Page 42 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 1 Practical Speaking 9

employees fear change. Often the best way to introduce change is to sell em-
ployees on new ideas rather than to tell them to simply get used to those ideas.
A willing and enthusiastic workforce is far more likely to accept change in the
workplace than a reluctant and suspicious one.
Fifty-plus years of empirical research demonstrates that opinion leaders are
most effective in selling organizational change. This same body of research also
demonstrates that opinion leaders can be found across all levels of organizations.
You needn’t be the CEO to lead opinion—you simply have to exhibit several of
the qualities people recognize in opinion leaders. The ability to communicate
effectively, especially in public speaking, is chief among these qualities.
You may not know Sir Jackie Stewart. He is a four-time World Champion
in Formula One automobile racing. Long retired, he also is one of the most re-
spected people in all of motors sports. This owes not only to his reputation as a
driver, but even more to his activism on behalf of driver safety. A tireless advo-
cate and public speaker—he fi rst got other drivers to reject the idea that accidents
were unavoidable, next convinced them that crashes could be made more sur-
vivable, and fi nally enlisted them to pressure car owners and sanctioning bodies
to listen. While the odds of a Formula One driver dying in a crash were once
about fi ve to one, fatal car crashes have since become a rarity in the sport as a
result of safety improvements to the cars, the racecourses, driver equipment,
and medical response time.

Becoming a Functioning Force in Meetings

Although small-group communication is not the main focus of this book, many
of the skills we discuss—ranging from active listening to critical thinking to mak-
ing impromptu presentations—are directly applicable to functioning in group
meetings. As communication professor Ronald Adler reports, the average busi-
ness executive spends about 45 minutes out of every hour communicating, much
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of this time in meetings. Further, surveys show that executives spend as many
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as 700 hours per year in meetings. Your ability to speak effectively in meetings
will be indispensable to your success in the workplace.

Developing Critical Thinking and Listening Skills

It is not enough to know how to present your ideas to others. You also need to
listen to the needs of others and to what they say in response to your ideas. On av-
erage we spend up to 55 percent of our day in situations that involve the potential
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to listen. Seldom, however, do we take full advantage of this opportunity. Active
listening, which we discuss at length in Chapter 5, is essential to your develop-
ment as a speaker. First, you won’t have anything important to say unless you have
listened actively to those around you. Second, listening will make you more ef-
fective in working with people. Study after study demonstrates that people who
actually hear what is being communicated to them are much more responsive to
others than those who listen with “only one ear.” Responsiveness to one’s audience,
moreover, is one of the distinguishing characteristics of some of our nation’s best
public speakers.
Public speaking skills will help your development as a listener in several ways.
For example, learning to give an effective speech requires the ability to analyze
your audience, including what they think about you as a speaker and about the