The 1 thing next level communicators understand about their critics.
The 1 thing next level communicators understand about their critics.
Standing on a stage with a microphone, armed with information and emotion all in an attempt to persuade people is one of the most vulnerable things anyone can do. So of course we communicators can get in our feelings when the day after we speak there’s the email where the subject line says, “Yesterday’s Message,” and what follows is a lot of critique. And before we know it, we’ve hit “reply,” and begin to type out our defense, going on and on about how the person misunderstood, or why we are right and they are wrong.
Don’t do that, at least not yet. Little do they know it, your critic is actually helping you, and it has nothing to do with whether you were right or not.
In my thirty-five years of public speaking, nothing has helped me grow as a communicator more than my critics. I feel as if I am just now hitting my stride as a speaker, and I have post-sermon- Monday-morning-ornery-emails to thank. Seriously.
The classic mistake we communicators make when we get feedback we don’t like is to only hear what they disagreed about what we said, which misses the point altogether. Your critic is telling you what they like and don’t like, how they hear things and don’t hear things. And this information is priceless in our growth as speakers. Communication is anticipation. When I anticipate the biases, objections, likes and dislikes of my audience, I can now answer their questions and pushback before they even ask or pushback. And the only way I can get there is when I hear their feedback. Want to cut your future critique emails by at least half? Open up and read carefully the ones you get today.
I speak a lot about race relations, and there’s no other topic which gets people to typing their objections faster than the subject of race. Recently, I was asked to talk about racial unity at a large predominately white southern church. Towards the end of the sermon I told this story:
I’m one of two black men in my neighborhood, and on a cool morning, not long after moving in, I put on a hoodie and went on a prayer walk. Not long into my walk I noticed a white woman ahead of me, and just as I was about to pass her, without thinking of it, I removed my hoodie and went to the other side of the street so as not to frighten her. Now I did these things instinctively as a black man, without even thinking about it. In a flash, I had made assumptions about her. I assumed the sight of a large black man in “her” neighborhood would frighten her. I assumed she would think I had no business being there, and was up to some kind of mischief. The more I thought about my actions, the more unsettled I became. This was my neighborhood too, and I didn’t want to spend the next years of my life there walking on egg shells, trying to navigate what I assumed white people assumed about me. Things had to change. So, I started to show up to our monthly hangout times in the common area of our neighborhood. I actually got to know this woman who I had walked to the other side of the street so as not to scare her. She’s really cool. In fact, a few months later, while I was out for a walk, she saw me and came running down her driveway calling my name. She scared me! I stopped, and we talked.
This true story has proven to be effective, because it anticipates the audience's objections, surprises them and gives hope. And all of this was born out of years of critique where I got a Ph.D in what triggers people. I’ve learned to turn my critics into coaches and they have coached me well, helping me grow as a communicator.
Here’s a few lessons from this story that I hope will help you turn your critics into coaches:
Throw yourself under the bus. You’ve heard me say this before, and you’ll hear me say it many times again, but when we communicators posture ourselves as learners, it helps to both connect to the audience, and diffuse our critics. I hope what you got from the story is that me, the so-called “expert” on race, is trying to figure it out too. I have stereotypes I’m still trying to shake, and a lot of growth to do.
As often as you can, choose stories over statements. Remember, we can go back and forth when it comes to facts and our perceptions of them, what we can never do is argue experience. By framing race within a real story, the audience engagement is heightened, and their trigger points are lowered.
The more sensitive the subject, the more frequent the humor. After years of emails and feedback, and understanding trigger points, I’ve come to the conclusion that whenever I talk about a sensitive subject like race, humor, and a lot of it is a necessity. Every time I talk about the white woman running down her driveway screaming my name and how I, who once was worried I scared her, was now scared by her, the audience loses it, not only because it’s funny, but the story takes a turn and surprises them. If I can make my critics laugh and think deeply about their biases all at once, I’ve won them. Game over.
Let them draw their own conclusions. Sometimes as communicators we do too much hand holding with our audience. I don’t need to finger point every one in my audience. There’s no punch line to this story. I just tell it and let people figure out where they are. Are they like me, always assuming the worst in others? Or are they going to choose, like I later did, to come out of their biases and get to know people? I intentionally leave it open for them to figure out who and where they are in the story. And you should know Jesus did this so many times. Think of his story of the Prodigal son, where he talks about two brothers and their relationship with their dad. He doesn’t end by saying, “And which one are you?” He just tells the story, and creates enough tension and space for people to figure out who they are. I’m actually pretty amazed at how little hand holding Jesus did when he communicated.
Resources:
Hey, I just started listening to a podcast that’s really helping me as a communicator. It’s called, It Was Said, and it's by one of my favorite authors, Jon Meacham. Check it out.
I’m re-reading, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn.
And thanks for your support for my book, Grace to Overcome. It would be so helpful if you could leave a kind review on Amazon for me. Thanks again!
