Doubting Audiences Are Engaged Audiences

Insecure speakers hate it when audience members look skeptical or ask questions that doubt the premises or facts of the speaker.

“How dare that insolent person question my authority?” fumes the speaker.

Great speakers take another attitude. We love audience members who doubt us or question us.

When an audience member doubts or questions you, then the following positive things are true:

  1. The audience member is listening to you!!! (Always a good thing and not       necessarily something that can be counted on).
  2. The audience member at least partially understands what you are talking about.
  3. The audience member is thinking about and analyzing your comments.
  4. The audience member respects you and your ideas enough to want to convince       you of another viewpoint.
  5. The audience member is not bored by you! (Now you are way ahead of the game!)
  6. The audience member is adding another nuance that may make your points       resonate even stronger with other audience members.

When I find an audience member who seems skeptical or doubtful of some of my teachings, I embrace this doubt and try to turn it to my advantage. For example, I will often have trainees challenge me when I tell them that my research shows it is an utter waste of time to ever use text on a PowerPoint slide (I recommend images only).

When someone looks doubtful or directly challenges me, here is how I respond:

“I’m glad you are challenging me. I don’t want you to blindly accept everything I’m saying. I want you to be critical and skeptical of everything I say and do when it comes to giving a speech. But please don’t stop there. I want you to become more critical and skeptical of everything you have ever heard about speaking and using PowerPoint. Most of us give a speech by writing down a whole bunch of bullet points on a computer, walking up to a lectern, semi-reading the bullet points off of a screen and then sitting down. We speak this way not because we have a single shred of evidence that this is an effective way to communicate. We give speeches like this because that’s how we did it last week. That’s how we saw our boss do it last month. It’s easy for us. But I defy any of you to give me empirical evidence that the way most of us give speeches is effective. So yes, let’s start questioning everything!”

So I embrace my doubter in the audience openly. I don’t do anything to make him feel bad and I don’t do anything to suggest that I am annoyed, embarrassed, or perturbed. Because I’m not. I’m genuinely happy this doubter has added to my presentation.

Do you have any doubts that you can do the same?