Think fast. Talk smart | Matt Abrahams | TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool

Stanford lecturer and entrepreneur Matt Abrahams is an expert on interpersonal communication and presentation. His explains the ins and outs of impromptu and public speaking.

Matt Abrahams is a passionate, collaborative and innovative educator and coach. He teaches both Strategic Communication and Effective Communication at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Matt is also co-founder and principal at Bold Echo Communications Solutions, a presentation and communication skills company in Silicon Valley that helps people improve their presentation skills. He has worked with executives to help prepare and present keynote addresses and IPO road shows, conduct media interviews and deliver TED talks.

Finally, Matt recently published the second edition of his book, "Speaking Up Without Freaking Out," a book written to help people become more confident, authentic and compelling presenters. Prior to teaching, Matt held senior leadership positions in several leading software companies, where he created and ran global training and development organizations.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

People hate me.

People fear me.

You see, I'm a communication professor.

And these people who fear me and hate me

are some of the brightest, most creative,
most entrepreneurial people I know.

I wield a tool.

And that tool I wield
is what makes them fear and despise me.

As a professor, I have the ability
to do what's called "cold calling."

That's where I look at a student
and say, "What do you think?

What do you feel
about what we just discussed?

How does this impact you?"

And this causes panic,

not just for my students
but for everybody:

that moment where we are called upon
to speak articulately.

Can we do it?

Now, rest assured,
I never cold call on my students.

I think it's rude, and I know it's hard.

But people fear it.

Eighty-five percent of people
say they fear speaking in public.

And quite frankly,
I think the other 15% are lying.

I think we could find a situation
that makes them nervous too.

So today, my goal is to share with you
some tips and techniques that you can use

to help you be more comfortable
and confident when you're speaking,

in other words, to be able
to think fast and talk smart.

To do this, we're going to look
at four different steps.

First, we're going to talk
about the approach we take.

Then, we'll speak
about the audience we talk to,

the context in which we find ourselves

and finally, the structures we use
to help our messages get across.

So, let's start by talking about approach.

You know, I was reminded
about the importance of approach

many, many years ago, when my wife
and I first moved in with each other.

You see, we fought a lot
over little things,

things mostly that happened
in our bathrooms.

We called these our bathroom brawls:

"Is the toilet seat up?"

"Is the toilet seat down?"

By far, the biggest fight
my wife and I ever had

was over toothpaste.

(Laughter)

You see, my wife's a roller,
and I'm a squeezer.

And all of you out there who are rollers,

I appreciate the fine artwork
you create out of your toothpaste.

But you know that the most awful thing
that can happen to you

is to have a squeezer come by
and ruin all that effort you've put in.

But to me, getting toothpaste
out of a tube is an act of aggression.

I feel powerful in the morning
and in the evening.

(Laughter)

And we would fight incessantly
over little things like this.

And finally, my wife,
who is much smarter than I,

said, "Timeout. What are we doing here?
We've just been married.

We love each other,
yet we're fighting all the time.

We need to look at this differently."

And as soon as we started looking
at our bathroom brawls

as opportunities -

opportunities to learn about each other,
to make concessions, to collaborate -

things changed.

And I'm happy to say,
after 15 years of marriage,

we no longer fight over toothpaste.

(Laughter)

This same approach
is true in communication.

Most of us, when we are in situations
where we need to communicate,

we see them as threatening.

We see them as opportunities for failure.

And I'd like to suggest
that we need to change that.

We need to approach
communication in an open way,

see it as an opportunity to share
our ideas, our beliefs, our innovations.

And when we take
a perspective of openness,

all of a sudden, something that we dread

becomes something that we embrace.

So, the first step
to effective communication

is to approach it in an open way.

But that's not enough.

We need to think about the audience
that we're speaking to.

And to me, the way to approach it
is the opposite the way most people do.

Most of us think about,
"Here's what I want to say"

or, "Here's what I need to say."

I would suggest that's exactly wrong.

You need to think about,
"What does my audience need to hear?"

And it sounds just like verbal jiu jitsu,
where I'm moving words around,

but in fact, it's
a fundamental difference.

