I had the great privilege and delight recently of chatting with dear friend and tech genius Kate O’Neill, AKA the Tech Humanist, and she dropped a phrase that immediately said, “explore this more” to me: “Keynote speaking is listening at scale.” (Stay tuned for the Speak and Inspire Action podcast episode featuring Kate!) Now I’ve preached for a long time that one of the important jobs of a thought leader (who gives keynote speeches) is to listen to their audiences. Here was Kate articulating the principle with beautiful precision and challenging me to work out a few of the implications of that statement. I thought immediately of three main ways that listening is important for thought leaders – here goes.
- Honing your craft
The most immediate and direct way that keynote speaking is listening at scale is seeing what is landing – and not landing – within the speech itself. How is your timing? Do you open with the right kind of energy? Does that story about your mother-in-law land, or is it meretricious? Does the middle of your speech sag – do you sense the audience getting lost at any point? Do you end strong? Are you pausing in the right places? What is your stage presence like – is it real and vulnerable? Are you putting on a good show? Do you need to perform less and open up more?
If you are listening to your audience, then you will quickly pick up the answers to these sorts of questions. You know your stagecraft issues – honesty and excellence mean that you need to keep addressing them through the feedback the audience gives you.
- Honing your ideas
The next level is to see how beautifully your speech works as a vehicle for your ideas. Have you explained things clearly, or is the audience mystified in places? Do you need to slow down here, or speed up there? Is there some better way to illuminate this idea or that key point? Can you get the audience involved – is it itching to do something at this point in the talk? What does the audience take away from your talk? Polling the audience afterward is a very good way to find out what’s landing and what’s not. It’s fine to get ratings on a scale of 5. If the talk is working, you’ll consistently get 4.5 and above ratings (at least in North America). But a more important question to ask is, ‘what is the one idea you will remember from this talk?’ The answers you get to that question (or a similar one) will tell you if you are communicating your thought leadership successfully or not.
- Research for growth
Finally, the most interesting way that a keynote speech is listening at scale is for the body of ideas you are putting forward. You have the inestimable privilege of testing them every time you speak. Think of the speech as an ongoing research project. To be sure, it’s anecdotal evidence, not necessarily useful information in statistical terms. But the depth and color that you get from individual responses can tell you a lot about how profoundly an issue or idea is affecting an audience, and from that focus group, the general population. Over time, and more and more speeches, you’ll get a sense of what most people think and say in response to your thought leadership. And you’ll be able to sense changes in those responses, which will let you know when it is time to update your research more thoroughly. The audience’s collective brain power is formidable – don’t be shy about using it!
Keynote speaking is listening at scale. What other ways does this insight apply? Let me know what I’ve missed, and thank you, Kate O’Neill!
You can explore Kate’s ideas more fully here: KOInsights.com
