Next level communicators don’t just speak to their audience, they listen to them as well.
It’s a Tuesday evening in 2001. The Pulitzer Prize winning trumpeter Whynton Marsalis is playing the Village Vanguard, holding his audience in the palm of his hand as they are captivated by his sheer genius. As Marsalis is working his magic, someone’s cell phone rings, distracting the crowd. Wynton pauses, arches his eyebrows, as the offender shuffles quickly out of the room to answer the call. The writer, David Hadju, scribbled on a sheet of paper, “Magic, Ruined.” And then it happened…Marsalis played the silly cell phone ring note for note. Then again, and again, improvising along the way. The audience leaned in, enjoying the moment. After several minutes of improvisation, Wynton Marsalis made his way back to the ballad he was playing before he was interrupted (Taken from, The Jazz of Preaching, Kirk Byron Jones). A potential disaster was repurposed into something beautiful, all because Wynton Marsalis listened to his audience.
Live communication doesn’t happen in a sterile, lifeless environment. We speakers contend with crying babies, boredom, applause, silence, talking, ringing cell phones and so much more. And many times, these moments are opportunities not for frustration, but for beauty, for real transformation, if we would only listen. A few examples come to mind:
Jesus was speaking once, when this happened: “As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’ But he said, ‘Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’”- Luke 11:27-28.
I was preaching once in Oklahoma City, when about a third of the way through my prepared message, I felt strongly that God wanted me to stop and extend an opportunity for people to come to a relationship with Him. I couldn’t shake this feeling, so I stopped, gave the invitation, and scores of people became followers of Jesus.
As I have noted in a previous post, King’s famous, I Have a Dream speech, only happened because he listened to the gospel artist, Mahalia Jackson say to him, “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” and the rest really is history.
All these examples and more point to the timeless principle that speaking involves so much more than our content, it also involves the community- the people who we are speaking to. And oftentimes, the difference between a good presentation and a next level presentation is listening to your audience. Here’s some specific ways I have found audiences speaking to me:
I don’t get it. Sometimes our audiences communicate to us by their body language that they are not really tracking with a particular point we are making. Instead of rushing to the next point, this is our cue to maybe repeat, slow down and reach for an analogy or illustration to help make things clearer.
Stop. There have been many times when I have given a message where an eerie silence hovered over the audience. No, this wasn’t the silence of, “I don’t get it,” but the silence of deep resonation. Many times I have made the decision to stop at this point, unpack a little and then end my message, because anything else would be anticlimactic.
Accelerate. Then there are moments when the audience wants you to step on the gas. What I mean by this is they are cheering a particular point, and their excitement is my cue to take my excitement up another notch.
Take a turn. Sometimes, in the course of speaking, communicators will hear something that wasn’t in their notes that the audience grabs a hold of. This is our cue to take a turn and keep venturing down that road because it is connecting with the people.
In all of these instances and more, great communicators are willing to take the risk of listening and letting their audience guide them because they have so internalized their material so well, they always know how to get back. This is what gave Marsalis the freedom to riff on the cell phone ring- he knew how to get back. Want to be free enough to listen to your audience? Know your material like the back of your hand.