If I ask myself,
"What does my audience need,"

it puts me in service of my audience.

It's about their needs.

And in order to understand those needs,
I have to do some reconnaissance.

I have to ask myself who they are.

The three things I think we need
to ask about our audience are,

"What is their knowledge?"

"What is it that they know?"

and if they don't know enough,

"What can we do
to scaffold that information

so that they have the tools they need?"

In addition to knowledge,

we need to be thinking
about their expectations.

And by expectations, I mean,
What is it that they expect of me?

Most audiences have heard the types
of presentations you're giving:

maybe it's a pitch,

maybe it's some kind
of advertisement or marketing,

maybe it's a TED talk.

Your audience has heard
those kinds of presentations before,

so what do they expect of you?

And then you can choose to conform
to those expectations or not.

You know, I have two young kids,

and I learned that sometimes
violating their expectations

actually is the most effective thing
I can do for the communication we need.

My boys sometimes make me upset.

And when they make me upset,
I used to raise my voice to no avail.

Nothing happened.

I was ignored.

And that's tough for a communication guy.

So, what I started to do -

when I'm really upset with my boys,

I lower my voice.

And they stop dead in their tracks.

Violating expectations sometimes
can actually help you as a communicator.

The final thing we need to think about is,
"What are their attitudes?"

The way you approach your communication

is influenced by what your audience
thinks about what you're talking on:

Are they in favor of it?
Are they against it?

Or they're hesitant? Agnostic?

Those are the things you need to be asking
yourself when you communicate.

So, we need to appreciate our audience.

When my older child
was in kindergarten, I volunteered.

I came into his classroom,

the teacher had to leave
to take a call or something,

and I was in charge of an art project.

Oh, was that a mistake.

The kids were running around.

I was saying, "Stop this, Johnny."
"Sally, stop doing that."

Nobody listened.

The Yoda-like teacher returned,

saw the chaos that had ensued
in her brief absence

and simply looked at the children

and started rewarding
the positive behavior.

"Janet," she said, "what a lovely way
you've cleaned up your crayons."

"Samuel, thank you so much
for walking with the scissors."

(Laughter)

The students stopped in their tracks,
changed their behavior.

I learned then that you need to understand
your audience and what they need.

And to this day,
I try to apply those principles.

I also learned that I could never teach
elementary school students.

If guilt and shame doesn't work,
I can't teach them.

(Laughter)

So, knowing your audience really matters.

But beyond knowing your audience,

you have to appreciate the context
in which you speak.

Whenever you speak,
you are in a particular context.

And to me, context comes
in a bunch of different varieties.

The first thing about context
we need to think about is the time.

What time of day are you communicating?

If you're talking early in the morning,

you might have to have
a little more energy

to keep people moving.

Same thing after lunch when people
are having that food coma experience.

I taught high school many, many years ago.

And I don't think my principal
liked me very much

because she gave me freshmen
right before lunch and right after lunch.

And if you know anything
about 14- and 15-year-old kids,

they need lots of food
and lots of social experience.

So, by the time my first class of freshmen
came to me after four hours of class,

they were dead tired.

They could barely move, let alone think.

Right after lunch,
when my second batch joined me,

they were amped-up on their food,
their caffeine, their friends.

It was a frenzy in my classroom.

And I had to teach them the same thing.

How did I do it?

I changed the way we approached the class.

The class before lunch
was highly collaborative,

people were moving around,
lots of activities;

after lunch, a little more mellow.

You must address the context, the timing
so your message can be effective.

Context also involves emotion.

Most of us when we communicate,
we think about information:

What's in my head, in my heart
I need to communicate to you?

But we also communicate a feeling.

Maybe we're trying to get people
excited and motivate them.

Maybe we're trying to scare them,

create that burning platform
that motivates them to change.

Sometimes, we're just trying
to instill confidence:

You should believe in what I'm saying.

But we need to think about the emotion
as well as the information.

The final bit of context has to do with
where you're physically speaking.

Location matters.

Just the other day,
I read in the newspaper

that the Girl Scout in the state
of California this year

who sold the most cookies during
the Girl Scout's annual cookie drive

set up shop in front
of a medical marijuana dispensary.

