Chapter 8

Think on Your Feet

Mastering Impromptu Speaking in Any Situation

Sometimes you just have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down.

–Kobi Yamada

The idea of having to speak without preparation fills many people with dread. And chances are that most of us can recall an incident or event in our lives where we said the wrong thing or drew a blank while speaking in the moment in front of others: fumbling a math answer in high school; misspeaking during a meeting; forgetting what comes next during a presentation. Impromptu speaking is one of most difficult modes of communication to master: you are generally without notes or visual aids, and you must quickly organize your thoughts and communicate them in a clear and concise manner.

It is also arguably the most important, and certainly the most common (other, more formal modes include memorized speech, reading from a manuscript, and extemporaneous speaking, which is prepared in advance but delivered without notes). Answering questions during a conference call, contributing ideas during a brainstorming session, interacting with coworkers in the break room—these are everyday opportunities for impromptu speaking that carry some weight.

Improvisation is a crucial tool for an actor. Actors improvising a scene are literally making up the words they are saying in the moment, and must trust their instincts at all times—much the same way you must trust your instincts during a sales call, in a meeting with your boss, or while discussing vacation plans with your spouse. Many of the same techniques that actors use when improvising can be used in other types of communication to improve concentration, develop ideas quickly, and be assertive with thoughts or comments. In this chapter we discuss some of these techniques. We also provide a framework and guidelines for delivering effective summary statements and positioning statements when answering the most commonly asked question of all: “What do you do?”

A powerful example of impromptu speaking took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 4, 1968. It was just five years after his brother had been assassinated and Robert F. Kennedy had decided to run for the presidency himself. Like his brother John, Robert Kennedy had at the time also been using an expert from the world of acting to assist him in the shaping and delivery of his message: that person was Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate).

As a senator from New York, Kennedy had been the favorite for the Democratic nomination that year and had been crisscrossing the country delivering speeches on the many issues that were important to him, such as war, poverty, and racism. On this particular day he had just finished speeches at Ball State University and Notre Dame and was headed to Indianapolis for the day's final campaign stop. As he boarded his plane, however, he was informed of some terrible news: civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated in Memphis. A passionate champion of racial equality, Kennedy was deeply affected by the news and understood that he would need to address the tragedy in his upcoming speech in Indianapolis. His press secretary, Frank Mankiewicz, immediately began composing notes and preparing a speech. As he would later recall in an interview with C-Span, the Indianapolis speech was scheduled to be delivered in a poor area of town in front of a mainly African American audience.¹ Because of this, the police feared that the crowd might erupt in rioting when they were informed of the news, and the Indianapolis police chief warned Kennedy that he should skip the speech because they could not provide adequate security. Kennedy rejected the request to cancel the speech and headed toward the location, where a large crowd had gathered and had been waiting for over an hour to hear him speak. Without police protection, and clearly understanding the emotional reaction this devastating news would have on the assembled crowd, Kennedy decided not to speak from a prepared statement.

He knew that the message he needed to convey would have to come from the heart. He stepped to the podium, which had been mounted on a flat bed truck, and began, “I have some very sad news for all of you…. Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.” Kennedy spoke slowly and deliberately for approximately four minutes, and every word supported his intention of calming and soothing his audience. Kennedy even recited from memory his favorite poem by Aeschylus, and openly acknowledged the anger and bitterness his audience was most likely feeling at that moment. Drawing comparisons to his own personal experience having lost a loved one to an assassin's bullet, Kennedy encouraged the crowd to channel the emotions they were feeling in a positive direction. The result? While many other American cities burned that night, the city of Indianapolis remained calm—mainly as a result of words spoken by a single man standing on the back of a truck. Kennedy's message in Indianapolis remains one of the most powerful and resonant impromptu speeches ever delivered. Sadly, it would be only two months later that an assassin's bullet would claim Kennedy's life as well, silencing forever one of the most eloquent and passionate voices of a generation.

The Challenge of Thinking on Your Feet

Take a moment and consider how much of your communication in any given day takes place in the moment or without preparation. At breakfast you explain to your teenagers why they can't go on an overnight camping trip: impromptu speaking. At the grocery store, you run into a former classmate who asks what you have been doing since graduation: impromptu speaking. On a plane, the passenger in the seat next to you asks what type of work you do: impromptu speaking.

