Great Speaking & Communicating Begin with Autonomy
Posted on May 26, 2012 by Eric Stone, One of Thousands of Performance Coaches on Noomii.
Most of our professional speaking and communicating contains theatrical elements.
It can seem odd to consider that most of our professional speaking and communicating contains theatrical elements. In Greek, theatre means “for viewing”. From my perspective, theatrical means “intended for an audience as an act”, which contains a beginning, middle, and an end as well as a message and a purpose. The purpose can be to entertain or it can be to inform or educate.
Theatrical also means that the act is under someone’s control—the speaker or communicator. For instance, when an executive calls a meeting, he or she prepares to enter a pre-meditated construct, which has at its root an artificial nature; it was not meant to happen until someone called it forth to happen.
The same goes for any presentation or speech. The fact that we are not asking a speaker or professional communicator to change character and go through an intense emotional experience does not change the theatrical nature of public speaking and business communication.
The basic yet essential requirement for theatricality is “speaker autonomy”. Indeed, given the fact that you are on display, so to speak, the importance for privacy while being watched is essential. The freedom to move about, think confidently, organize, consider, direct, address, perform, communicate clearly, etc., is entirely dependent on the articulation of a solid autonomy.
This autonomy acts as a foundation for success. Tuning your audience and content out before you begin literally determines the outcome. We are often thrown off to the degree that we either fail to create autonomy or we somehow could not hold on to it. Much fear of public speaking is rooted in this crucial practice. The idea is to claim autonomy by planting yourself firmly in gravity, breathing and the sense of belonging to yourself at the exclusion of your audience. Audiences not only respect autonomy, they count on it. It is the theatrical expectation “par excellence” on the other side of the footlights.
