Behavior vs. Action

When addressing an audience, remember that you create a world with your language. Too often, speakers and writers communicate from a paradigm of behaviorism that underestimates audience members' capacity to act.

While working with an organization last year, I attended a quarterly meeting in which managers promoted their mission of excellence. Striving for excellence is admirable, as is adding value to customer experience, thinking outside the box, and so on. However, these organizational ideals - ones that have potential to invite participation and make work creative again, are often conveyed as orders. Though a level of consistency is important, so is the freedom to participate in the conversation about our organizational ideals. Ideals and ideas, not ideologies, are most productive in almost every sense.

You can attempt to modify behavior through language - to come from a place of implicit expertise, to prescribe thoughts and feelings and responses. It looks much like the diagram here to the left.

Behaviors do not invent, or create—they duplicate.Sometimes, organizational ideals are promoted as branding strategies designed to benefit consumers rather than employees. Playing to public perception may temporarily increase business, but such strategies devalue employees. And no matter how many mugs, polo shirts, or bagel Fridays you throw at people, you are not fostering a more inspired space for work. You are going for buy-in, the illusion of choice.



If an employee is not invited to question what it means to imbue excellence, or imagine how things might be different, then their greatest asset to the organization—their imagination—is ignored. The Tangerine's Group's approach to organizational policy serves to maintain consistency and quality while reintroducing the notions of deliberate action, creativity and imagination that started it all.

Okay, That's it.

As public speaking coaches, we see our share of excellent speeches. We also come across those in need of some work. However, there are a couple of constants that seem to follow speakers despite their levels of experience. One such pattern is what we call the "Okay, That's it" phenomenon. Even though speakers have an introduction planned, the first word out of many of their mouths is "Okay...." Sometimes, we get the "Okay, I am going to start," at which point we must inform the speaker that they already have. This kind of 'narration' isn't necessary, and these habits are kinds of rookie-indicators that we want to avoid.

In addition to "Okay," we see a lot of "That's it" conclusions. It is important to use a clear conclusion that briefly summarizes and signals the end of a presentation without having to say it's over. This is imperative on the levels of professionalism, style, and audience relationship. Your audience gets a little anxious when a speech is coming to an end. "When is my time to clap?" they wonder. "I don't want to accidentally clap early and start a false round of applause - or worse, be that one loud clap that is obviously the result of a misunderstanding."

The art of the conclusion is to tell the audience that you are done, without actually having to say it. Very rarely does the expression "That's it" bubble up into a roar of excitement. When we clap in response to "That's it" we are put in the position of clapping because it's over. Leave us with something thought provoking, something that relates to your introduction. Again, these patterns are old habits that are easy enough to break - give it some thought ahead of time and leave us wanting more instead of thinking that's all you have.