Lately, there’s been a lot of provocative and humorous buzz on all-male panels. All good because it shines a spotlight on a longstanding issue and brings more awareness, hopefully, among public event organizers and participants.
For women speakers at panels, here’s a guide to public speaking and avoiding all those pesky manterrupters.
The issues in public speaking lie in “how” we speak more so than simply “what” we say. Purpose, brevity, structure, confidence, humour, etc., are much-needed. Here are my top three pointers, based on my years in the corporate trenches. Not to say these are the be-all and end-all, but they’ve stood me in good stead.
1) Speak with purpose and brevity
Generally, women tend not to like speaking in soundbites. In the past, I, too, dismissed it as a “male” style of speaking. But, many mixed- gender communication studies have proved that the human brain only retains 25-50 percent of what we hear (we retain more of what we read or see, of course). So, make the words count and make them memorable (look these up to spruce up your soundbite techniques: anaphora, chiasmus, parallelism). It’s OK to prepare and rehearse soundbites ahead of time if you’re not the extemporaneous type. Just use them when and if needed rather than letting them take over the agenda.
And, by the way, this applies not just to words but also to gestures. I see far too many Indian women getting “handsy” when they talk — fluttering hands, fidgeting with hair/clothes. This just calls attention to other parts of your body and away from your words. Use hand gestures economically for emphasis or enumeration only. Watch Aparna Chennapragada, a Product Management Director at Google, doing a very good job here (not a panel discussion, but, still; and, yes, she’s channeling Steve Jobs, whether she’ll admit to it or not.)
2) Structure your points/arguments
Stick to your best or most important three. You may have a lot of ideas but you will lose the audience. The ‘Rule of Three’ is an actual thing. Here’s one of our Prime Minister’s favorite and frequent soundbites from speeches abroad that incorporates this rule of three: “India has 3 greatest strengths: democracy, demography, demand.”
It also helps to frame or outline your points at the start of your response before you get into them. This can serve as an implicit pre-warning to would-be interrupters. Here are a few more ways to deal with this particular breed of co-panelists:
Of course, rules are meant to be broken. So, I’ll break my own here and give you a fourth:
4) Use humour vs sarcasm/take-downs
Not easy when discussing a serious topic or when being needled by another panelist. Humour doesn’t come naturally to me so I tend to carry around a few quips/punchlines in my notes/head to such events and use them when appropriate. Also, very importantly, never, never, ever self-deprecate. There are enough who will happily take you down when you’re the lone woman up on a platform, so why invite them by doing it to yourself?
Let’s end with a brief video of Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico, on communication skills for women and how she had to learn. Always makes me feel good to know that no one is born with it. We all have to work at these skills lifelong.
Keep rockin’, ladies. And do add your suggestions below.
– Jenny Bhatt (a publisher, editor, independent consultant and writer. She blogs at http://indiatopia.com and tweets at http://www.twitter.com/jenny_bhatt.)
Source of article: The Ladies Finger