In actuality, most human communication happens in this fashion, with little or no time to gather thoughts, much less put together notes or an outline. With impromptu speaking you have to speak in the moment, right here and right now. And despite the fact that we all engage in it every day, it is specifically this type of communication that makes people the most anxious. The fear of misspeaking or drawing a blank makes us nervous. With good reason; thinking on your feet requires concentration and a nimble mind. Of course, not all instances of impromptu speaking are the same. There is a difference between being asked about your sprinkler system by a next-door neighbor and being grilled about diminishing profits by your board of directors. However, the challenges are the same in both scenarios, as in each you are required to think quickly and craft a message in the moment.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

—Mark Twain

Actors study improvisational techniques to sharpen their concentration skills and allow them the ability to make decisions in a split second. In an environment in which anything is allowed to happen, actors must be capable of staying focused even in difficult and stressful circumstances.

Once such incident happened on Broadway in 2009 during a live performance of A Steady Rain, a gritty drama starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, when a phone began ringing in the audience. It continued to ring and ring until finally Jackman stopped the performance and walked to the edge of the stage. “Do you want to get that … we can wait,” he said to the mortified audience member. The rest of the audience, who had clearly been annoyed and distracted by the inconsiderate audience member, burst into applause at Jackman's handling of the situation. With the phone finally silenced, Jackman and Craig stepped back into the scene and continued on with the performance.

When you have time to prepare for an exchange by putting together notes, building slides, or laying out an agenda—or even just taking a moment to clarify your thoughts before placing a phone call—you are engaging in what we call proactive communication. You know what you will be covering, have an idea what you will be saying and, in most cases, can anticipate what to expect as a result. Other interactions, however, are not planned and happen unexpectedly, such as a phone call from a customer, a run-in with an unhappy student, or a challenge from a boss. These are examples of reactive communication: you are not the initiator but are simply responding to what you are experiencing in the moment. While improvisation and the ability to think on your feet come into play during both proactive and reactive communication, they are especially important during reactive scenarios where you lack the luxury of foreknowledge or preparation.

Improvisation requires you to be able to make decisions—and commit to them—in a split second. This takes courage; the courage to put your opinions and ideas out in the world and defend them if challenged. Think of impromptu speaking like a big funnel that connects your brain to your mouth. When you are called on to speak without preparation, a myriad of thoughts and words are suddenly dumped into the funnel all at once. But all those words cannot exit the smaller end of the funnel (your mouth) at the same time; you have to make rapid decisions as to which words or phrases are going to be spoken. Being able to make those snap judgments is an essential tool—a view shared by renowned biologist Craig Venter, who, when asked what the best survival skill a person could possess was, responded, “Having good intuition and natural reaction. Most of the complex decisions that make a difference are the ones you make in a fraction of a second.”²

But how do we make sure we can handle ourselves when speaking in the moment? Susan Messing, a veteran improviser who has performed with Second City and on Comedy Central, offers this wisdom: “In improvisation, if you have the ability to judge a moment, you are not in the moment.” This is why it is important to return to your intention and objective, to take the focus off yourself and send it outward toward your audience. “Remember,” says Messing, “it is not about you; your ideas are far more important than the spinach you are worried about being stuck in your teeth or whether you look fat in that dress. It's ridiculous for you to waste that energy on your insecurities when you could recommit it to what you are talking about.”³

There are some inherent dangers with impromptu speaking, the main one being the fact that once the words exit your mouth you can't put them back in. Which is why it is often better to say less when speaking without preparation. As the maxim says, it is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. One example of the inherent dangers of impromptu speaking took place during the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant, an event that happened live on network television. Contestant Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina, was asked the following question about U.S. geography by one of the pageant judges: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think that is?” As Upton began to answer, her nerves got the best of her and she froze. This is what came out of her mouth:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future.

Of course, in the Internet age, Upton's fumbled response immediately went viral, attracting nearly 3.5 million views on YouTube in a single day and becoming instant fodder for late night comedians. A few days later, Upton appeared on the Today show and admitted that it was her nervousness speaking on national television for the first time that caused her to botch the answer. “I was overwhelmed. I made a mistake,” she said. “When the question was asked … I was in complete shock…. I only heard about one or two words of the actual question…. I drew a blank.” During the interview, Ann Curry and Matt Lauer shared their own personal challenges speaking without preparation and even gave Upton a second chance to answer the question. This time she was ready and had obviously given her response some thought. Here was her answer the second time around:

Personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on a map. I don't know anyone else who doesn't. If the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography in our education so people will learn how to read maps better.

Same question but two wildly different answers: The first attempt was a rambling, incoherent hodgepodge of ideas riddled with verbal viruses and delivered with deer-caught-in-the-headlights paralysis, while the second answer was clear and concise, delivered confidently. What were the differentiators? Simple: preparation, concentration, and relaxation on the part of Upton. Unfortunately, in the end, 53 million people viewed the clip of her first answer while only 4 million saw her redemptive second attempt, underscoring an important point made in earlier chapters: for better or for worse, first impressions last.

We are the masters of the unsaid words, but slaves to those we let slip out.

