A compassionate guide to public speaking, including Q&As
For introverts, sensitive souls, and anyone who's just (quite reasonably) nervous about being stared at by a group of people while you talk.
Back when I first became a manager, public speaking was one of the most terrifying things that landed on my plate as an “area for growth.” I was asked, at first, to just do it more—give more presentations internally, speak at All Hands, and speak at conferences. Then, after getting started and trying my best, I was asked to do it better. Yipes.
As an introvert with a voice that does not normally project very far, I was pretty terrified. My voice gets even quieter when I’m nervous. Public speaking did not come easily to me, and I was pretty overwhelmed.
Let me skip to the end of the story right here: I got better. I got way better. I got so much better at public speaking that I eventually enjoyed speaking on a big stage with hundreds of people in the audience. Yes, I was still very nervous, but I also felt confident and excited.
This is all just to say that public speaking is a totally learnable skill. Even if, say, you don’t want to speak at conferences, but you would like to not feel miserable when you have to answer a few questions in a Zoom town hall, you can get there. Less suffering is definitely possible.
Here I’ll share some of the simplest things that helped me.
Practice
This is especially true—and most straightforward—for prepared presentations. Simply practicing a lot helped. Some people resist practicing, because they feel like practicing will make the presentation feel too formal or stilted. They want to sound casual and conversational. But I find that for the most part, practice is the path to sounding more at ease.
Then, once you have lots of experience and confidence with public speaking, you might need to prepare less, depending on the context. But I think most audiences can tell when someone has really prepared, and that preparation is generally appreciated.
In my case, I had a team of public speaking coaches training me. The main thing they did was to force me to practice. I practiced a lot in front of fellow participants. There was also a lot of video taping and forcing me to watch myself speaking.
I say “force,” because I honestly really didn’t want to do it. I had hoped the coaches would just give me secret magical tips. Instead, they made me face the truth and look at and listen to myself. It makes a difference pretty quickly.
It wasn’t that I needed to change who I was. It was that they way I appeared and sounded while speaking to a group did not actually match my intentions or my self-perception. I needed to make some adjustments in order to be more myself in the unusual context of public speaking.
So if you don’t have access to public speaking training, I think you can get quite a long way just by recording and watching/listening to yourself. You’ll immediately notice things you had no idea you were doing, with your words, your voice, or your body language.
Sensory soothing
It’s totally normal to feel nervous about public speaking, even if you’ve practiced or done it a million times. It’s actually a pretty unnatural thing to be stared at by a group of people while you talk. Not surprising that simply being in the spotlight could shift your body or mind into survival mode.
I find it can be really helpful to figure out what sensory inputs soothe your body and remind you that you’re safe. If you’re preparing to be seen by a group of people, you might be more focused on (and worried about) how you’ll look. But remember to consider how your body will feel too.
Do those shoes make you feel confident and powerful? Or do they make you feel unstable?
Is there a particular scent you could wear that makes you feel really secure?
For some, it can feel comforting to wear some sort of garment that hugs you, like a snug undershirt or a vest. For others, wearing something loose and relaxed might put your body at ease. Maybe for you, a certain scarf or accessory makes your body feel extra confident, powerful, or calm.
And if you’ll be on Zoom, or no one will see you at all (like for a podcast interview), you have even more freedom to arrange sensory comforts for yourself. A special cup of tea. A candle you like. I tend to get cold when I’m nervous (but I also sweat? very confusing), so for me a cozy (but not too heavy) cardigan or vest is key.
For Q&As
Once I got into practicing, I started to build confidence with prepared presentations. But what about when you need to go off-script? What about Q&As? Improvising, for me, felt like the scariest part.
Here are a few tools that have helped me and my clients too.
You don’t have to answer instantly.
It’s totally normal to need a moment to collect your thoughts sometimes. Of course, it can also feel nerve-wracking to be watched by lots of people while you sit in silence. Remember that the silence probably feels longer to you than to them.
Take a breath, and try to stay grounded in your body. You can say things like:
Ok, give me a moment. I really want to be thoughtful about this.
Let me take a second to organize my thoughts on this one.
As you take that pause, you could close your eyes, if that helps you. You could write some notes, if it’s a setting where you have pen and paper.
You can answer one way, and then ask a follow-up question.
