Acting out
By christina p. o’neill
You wouldn’t go to a theater and expect to be handed a copy of the script that you would read along with the actor onstage. You’d expect the actor to bring the message to life, making it more powerful along the way. On the business stage, says Sean Kavanagh, CEO of The Ariel Group, an Arlington consulting firm, executives should be doing the same thing.
Elizabeth Freedman concurs. "I don’t think there’s anything more frustrating for an audience member than sitting there watching the speaker onstage read from the same darn slide that you’ve got right there in front of you," says Freedman, principal of Natick-based Elizabeth Freedman & Company. How to fix it? "The process boils down to two things: Getting the script right, and rehearsing.The Ariel Group is an international training and consulting firm that uses techniques from the performing arts to help business leaders become more effective communicators, and to develop what it calls "leadership presence." Ariel gives intensive, high-end workshops for upper-level executives. Freedman targets a wider audience, from college students and MBAs to "new professionals," the latter including those for whom English is a second language. Their common thread: Theater techniques can help make a business delivery better and more effective.
Kavanagh’s Ariel Group and Freedman’s eponymous firm focus on different ends of the business spectrum in terms of the clients they serve, but their message is consistent: When presenting, tell your story authentically and keep the focus on you. The Ariel Group, says Kavanagh, works with executives who have risen to a level of leadership in organizations based on their technical skills, but may never have accessed an emotion to help them communicate their message. The Ariel Group gives two- and three-day workshops to executive-level people at a cost of $9,000, and limits enrollments to eight people per class. Its instructors have a combination of acting and business experience.
Borrowing from the theater
Freedman hits a wider audience. A former high-tech professional with an MBA, she’s a business columnist, a public speaker and a board member of the New England Chapter of the National Speakers Association. Freedman calls on her theatrical experience to help people communicate. In 2001, she was laid off from a Chicago firm that went bankrupt. She then spent nine months job-hunting in post-9-11 Boston. She turned the ordeal into a one-woman plan, "Made Redundant," which ran in 2003 in the Boston area (the unemployed could get in for free). Today, Freedman works with college students, MBA students and "new professionals" to teach them the skills they need to get to leadership positions.
"I go inside companies and help their newer professionals really get comfortable on their feet," she says. "How do you give a presentation to a client for the first time? How do you present yourself to your boss, and your boss’s boss? These are all things we get better at over time, but without having the practice, it’s really hard to know how to improve."
"An actor connects with the hearts and minds of an audience," says Kavanagh. "In business, you connect with the hearts and minds of an audience in order to motivate them to the desired outcome."
Great actors and great political leaders both possess presence, notes Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar, cofounders of the Ariel Group, in their book Leadership Presence: Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire. To develop presence takes work, the authors note. Actors must form connections,, communicate effectively and work with others as a team. They must be prepared to play different roles, as the situation requires. And they must be prepared to influence and move people every day. The authors don’t suggest that leaders become actors — only that they can learn many things from actors.
"We talk about discipline, we talk about the ability to think on your feet," says Kavanagh. An exercise early in the executive workshop calls for participants to write down the standout traits of the actors. At the end of the exercise, the words "actor skills" are replaced with "leadership skills." He cites Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan as leaders who used theatrical skills to come across as believable, saying that they "brought their authentic selves to bear on the message they were delivering."
Freedman concurs. "I do try to bring in a lot of performance elements," she says. But, she says, she doesn’t turn it into a straight theater, one-way performance, as in, "Hey! You’re going to get the Elizabeth Freedman show!" Instead, "It’s more just about being real and being willing to put yourself out there," whether it’s to help a company create better communications, or helping somebody one-on-one.
Disclosure and bad news
How can you be a creative communicator if you are under disclosure restrictions? Freedman says it’s important to know what the boundaries are and be as creative and dynamic a presenter as you can within those boundaries. "They’re all workarounds," she says. "Again, be very clear of what those boundaries are."
On the flip side, when there’s bad news that must be disclosed, the process is more demanding. He says Ariel counsels people to "name their fears," about disclosing bad news, and to make sure that their communication is authentic. "If you try to sugarcoat it, it’s not going to come across as believable," he says. "People are more inspired by the truth than by you saying, ‘everything’s going to be fine after we fire 20,000 people.’"
Getting the message across: Basic do’s and don’ts
Physical technique is one part of the process, say both Kavanagh and Freedman. The Ariel Group focuses on some technical aspects such as breathing, taking pauses, and relaxation. But, Kavanagh says, "People don’t leave with a list of the things they have to remember to do." What they do learn is how to experience making a presentation, telling a story, and connecting with a co-worker. He recalls one client who remarked that she left feeling less self-conscious than when she started.
His pointers:
• Empathize with the audience
• Understand what the audience needs to know
• Use metaphors or images to bring your point across
• Don’t sugarcoat a bad message
• Be authentic
Freedman faces a different set of challenges with non-native speakers from cultures where the social interactive norms differ from those in the U.S. Eye contact, vocal tone and body language are important in terms of conveying a message of confidence, competence and professionalism.
"Those are the things that are so different across cultural lines," she says. But, she points out, "certain fundamental things remain the same." The most crucial is knowing your audience and presenting the information in a way that relates to their wants and needs.
Her pointers:
• Know your content
• Maintain good eye contact
• Don’t overwhelm your audience
• Keep the pace moving to keep the audience with you
• Remember that a sense of humor and a joke are two different things; often, humor is more effective
The show must go on
It’s not practice that make perfect, Freedman says; it’s perfect practice. Companies are getting more competitive with new hires, and they want to maximize the tools they have to help their workers get ahead. Businesses that set communication skills as a priority, and help their employees improve those skills, are more likely to be able to retain them.
Kavanagh says the necessity for leaders to take on — and be at ease with — many different roles is what drives Ariel Group’s coursework. "When you’re doing the speech from Henry V in Shakespeare," he says, "you don’t have a Powerpoint to back you up."
Christina P. O’Neill can be reached at coneill@wbjournal.com
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