—Winston Churchill

In his eight years as president of the United States, George W. Bush provided late night comedians with a wealth of material from his off-the-cuff stumbles, giving us such memorable gaffes as, “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” “Rarely is the question asked … is our children learning?” and “Will the highways to the Internet become more few?”⁴ But one particular moment of unscripted communication from George W. Bush stands out in a very different way. On September 14, three days after the terrorist attacks on the United States, Bush paid a visit to ground zero, the site of the fallen World Trade Center towers. Surrounded by volunteers and New York City firefighters, Bush was handed a bullhorn and invited to speak to the crowd gathered around him. With his arm around a firefighter, Bush began to say a few words. As he did, the crowd, unable to hear him, began shouting, “We can't hear you!” Bush paused and responded, “I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” The crowd erupted in cheers at Bush's honest and decisive response. Building on the wave of emotion he suddenly felt from that audience, Bush continued, “The nation sends its love and compassion. To everybody who is here, thank you for your hard work, thank you for making the nation proud, and may God bless America!” For Bush, it was a startling and unfiltered moment of human connection. By speaking from his heart and keeping his remarks brief, Bush had turned this unscripted exchange into one of the defining moments of his eight years as president.

Mastering Impromptu Speaking

Knowing and following a few simple rules can help you take control of your moment in the impromptu spotlight.

• Keep it short. This is the reason that attorneys advise their clients to respond “no comment” when embroiled in a legal controversy. The minute you open your mouth to speak, you are providing evidence by which a listener will judge you, and again, once it's out of your mouth there's no unsaying it. When you do speak, remember that less is more, or as Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Rambling on, on the other hand, can lead to embarrassment and regret.
• Pause before you start. In general, when responding to a question, you have approximately one or two seconds to formulate your answer. Those one to two seconds can make the difference between answering effectively or not, so use them wisely—but above all, use them.
• Speak from your heart. Be honest with your answer or response—or, as it is often said, tell the truth; it's the easiest thing to remember. Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered sage advice when it came to speaking in the moment. His recommendation? “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”
• Choose an intention. How do you want your listeners to feel as a result of what you are telling them—challenged, persuaded, motivated? Decide how you want them to react to the information you are providing and activate the intention that will best accomplish that.
• Slow down. When speaking without time to prepare, pace is your best friend. Slow down the rate of your words so you can control them and shape your message, because, once they are spoken, you can't take them back.
• Breathe. Don't hold your breath. Just the act of breathing will relax you and slow your pace, allowing you to properly form your ideas.
• Frame your message before speaking. In the one or two seconds before you open your mouth, choose three mental bullet points to serve as a roadmap for you. This will help you structure your message. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. fondly noted, “Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.”
• Have a strong opening and strong closing. For a strong first impression and a strong last impression, make sure your opening starts off with some energy and your closing ends strong as well. As always, use the effects of primacy and recency to your advantage.
• Draw from personal knowledge or experience. When speaking off the cuff, try to stay within areas and topics that you are comfortable speaking about. The further you veer into unfamiliar subjects, the less comfortable you will be with the message.
• Connect with your audience. Remember to use movement and eye contact to connect with your audience. Smile. Speak to them and not at them. The more conversational your delivery sounds, the more likely they will be to listen to you.

Tackling the “What Do You Do?” Question

Imagine you're invited to a social event—a picnic, a wedding, a class reunion. Picture yourself entering the room and think about what happens as you begin to mingle and meet people. In a situation like this, what is the first question that people generally ask when they meet you? After learning your name, the first question that most people will pose is: “What do you do for a living?” Why do they ask this particular question? It's simple, really. Aside from being an effective icebreaker, in many ways, your job defines who you are in the eyes of other people. It provides a window inside you and information about how you spend your days. If you say you are a coal miner, people will probably begin to form different opinions about you than they would if you said you were a seamstress or a personal trainer.

By leading off with a compelling description of your occupation, you can generate interest in the mind of the other person to hear more or learn about you in greater detail. But the sad truth is that most people are not very good when it comes to answering this particular question, often selling themselves (and their company) short by assuming that others could not possibly be interested in their occupation. If your response to the “What do you do?” question is, “My job is pretty boring,” you are probably right to assume that your audience will not be impressed by or interested in what you do—in fact, you've just ensured they won't be. In truth, if you don't take advantage of the “What do you do?” question, you are missing a fantastic opportunity.

Now imagine this. You are flying to an industry conference that has attracted all the major business leaders in your particular sector. And on your way to the conference, you find yourself on the airplane sitting next to the CEO of one such company—someone you have been attempting to do business with for years. As the plane takes off, this CEO notices the logo on your shirt, smiles, and asks, “So what do you do?” You suddenly have your chance. This is the opportunity you have been dreaming about for years, your one shot to pitch your company to this CEO and pique his interest and generate additional questions.

