Have you considered gearing up for your next speech by having a couple of cocktails while working on your presentation? Or, have you considered having a few drinks to ease your anxiety the day before a big speech?
Research on speech performance in the past has mostly focused on writing, speech anxiety, practice, and motivation. A new study conducted by R.K. Mitchell and L. Nelson has turned these studies upside down by focusing on the effects of drinking alcohol in the five days prior to a speaking engagement.
In this study, the negative effects of drinking prior to a speech outweigh all of the positive effects of writing, practicing, reducing your anxiety, and your motivation to perform well. This study shows a strong correlation: the more alcohol consumed in the five days before a speech, the poorer the speech performance. There is no clear evidence at this time as to the number of drinks or the frequency of drinking that will have a negative effect on performance, but there is evidence to show a correlation between the two.
We may want to take this into consideration before a speaking engagement. If you would like to know more, you will find the full research article under the title:
Don’t Drink and Speak: The Relationships among Alcohol Use, Practice, Motivation, Anxiety, and Speech Performance, found in the May issue of Communication Research Reports by R. King-Mitchell and C.L. Nelson.
(For access online, a subscription is required)
www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a778590849~db=all~jumptype=rss
We work very hard to teach leaders that human beings are sense-making creatures: We try, at every opportunity, to make sense of what we see, hear, and experience. A consequence is that when a vacuum of information exists, we try to fill it by creating meaning of our own, which may or may not be close to the reality a leader is trying to convey.
Thanks to an email forward by my wife Kate, this morning I saw a wonderful example of this: Over two hundred people deciding to freeze in place, simultaneously, on the main concourse of Grand Central Station in New York. Watch the video, and watch folks try to create meaning out of the event. Acting class? Protest? What in the world IS this? Everybody there has a different interpretation, but they all HAVE an interpretation, and it’s one they’ve crafted out of their past experiences and the overall context at hand. They fill the vacuum.
So the question is: What vacuums of information are your employees filling with meaning? You may not know, but you can count on the people you lead to create meaning for your every decision and action. Your job as a leader is to frame those decisions and actions, adding context so their interpretation is as close as possible to your intention. In times of uncertainty or change, when what you can communicate may be limited, this can be difficult. But there are things you can do to help:
- Refuse to allow vacuums. If there is information you’re not able to share because the facts aren’t settled or HR, your superior, or legal won’t permit it, frame the context by communicating probabilities: What’s certain, likely, unknown (or what you can’t say), unlikely, and impossible. Doing so at the very least contextualizes and constrains the meaning employees (or your peers, or your kids) can create.
- Refuse to let silence be a message. NOT communicating when employees know something is afoot sends a message, and it’s a relational one that employees will interpret as ranging from “I don’t care” to “I don’t respect you.” The act of communicating in the face of uncertainty, be it by sharing probabilities, or even saying “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell you and here’s why,” sends a message about your identity and the relationship. It says “I care” and “I respect you,” both of which are essential to maintaining relational capital during uncertain times.
- Aggressively challenge incorrect conclusions. If you find that employees (or the Board, or your kids) have filled the vacuum with incorrect meaning, challenge and correct those assumptions. Provide the facts, or if you can’t, the probabilities or even the “I can’t say,” but don’t allow the wrong meaning to exist. Not only does it keep bad information in the system, it can brand a leader as passive. In the face of very disruptive change or very bad news, an audience can easily interpret this passivity as cowardice.
Managing meaning during difficult or changing times isn’t easy, but it’s a leader’s burden. The point is to get folks through it with as much relational capital and loyalty as possible–and silence is antithetical to both.
