It’s About Making Babies!

Seth Godin wrote How to be a great audience today. What I got from the post, was to pay attention. The more energy you put into hearing and understanding the speaker, the more you are likely to benefit from the experience — and the more you will get the speaker to contribute.

This seems a trite observation, a truism that has always been obvious. Then I noted the list of blogs and other sites that reference Seth’s experience with a series of short presentations. And I get it. Even though the audience-presenter dynamic has been treasured and sought after for centuries — from live theater to classrooms to symposiums and ad-hoc training and other presentations — we still need to be reminded of simple facts. Because some of the respondents missed the point. They read the message, but not all paid attention. They were ‘poor’ audience members. Instead of understanding the message, and drawing Seth (presenter) into providing even more value and insight and interaction, at least one comment disagreed that what we do as an audience will have any impact on how much information gets covered, to what depth, and what degree of insight will be discovered during any presentation.

Any actor on any stage will tell you that a ‘good’ audience makes a better performance. Any third grade teacher or college professor, or anyone giving a technical or safety presentation, will let you know straight out — when the class is ‘on’, engaged, paying attention and following the presentation closely, the value of the time spent increases, markedly.

But Seth may have also overlooked the point. The implications of being attentive vs. being merely present will also apply to conversations, sales pitches, and chance encounters. When you pitch a client, review a proposal or technical milestone, or read a book — the better your focus, the closer you pay attention, the more value you gain and contribute for that span of time. The better the communication the clearer you understand the customer’s needs, letting you make a better sale for a happier customer.

In ‘Tools for Teaching’, we learn that in a classroom there is a ‘green zone’ of about 5-8 feet from the teacher. On average, students within that green zone pay attention to the teacher, and are less likely to talk to neighbors, fidget, or otherwise be distracted (and miss information). So the teacher wanders the classroom, passing the green zone over every pupil every couple of minutes. On average, the kids enter the green zone often enough to sustain focus on the topic of the class.

We don’t manipulate crowds that way as adults. Occasionally a comedian, or a dynamic speaker, or an evangelist will wander the auditorium with similar results. Usually it is left to the individual listener to organize their own focus. (Often ‘motivation’ is artificially used to heighten focus, such as charging the listener a large fee. Then the listener will hopefully want to gain as much value as possible for the fee, and will be more rigorous in listening, considering, and questioning and otherwise interacting.) In a business meeting, some attendees will feel their report is routine, the rest of their time wasted, and will not consider the rest of the meeting pertinent to them – and will not put effort into ‘attending’ the meeting, instead merely being ‘present’. You can see this same present or attentive range of interaction in encounters with retail salespersons, with services and clients, and in any other business or personal encounter.

Being a good audience is the tip of the iceberg. But a very good place to start.