If this situation arose for you, what would you say to this CEO? How would you say it? In fact, take a moment right now and, without preparation, answer the question, “What do you do?” Record your response and listen to it back. Consider not only what you said but also how you said it. What reaction would your words elicit in that CEO?

This chapter provides two tools to help tackle the “What do you do?” question: a summary statement and a positioning statement.

Creating a Summary Statement

A summary statement is a brief yet comprehensive summary of who you are and what you do. The description should be clear and concise, but no longer than one or two sentences, tops. Use a summary statement when you don't have a lot of time or are unfamiliar with the person to whom you are introducing yourself. If you have already introduced yourself, you don't need to include your name in your summary statement. If the other person does not know your name, it is a good idea to include it as you make your introduction. An effective summary statement should contain the following information: name (yours and your company's); what you do (both you and your company).

The goal with a summary statement is not to provide all the information you want the other person to know—it's to generate enough interest that the listener wants to know more. Because your objective is to hook the other person in and evoke additional questions, your delivery must support an intention to excite or impress. Aside from providing answers to the who and what questions, your summary statement should also include a specific fact or detail that will assist you in rousing interest in your listener. Here are three sets of summary statements for a pharmaceutical salesman, a college student, and a policeman—for each, there's an ineffective summary statement and an effective one.

You can imagine how differently they would be received by another person. The first answers have “just the facts,” with no details that would compel a listener to want to hear more. The second answers contain details that could interest the listener, possibly leading to additional questions.

Take a moment and try to come up with a personal summary statement for yourself. Think about how you could describe who you are and what you do in a way that would generate additional questions from a listener. Then distill it down to one or two compelling sentences. Once you've come up with your summary statement, share it with your boss or a coworker to get their feedback as to whether or not it is clear and consistent.

When someone you've just met asks you the “What do you do?” question and they respond favorably to your summary statement—they appear genuinely interested or ask for additional details—this is good news. You've earned an opening to deliver a version of your positioning statement.

Crafting Your Positioning Statement

A positioning statement is a short, compelling description of your company, product, or service—and its benefit—that can be communicated in a few sentences. Like a summary statement, a positioning statement should say what your name is (yours and your company's) and what you do (both you and your company). To this, it adds a focused and compelling case for what benefit you provide.

Your positioning statement should also establish credibility—your own and your company's—and might also include mention of your target audience, the industry or category, and key competitors, as well as why your company stands out as superior or remarkable. With an effective positioning statement, you are continuing to refine the overall impression your audience is forming of you and your company. Because of that, every further interaction will be judged by how well what you say matches up with what they heard in both your summary and your positioning statements. So feel free to tout the benefits your company or product can provide but limit the hyperbole—don't oversell. Be specific but avoid excessive jargon unless the listener is an industry insider and would understand such terminology.

When it comes to crafting a positioning statement—which is commonly known as an elevator pitch—there is no one correct path. One size does not fit all—this is, after all, a statement that captures your unique worth within your industry or field. You also don't want your elevator pitch to sound memorized or rehearsed, even though it should be carefully prepared in advance, and rehearsed often enough that it rolls off your tongue. And you are not simply repeating a tagline or your corporate mission statement, which is apt to be too general and filled with buzzwords to capture a listener's attention. The positioning statement is crafted to be delivered from one person to another, in conversation.

The delivery of your positioning statement should be relaxed and conversational, focusing on your intention (to excite or impress) and your objective (to initiate or further a business relationship). Think of your positioning statement as an opportunity to shine a light on your company or product and drive home all of the great things it has to offer. Keep the delivery conversational but enthusiastic, and as always, don't be afraid to use passion and emotion in your delivery. Passion is contagious and people respond to it.

So how can you make a positioning statement sound natural and conversational? In his book—aptly titled So What?—Mark Magnacca provides a simple formula for responding to the “What do you do?” question effectively.⁵ It involves two very simple phrases that you can use as a springboard and framing device for your positioning statement:

“Do you know how … (problem or concern)?”

“Well, what I [or we] do is … (solution to their problem or concern).”

Returning to the previous examples—the salesman, the student, and the police officer—here are positioning statements using Magnacca's structure:

Many people mistakenly believe that a positioning statement is something that is only needed for people who work in sales. Not true. Every person at every company—from the custodian to the CEO—should be able to communicate in a clear and concise manner exactly what they do and the benefits they provide. Why? Because you never know who you are going to meet and what that person can do for you. In this type of situation, you become the face of your company—an ambassador of sorts. Why not be prepared so you can capitalize on the moment? The person with whom you are speaking just might hold the key to a future opportunity.