This is also a great tool for job interviews, and situations where we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get the answer “right.” To take some pressure off, remember that there are just a lot of different, valid ways to answer a question.
So you can answer one way and then ask something like this.
Did that answer your question?
Can I expand on anything there?
You can answer multiple ways.
Sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to choose just one response, but that’s not always necessary. Depending on the context and the question, it might be helpful to respond with multiple perspectives.
You could say, “Here’s one way I would answer that question. [Insert your response.]” And then, “But we could look at this from other perspectives too. So here’s another way I would look at it. [Insert a different response.]”
You can respond with a clarifying question.
Asking a concise, clear question is not easy. So if you feel confused, caught off guard, or unsure in any way about a question, it’s totally fair—and can be really helpful and conscientious—to respond first with a question.
Here are some examples.
Are you asking, [rephrase question]? I want to make sure I’m answering the right question.
Could you say a bit more about that? I want to understand what’s behind your question.
You can give someone else a chance to answer the question.
Sometimes when someone asks a difficult or confusing question, it may be that they themselves have an answer in mind. They may have a strong opinion about the topic, or they may be hoping you’ll give a specific answer.
Depending on the context, it can be helpful to give the other person a chance to share their perspective. Then you can respond about whether you agree or disagree with their perspective.
You can say something like:
Do you have an opinion about this? Would you be willing to share your perspective?
This is a great tool to use when the question-asker clearly has expertise or strong feelings about the topic. For example, in a company All Hands meeting when a team lead is asking a question that relates to their team’s future.
Don’t use this tool if you don’t genuinely want to know the other person’s perspective, or if it wouldn’t be appropriate to have this person share on the fly with the whole audience. Also, don’t use this tool if the other person seems very nervous or probably wouldn’t appreciate being put on the spot. This is a tool to use in a generous way, not in an aggressive way.
A variation on this would be to invite someone else to answer the question. So, let’s say we’re back at this All Hands, and an engineering manager asks you a question related to design. Is the Head of Design present? If you feel they could answer the question better than you could, give them a chance to respond instead.
You can answer a different question altogether.
Remember that, as the speaker, you have the power to shape the way this conversation goes. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. And you don’t have to force yourself to answer a question you don’t feel ready or able to answer.
At the same time, stay honest, and be clear about what you’re doing, rather than just avoiding a question. Here are a couple ways to redirect the conversation.
I don’t have an answer to that question right now. But I would like to tell you about something related.
I don’t know about that, but I do know about this…
That’s not my area of expertise, but it does remind me of…
You can say that you don’t know.
Sometimes you really just don’t know how to answer a question. It’s ok not to know. Just because you are in the spotlight, holding a mic, doesn’t mean you are responsible for having an answer to every question.
If you just feel too uncomfortable, unclear, unsure, or not ready to answer a question, you can actually say, “I don’t know.” It’s better to be honest about that than to make something up that could be misleading, inaccurate, confusing, vague, or inauthentic.
Here are some variations on “I don’t know.”
I really appreciate your question, but I don’t feel I can give a helpful answer to that right now.
I need to spend more time with that question. Let me gather some information and respond in an email by the end of the week.
That’s a great question that I don’t have a great answer for.
When you need to say that you don’t know, be careful not to place any blame on the question asker. For example, don’t say, “Well, that question is just too complicated” or “You’re asking the wrong person.” Honor their question and thank them for asking it. If one person is asking it, there are probably others who are wondering something similar too.
If you think an answer is possible eventually, set some expectations around that. You could say something like, “The leadership team as a whole is thinking through this, and we hope to have an answer by the next All Hands.”
But don’t make promises you can’t keep. When you just don’t know, you don’t have to over-explain or apologize or over-promise. Keep it simple and brief: “I can’t answer that because I just don’t know. But thank you for asking.”
Resources
If you’d like to go deeper on this topic, here are a couple resources I found helpful.
Pitch Perfect by Bill McGowan - I found this book helpful and full of practical tips for public speaking.
SNP - This is the coaching firm that I had the opportunity to learn from, back around 2016. I found their public speaking training very effective.
Your turn
I’d love to know where you’re at with public speaking. How do you feel about it? Do you have to do it? Do you want to? What challenges are you grappling with? And what have you learned or tried that’s helped?
Feel free to share your challenges and triumphs in the comments.