She sold more cookies than anybody.

Location matters.

Think about the way the room is set up.

Think about the environment:
Is it live? Is it virtual?

Those change the way that you communicate.

We need to think about location.

So, our approach is important.

Our audience is important.

The context in which
we find ourselves is important

and so too is the way
we structure our messages.

It is much easier for humans to understand
information when it is structured.

In fact, we remember information
up to 40% better when it's structured.

What do I mean by this?

Some of you listening
are too young to remember,

but those of us of my age,

when we wanted to call
somebody on the phone,

we actually had to remember
a phone number.

My kids today, they look
at a picture, push a button,

and the other person
starts talking on the phone.

We had it much harder.

We had to remember 10 digits.

Ten digits are hard to remember,
so what did we do?

We put them in a structure:
three-three-and four.

That's how we remembered.

That's what I mean by a structure.

The information is put in a way
that it makes it easy

not only for you as a speaker
but also for the audience to remember.

Now, I have lots of favorite structures.

You see some of the structures
up here behind me.

The first structure is a chronological
structure: past-present-future.

Here's how things used to be.

Here's how they are today.

Here's where they're going in the future.

A chronological structure
can really help you

navigate your audience
from one place to the next.

Quite frankly,
structure sets expectations.

You can't be lost if you have a map.

Your structure provides a map,

and the chronological structure
is incredibly helpful for that.

The next structure happens to be
the problem-solution-benefit structure.

This is one of the most
persuasive structures out there.

You start by explaining what the issue is,

you talk about how to solve it
and then the benefits to the people.

Finally, my favorite structure,
the one that I use the most -

I call this "the MacGyver
of all structures";

this can get you through any situation -

is the what, so-what, now-what structure.

You start by telling people
what the issue is.

You tell them why it's important
in that so-what step.

And then you tell them
what's next, what's coming.

It's like a Swiss Army knife.

You can use it in situations
if you're teaching.

You can use it if you are trying
to motivate people.

And you can use it
even if you're introducing somebody.

Change the "what" to a "who,"
and you've got your introduction.

Structure helps keep your audience
together and in line.

When I was an undergraduate,
I was a tour guide.

It was the highest-paying job on campus.

And boy, did I need money.

I trained for 12 weeks to be a tour guide.

I learned lots of interesting - some would
say useless - facts about my university,

things they drilled into our heads
besides how to walk backwards,

which to this day I still can do
in a straight line.

The most important thing they taught us -

they said, "Above all else,

to be a great tour guide
at this institution

is to never lose your audience.

You are a bad tour guide
if your tour group gets lost."

The same is true when you're speaking.

Structure keeps people together.

We need structure.

So, we see here that these tools,

the tools that help us get our audience
engaged and involved

and help us convey our message

are the same tools that helped my students
learn to love speaking

and learn to do it well.

It's about the approach you take,

the audience,

the context,

and the structure.

Now, I'm always looking for examples
of this to help people understand.

And the other day, I was eating breakfast,

and I looked across the table
at my soy milk,

and I said, "You know what?
This is a great example."

Think about it: Silk soy milk.

Silk soy milk is targeted
to a very specific audience:

people who are interested
in eating healthy

or people who are lactose intolerant.

The name is a combination
of the words "soy" and "milk" -

"Silk."

It speaks to the audience's desire

to have something rich,
something expensive, something yummy.

It's at a time, in a context,
in an environment.

If you notice where you buy Silk soy milk,
it's next to other milk.

That's not where it was originally.

It used to be in the health food aisle.

Now it's next to milk.

They marketed it and boxed it
the way milk is.

The structure of the name
is very compelling.

Let's face it, they
could have called it "Moy,"

and nobody would've bought it, right?

So, if you get the message right
and you communicate it effectively,

you can make a big difference.

So, I want for you what I wish
for all of my students:

bold communication
that's confident and compelling.

And I want for your message to echo
long after you leave the room.

And these are skills
that are at your disposal.

It just takes practice
and a little bit of a positive approach.

Thank you.