Does an audience have feelings?

Of course they do. Everyone in an audience has their own feelings and emotions, which is why you as a speaker should not be discouraged if, say, 99% give you a “5” on the evaluation and 1% give you a “1”.
That 1% perhaps had a bad day, just found out his wife cheated on them, had a ex-boy friend who looked like you or what ever reason put them in a bad mood on the day you did your talk.

But does an audience have a collective mood?

That is a more interesting question.

Group dynamics is an interesting thing. The fact that a demonstration can suddenly turn violent for no apparent reason. The positive energy that is generated in a football audience when someone decides to start the “wave”.

No matter how much we like to think of ourselves as individuals, we are also often just a small part of a big group.

And a group has its own “personality” – let’s call it “groupality”.

As a speaker it is very important to get a feel of how the audience is feeling as a group, because the mood of the audience is going to effect the quality of your speech.

And sometimes it can be really tricky to get a feel of the “groupality” of a group.

Today I was speaking to 3000 people in Istanbul at a big retail conference where almost all attendees where from Turkey.

There was a positive vibe in the room from the energy that comes from retailers focused on expansion in a dynamic and developing part of the world.
But at the same time there was this negative vibe that comes from living in a country that in the recent months had seen serious terrorists attacks, a failed military coup, a refugee disaster flowing over its borders and a political climate that is anything but positive.

From the stage at the conference there was one speaker talking about the need for national unity and then the next minute a speaker talking about how Shell had implemented nice toilets for children. Dual messages of optimism and pessimism was colliding and it made it very difficult to read the audience as a group.

Now, normally the mood of a group is not so diverse or divided as it was at the conference I spoke at in Istanbul today.

But this extreme example reminded me of the need to always try to get a feel of the audience.

– You need to do it before you speak (how are they reacting to what is happening on stage when others are speaking?)
– As you walk up and speak (how are they reacting to you as you walk up?)
and
– While you are speaking (how are they reacting to what you are saying?)

Some speakers say that you should “pick an audience member” who looks friendly and nice and speak to him or her.

I try to avoid that and instead try to think of the audience as one, big, living organism. A giant, wild, but mostly friendly beast that you constantly need to monitor so you can avoid to awaken its anger.
Trust me, you do not want to make an audience turn on you.

But treat it with the respect it deserves, be friendly and non threatening and constantly monitor it and you will see that an audience – just like a lion – can be a fantastically beautiful creature that you can somehow get to do what you want, even if it is actually stronger and more powerful than you.

If a stand-up comedian wants feedback on his or her routine he/she can ask people in the audience, or he can ask another comedian.

The feedback will be quite different.

If a musician asks an audience member for feedback, or a fellow musician, again the feedback will be quite different.

And if a movie director ask a bunch of movie goers about how to make a movie better he or she will get totally different feedback than if the question goes to fellow movie directors.

The feedback from the peers will be deeper, more specific and on a different level. Expert talking to expert will generate expert feedback.

That is why I am so surprised why not more speakers ask other speakers for feedback.

I try to do it as often as I can.

Today I did it in Taipei, Taiwan where I was speaking at the he Asia Pacific Conference for the Association for Talent Development. A few days ago I found out that a speaker friend of mine, Coen Tan, was going to attend my speech and he wrote to on Facebook “I will get a front seat”. I thanked him but asked him to instead take a seat in the very BACK of the room. Because if you sit in the back of the room you can evaluate not only the speaker, but also the reactions of the audience.

I then asked Coen to observe my speech and take notes.

After the speech we sat down in a café and Coen gave his perspective on my content, my delivery and my message.

He had some very good ideas around how I could rephrase a few of my stories for more impact. Ideas that I definitely will implement.

Hearing his comments it was so clear how different feedback from a fellow speaker is from feedback from “normal” audience members.

It is my experience that non-speaker-feedback tends to be very positive (“Oh, it was amazing!) or focused on something negative: “You said X, and did not like that” or “You do Y and it annoyed me.”.

It is my experience that speaker feedback is more focused on small improvements and suggestions on how to tweak and change the speech, the stories or the delivery to make it even better.

A non-speaker comes from the perspective: “I as an audience like/did not like X.”

A fellow speaker comes from the perspective: “If this was my speech I would do X.”

That makes speaker feedback more constructive.

Lesson: So the next time you get a chance to have a fellow speaker in the audience, grab him or her and ask them to help you make your speech better.

Feed on feedback.

Here is an analogy that I came up with today: Speaking is like surfing and the audience is the wave.

Let me explain what I mean:
Get ahead of the audience and you crash. (Just like a surfer will crash if he or she gets ahead of the wave.)

Get behind the audience and they get bored and move on, leaving you dead in the water (Just like a surfer will be left behind if the wave moves on without him or her.)

But ride the audience just perfectly and the energy that is in this big group of people will propel you forward and give you the ride you are looking for. (Just like how a great surfer will ride a wave.)

It also means that just as a surfer need to become one with a wave, we as speakers need to become one with our audience.

Today I caught a great wave.

I did a speech for the global marketing team of Tata Communications who had gathered for a conference in beautiful Kerala, India.

Before my speech my client had warned me about how the speaker that they had had the day before had not been able to connect with the audience and how that had resulted in a bad session with a disconnected group of people not listening to the speaker.

Hearing that the previous speaker had had a tough time might not be what you would like to hear just before you go up to give a speech, but for me it worked as positive fuel. It reminded me of the need to connect with the audience and ride through the speech together with them.

So what did I do?

I focused on really feeling the energy of the room, listened in on the mood of the group and pushed the audience just so far as they would let me.
And just like how a surfer needs to paddle fast in the beginning to catch the wave a speaker needs to build up just enough momentum in the beginning of the speech to get just a little bit ahead of the audience – but not too much – so that the audience will want to carry the speaker forward.

It worked.

The feedback from the client afterwards was : “I think this is the first time ever we have had a standing ovation at one of our conferences. (Fredrik is) scary likeable, and it was an amazing session.”

I am happy the client was happy – but a great speech is really a cooperation between the speaker and the audience.

They might have thought that it was an “amazing session” – but I also thought it was “an amazing audience”.

I am surprised when I read advice to novice speakers telling them to “pretend that the audience is naked” or “pick on person in the audience who looks like she likes you and speak to her.”. To be advice like that is making the speaker pretend that the audience is something it is not. I think that is terrible advice.

Instead I think speakers should try to get as much feel as possible about how the audience is really feeling, how it is reacting to the speakers message, how they are processing what you say. In other words: “dance” together.

Here is an observation: “A speech will never be greater than its audience.”

The audience is playing an important role in building the experience that a speech will deliver.

When you realise that as a speaker you get better at feeling the energy. And you get a deep respect for the massive power and influence that an audience has on a speech. Just like a surfer will have big respect for the power of the wave.