Public speaking is not the forte of the chicken-hearted, sorry, or should I say the butterfly-bellied? Incidents are common where people climb on to the dais only to stare at the audience, the script in the mind forgotten and the written script refusing to disentangle itself from the suddenly clammy hand.
I remember an incident in high school when a brilliant friend of mine, brilliant as she went on to clear the IIT entrance later, ventured to participate in an elocution contest. The poor girl could not speak beyond the first line as she jumbled it up again and again. The sentence, “Brevity is the soul of wit”, did not come out the way it ought to have, and she mumbled a quick “sorry” and stepped down. I have read that even seasoned speakers blank out at times while facing the vast, or niche audience. The reasons vary — it could be stress resulting from travel, or lack of sleep, or even an unresponsive audience.
Apart from this, speakers face varied responses even as they do their bit with pure fervour. Recently a friend of mine, in her fifties, and an experienced speaker, had this incident to narrate. She had addressed a small audience of around forty at an organisation, comprising trainers, a motley group in their early twenties to late forties. She spoke passionately about the nuances of emotional competencies and their impact at the workplace. Activities were conducted and the theoretical base was explained.
She went on to speak on stress and its implications and hence the need to manage it on time. Amongst her suggestions, adopting a healthy ‘brainy’ diet of fish and walnuts amongst other such food, and taking a tour to bid goodbye to the blues, were included. She encouraged the participants to ask questions. Little did she know what was to come.
One of them, a man in his twenties, said he was already travelling daily to work and it did him no good. My friend suppressed her laugh, realising that he was genuinely puzzled by the suggestion of a tour, and explained that he needed to take a tour away from work for relaxation. He then seemed to understand and conveyed it by nodding.
But the shocker was posed to her by an elderly trainer, who had been seen chattering away nineteen to the dozen, and her neighbour, who asked her, “Ma’am, is fish veg or non-veg?” My friend, by now having gauged the understanding and interest levels of the audience at large, maintained a straight face, and replied that she considered it non-vegetarian. She later told me she had indeed gone ‘fishing’ in unknown waters as the audience of ‘trainers’ proved to be no better than a bunch of naughty school students, out to have some fun time with activities that were conducted by her and her young companion, and no more!
She confided that she had obtained an important takeaway from her session — get to know the intellectual levels of your audience before embarking on any ambitious venture. She is working on that nowadays.
sandhya.vasudev@gmail.com
