Creative Coaching - A Catalyst for Excellence

The Passionate Speaker
A Newsletter for Speakers
By
Michael Landrum
June, 2004 – Number 63

The Power of Play

"It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them." – Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)

When my daughter Elizabeth was about three, I watched as she drew a picture of me with a pencil. She carefully sketched my head in profile - in a three year old's sort of way, and made a dot for my eye. Then she looked at the paper for a moment and turned it over and made a dot on the back. "What's that?" I asked. "The other eye."

Was little Elizabeth working or playing when she came up with this creative solution? I believe the answer is both. Work and play are undifferentiated to children until about the age of five or six, when they begin school. The first thing we learn in school is how to tell the difference between work and play. Work is what others want us to do and play is what they don't want us to do. From that point on, life just seems to get more and more miserable for many of us, doesn't it?

What does this mean for speakers? The more we can "play" our speeches, the more effective they will be. Why? Because the audience finds play more attractive, easier to listen to and therefore easier to learn, grow and buy-in to the message of a playful speaker. How do effective speakers play? Here are four ingredients for playful speaking.

1. Stories. If you aren't telling stories in your speeches, you are working too hard and your speeches are probably not working well for you. Stories are the audience's favorite part of any speech. Stories are like games, recess, vacations, candy bars, music to the ears of any audience - they will lean forward and listen intently to any well told story with a pertinent point.

2. Eye contact. In her drawing little Elizabeth had solved the problem of the other eye. As a speaker, I have a similar problem. "I" am attempting to communicate to an audience of other "I's". Rapport is that mysterious connection between living people. That strange, silent message that passes in a glance between the eyes of one and the eyes of another, surpasses words. "I see."

Pay attention to your audience just as you ask them to pay attention to you. A speech is like a game of catch. The speaker tosses out an idea and watches to see if the audience catches it. We read all the subtle signals people send when they get it: nods, smiles, relaxed faces, sighs, laughter - especially laughter - all make the audience's feelings abundantly clear.

What's the biggest obstacle to eye contact? Notes. Anything that takes your attention away from the audience or theirs from you is a hazard to rapport. This includes PowerPoint slides, lecterns, Teleprompters or 3 x 5 cards. Rapport is built on trust, and trust is personal. Use notes or slides if you must, but understand that it will cost you a certain degree of trust from your audience.

3. Humor. Everyone's favorite plaything is funniness. We instinctively understand the need to provoke a laugh from an audience, that's why so many speakers rush to the joke books for an opening. Usually this backfires. The jokes are old, or poorly told, or offend in some way - and they do not come out of the speaker's own experience and so have little connection with the topic at hand. After the joke, these speakers too often think they have served us a bit of humor so they can go back to the deadly dull report they always meant to give us.

Far better to take a light, optimistic approach in your attitude, word choice and relaxed demeanor. While there are some speeches that should not be treated lightly, (declaring war for instance), it is rare that a speech is not improved by a buoyant attitude. When a speech is carried off with playfulness, even a difficult topic is given a clear and steady air of confidence and sanity. This was our late President Ronald Reagan's secret and the reason we think of him as "The Great Communicator."

4. Surprise. Next to humor, the thing every audience hopes for is the unexpected. It is one of the basic ingredients in humor. But audiences also love to hear original ideas, metaphors, word-play, a fresh point of view on an old topic, the contrarian position, etc. To create original and surprising ideas, you will need to abandon the linear, plodding thought patterns of the left brain and strike out across country with your intuition. Play with the concepts you espouse. Find analogies and metaphors that are bold, colorful, exaggerated and playful.

We are never more confident than when we are at play. If we feel free enough to play at any piece of work the chances of success are increased tenfold. The great goal of a healthy, mature life is to re-integrate work and play so that we approach our daily tasks as we did when we were three years old. Robert Frost makes this point eloquently in his poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time." Here's the last stanza:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

A Response from a Reader

James Byars is a professional musician. He plays the oboe and English horn for the New York City Ballet Orchestra at Lincoln Center. He recently retired from an inner city public school in the Bronx where he taught band for 26 years. I thought his comments worth including on the topic of playing at work.

Hi Mike,

I "play" the oboe, the piano, the English horn I don't "work" them. The medical field practices, as does Yoga, and other professions, too...not that the word work is a baaaad word. The boundary of not knowing when the play stops and the job starts has always been vague for me, and I think mostly the work word doesn't even show up. I'm having a great life.

One cynical teacher colleague friend of mine used to say, "of course teaching is hard work, why do you think they call it a job?" That punch line mostly got me out of a "blue" feeling about my plate being too full, but even then, I felt it wasn't a job that was a drag...but a job loaded with possibility.

Eye contact, well, the best conductors want you to look at them, and often, as you're playing the music...then you have communication...and the most successful conductors tell lots of stories, and jokes about performances and what can go right or wrong about a piece of music...so it becomes fun, not overly picky about the details...that the musician knows more about the instrument and the ensemble playing than the conductor.

Today, we had a new conductor, Carolyn, from China, who obviously had a problem speaking English...but in her energy and clear beat pattern we got the picture that she was awesome. Her disciplined manner was especially noted when she would ask the orchestra to be quiet so she could correct some detail in the percussion. THEN, she'd be silent until the orchestra would stop talking, then she'd go ahead, cheerfully, as if nothing had happened. She's having a great time...playing.

James

©2004 Michael F. Landrum

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