LEARNING AUDIENCE CONNECTION SKILLS FROM THE GREAT GOAT EXPERIMENT
My favourite news story over the past week has been about the man who won an award for living as a goat.
Thomas Thwaites took what he called “a holiday from being human” and went on all fours to munch grass with the goats on a farm in the Swiss Alps – for the purposes of scientific research.
It was certainly a wholehearted effort as he even wore prosthetic limbs that allowed him to move around on the mountainside in the way his fellow goats did.
Mr Thwaites slept in a barn with the rest of his herd.
And he even developed a strong bond with one particular “goat buddy” – with the added dubious benefit of getting big sloppy goat kisses!
Mr Thwaites was rewarded for his efforts with one of this year’s so-called “Ig Nobel” prizes for scientific research.
These are the annual send-ups of the Nobel Prizes and are given out for the most unusual or bizarre achievements in scientific study.
To underline his commitment to doing whatever’s necessary to get into the minds of others, Mr Thwaites wore what amounted to his goat “exoskeleton” to come on stage on all fours to collect his award at the ceremony at Harvard University.
But Mr Thwaites gained something far more than the honour of the prize.
He got a better understanding of those around him – so he could perceive the goat environment and lifestyle from a non-human viewpoint.
The same happened for the person with whom Mr Thwaites shared his Ig Nobel Award – a Fellow at the University of Oxford, Charles Foster, who spent time living as a variety of animals which saw him take on the perspective of a badger, an otter, a fox, a deer and a swift.
FORGING EMPATHY WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
Receiving the award, Mr Foster said ‘We have five glorious senses. Normally we use only one of them – vision. It’s a very distorting lens because it’s linked to our cognition. That means we get only about 20% of the information that we can squeeze out this extraordinary world.”
“Animals, by and large, do a good deal better. In an attempt to see woods as they really are without that distorting lens of vision and cognition, I tried to follow five non-human species.
“It increased my understanding of what their landscape is really like rather than landscapes coloured by our colonial impressions of what those landscapes should be like.
“It also generated in me a good deal of empathy for these animals and we can do with a little more of that.”
What I have to admire about the efforts of Mr Foster and Mr Thwaites is the trouble they went to in order to gain this empathy.
When guiding people to become more inspirational communicators, one of my starting points is to ensure you put understanding your audience at the heart of your endeavours.
Whether it’s helping teams and individuals to give more impressive presentations, achieve more bombproof media interviews or provide better answers to tough professional questions, I know they’ll maximise their chances of success when they have a better feeling for their audiences.
When you can see the world from the perspective of your audience and have empathy with them, it helps you to formulate the right messages for them – and to illustrate these with the most effective examples and stories.
When it comes to audiences you have to persuade in situations where you haven’t encountered them previously, it’s particularly important to understand them before crunchtime.
There’s often more you can do to get inside your audience members’ heads before you meet them in the big moment.
Sometimes it’s possible to talk beforehand with a few of them on the phone.
When speaking at conferences I like to send out pre-session survey forms to give an indication in advance of what audience members require – so you know what you should focus on for their benefit.
If it’s a large audience, then sending pre-session forms about what they need to know to a small sample of audience members can tell you a lot.
It also helps to get a thorough briefing on the audience from those organising the event.
If you’re preparing for an important communication challenge with someone you already know then the more you can understand and empathise with them ahead of the big moment the better your chances of getting that win-win outcome for them and you.
BEING PREPARED FOR A MEDIA CRISIS
These audience connection skills are especially important when dealing with a crisis.
When you’re preparing for having to communicate in an emergency or a potential future crisis, then you will have multiple audiences you have to reach out to.
I’m increasingly helping clients prepare in advance for such challenging situations – whether it’s a fire on their premises, some kind of industrial disaster or, God forbid, a terrorist attack.
In such dire cases you can expect to have a swarm of media outlets representing different audiences knocking at your door – if your door is still standing after the crisis.
Training for these can involve reacting to a series of mock news bulletins around a specific nightmare scenario which could potentially hit your organisation – and which your team members need to be ready for.
This training involves planning, preparation and practice for being interviewed by newspapers, radio, television and news websites – as well as other stakeholders like emergency services, public authorities, clients, suppliers and your own team.
You have to be ready to communicate with all these audiences while under intense pressure.
That’s why practice in advance helps so much – and enables you focus in advance on what’s required.
The mock news bulletins my team produces for you and your key players help you to become as prepared as you possibly can be for what to say, who you need to say it to and how you need to say it if bad things happen.
ASK FOR YOUR SAMPLE DRAFT ACTION PLAN FOR TRAINING FOR A MEDIA CRISIS
I’ve prepared a Sample Draft Action Plan for training to dealing with the media and other audiences in a crisis – which can be adapted to fit the specific things you and your team need to be ready for in various kinds of emergencies.
If you’d like a copy of it then send an email to michael@michaeldoddcommunications.com
It’s all part of planning for the worst so you and your organisation can emerge in the best possible shape after any crisis.
The best plan is to have a plan before you need a plan.
Even a goat would see the merit in that!