why they should listen.  Every audience lives on an island of its own interests, and we will get voted off the island if we don’t convince them that it’s in their interest to listen.

Most of us spend a disproportionate amount of time on the logos part of the equation, and fail to invest enough effort in making our talks more appealing–ethically and emotionally.  Perhaps we think that our good intentions will make our content speak for itself.

I’ve heard this called The Curse of Knowledge–the belief that since you know your subject cold, your audience will find it both clear and fascinating.

They won’t.  We need to balance our expertise with a considered approach to the social and pyschological needs of our listeners.