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Authors: Scott Berkun
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view—seek out the person who hates you the least. All rooms, no matter how
tough, have one person who hates you the least. Even if you’re a Flying
Spaghetti Monster disciple speaking at the Vatican, someone in that room
will hate you less than everyone else. [ 23 ] Maybe it’s because he thinks you’re cute or he’s amused by
how scared you are to be there, but he’s your best chance. If you are
going to get a first smile, a nod of support, or a round of applause, it’s
going to come from him. Once you find that one person, use him as your
base. Don’t ignore everyone else, but know where to look for support. Or,
if you arrive early, take the initiative to talk to people in the crowd
and find some supporters. Ask them to move up front. Alternatively, you
might discover the one person who has a really good reason to hate you and
make sure not to let him ask the first question during Q&A.
Sometimes the tough crowd is entirely imagined and then created by
the speaker, who, realizing the audience ishostile, blames them. What kind of idiot does this sort of
thing? My kind of idiot. The first big lecture I gave was in 1996. It was
an internal lecture at Microsoft to about 200 engineers and managers. At
the arrogant age of 24, I was so certain the crowd would tear me to pieces
that I made sure they never had a chance. I spoke in my fastest
New-Yorker-who-wants-to-kick-your-ass tone, never smiled, and made clear
my unwillingness to let anyone in the audience enjoy anything from the
moment I opened my mouth. Why did I do all this? Why did I come off so
unpleasant? I was terrified. And as an arrogant and frightened young man,
I took it out on the people I most feared. I watched the video of this
talk and destroyed it afterward. That’s how ridiculous my behavior
was.
In the act of protecting myself from what I thought would be ahostile, critical, skeptical audience, I set about on the
one course most likely to create the thing I was trying to avoid. I’m sure
this happensoften: being paranoid has strikingly good odds of creating
what we’re afraid of, perpetuating the paranoia. If I hadn’t later seen
that video of my performance, I wouldn’t have the life I have now. I would
always have thought I was responding to the crowd, not that it
was responding to me . I would have continually wondered why my
crowds were so unpleasant, and eventuallygiven up. Now I know I have to embody what I want the
audience to be. If I want them to have fun, I have to have fun. If I want
them to laugh, I have to laugh. But it has to be done in a way they can
connectwith, which is hard to do. A drunken toast at a wedding is
often great fun for the toaster but miserable for everyone else. But great
speakers are connection-makers, sharing an authentic part of themselves to
create a singular, positive experience for the audience.
One unusual way to think about tough crowds is that a crowd has to
be interested in you to hate you. Ahostile crowd gives you more energy to workwith than an indifferent one. Giving a lecture to a room
full of people in comas, literally in hospital beds, wired up to IVs
filled with various horse tranquilizers, has a zero percent chance of them
being interested in you. But if people are angry or rowdy, it means they
care about something. They have some energy they are willing to
contribute, for better or for worse. If you can figure out what it is
they’re interested in, preferably early on, it’s possible to connect with
them. Find common ground and bring it to the surface. Their hate will
quickly turn to respect, as you’ve said the thing on stage they’ve never
heard someone like you say before. After watching and giving hundreds of
lectures, I’ve learned that by far the thing people seem angriest about is
dishonesty. Show some integrity by speaking the truth on the very thing
that angers them, or even acknowledging it in a heartfelt way, and you
will score
view—seek out the person who hates you the least. All rooms, no matter how
tough, have one person who hates you the least. Even if you’re a Flying
Spaghetti Monster disciple speaking at the Vatican, someone in that room
will hate you less than everyone else. [ 23 ] Maybe it’s because he thinks you’re cute or he’s amused by
how scared you are to be there, but he’s your best chance. If you are
going to get a first smile, a nod of support, or a round of applause, it’s
going to come from him. Once you find that one person, use him as your
base. Don’t ignore everyone else, but know where to look for support. Or,
if you arrive early, take the initiative to talk to people in the crowd
and find some supporters. Ask them to move up front. Alternatively, you
might discover the one person who has a really good reason to hate you and
make sure not to let him ask the first question during Q&A.
Sometimes the tough crowd is entirely imagined and then created by
the speaker, who, realizing the audience ishostile, blames them. What kind of idiot does this sort of
thing? My kind of idiot. The first big lecture I gave was in 1996. It was
an internal lecture at Microsoft to about 200 engineers and managers. At
the arrogant age of 24, I was so certain the crowd would tear me to pieces
that I made sure they never had a chance. I spoke in my fastest
New-Yorker-who-wants-to-kick-your-ass tone, never smiled, and made clear
my unwillingness to let anyone in the audience enjoy anything from the
moment I opened my mouth. Why did I do all this? Why did I come off so
unpleasant? I was terrified. And as an arrogant and frightened young man,
I took it out on the people I most feared. I watched the video of this
talk and destroyed it afterward. That’s how ridiculous my behavior
was.
In the act of protecting myself from what I thought would be ahostile, critical, skeptical audience, I set about on the
one course most likely to create the thing I was trying to avoid. I’m sure
this happensoften: being paranoid has strikingly good odds of creating
what we’re afraid of, perpetuating the paranoia. If I hadn’t later seen
that video of my performance, I wouldn’t have the life I have now. I would
always have thought I was responding to the crowd, not that it
was responding to me . I would have continually wondered why my
crowds were so unpleasant, and eventuallygiven up. Now I know I have to embody what I want the
audience to be. If I want them to have fun, I have to have fun. If I want
them to laugh, I have to laugh. But it has to be done in a way they can
connectwith, which is hard to do. A drunken toast at a wedding is
often great fun for the toaster but miserable for everyone else. But great
speakers are connection-makers, sharing an authentic part of themselves to
create a singular, positive experience for the audience.
One unusual way to think about tough crowds is that a crowd has to
be interested in you to hate you. Ahostile crowd gives you more energy to workwith than an indifferent one. Giving a lecture to a room
full of people in comas, literally in hospital beds, wired up to IVs
filled with various horse tranquilizers, has a zero percent chance of them
being interested in you. But if people are angry or rowdy, it means they
care about something. They have some energy they are willing to
contribute, for better or for worse. If you can figure out what it is
they’re interested in, preferably early on, it’s possible to connect with
them. Find common ground and bring it to the surface. Their hate will
quickly turn to respect, as you’ve said the thing on stage they’ve never
heard someone like you say before. After watching and giving hundreds of
lectures, I’ve learned that by far the thing people seem angriest about is
dishonesty. Show some integrity by speaking the truth on the very thing
that angers them, or even acknowledging it in a heartfelt way, and you
will score
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