How do you get a listening ear?

We've all experienced it at one time or another, having to give a speech or presentation to an audience that isn't really waiting for your message. Tricky, not to mention the unpleasant feeling of being judged: how are you going to get them to listen?

Your goal as a speaker is to make people see your point of view, and often preferably move them in your direction. A strong speech that pulls your audience through a funnel step by step helps do that. But before that, you have to do something else: make them want to listen to you in the first place. Placate the audience, as the classical rhetoricians called it. How do you do that? What can you say that makes people (for now) grant you their listening ear?

In my experience, there are at least 3 means you can use to curry favor with your audience, or gain sympathy.

1. Naming a shared experience; pointing out an event you both or together have experienced.
2. Naming a shared value; naming something you know is important to the people in the room.
3. Give a concrete, heartfelt compliment.

For Radio 1, I am on the panel that gets to choose the Speech of the Month each month (see the full broadcast here). The month of September yielded a fine top 3, which happened to successfully use the above resources to win the public's sympathy. Below are the links to the videos with a brief explanation.

1. Naming a shared experience

After the death of England's Queen Elizabeth, fallen Prime Minister Boris Johnson - now just a member of Parliament - spoke at a side event in the British House of Commons. Despite his awkward position, he managed to bring the audience along because of the humble and apt way he described Elizabeth, giving vivid examples that everyone could recognize.

2. Naming a shared valueDuring

the General Considerations in the Lower House, Farid Azarkan of Denk made a fierce plea against the way Wilders regularly casts the million Muslims in the Netherlands in a bad light. By way of introduction, he cited an article Wilders himself had used earlier from the Telegraaf about the very elderly Alfredo and Janine who can no longer make ends meet. Azarkan pointed out that these people received help from none other than their Islamic neighbor Ines, who takes care of everything for them. A wonderful example with which he touches on a value (also shared by the PVV): that one should help others in need. It gives his argument layers and knocks all the weapons out of the PVV's hands, forcing them to listen. Not surprisingly, he garnered thunderous applause afterwards.

3. Complimenting

Secretary-General Guterres delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly, where the atmosphere was below par due to the war in Ukraine and the power struggle between the U.S. and China: "What can we as diplomats still get done?" many wondered. To everyone's surprise, he showed a photo of the Ukrainian ship that, thanks to diplomatic relations with Russia and Turkey, was able to transport grain to the Horn of Africa. 'Some call it a miracle of the sea. In truth it is mutual diplomacy in action.' A disguised compliment to all the diplomats present: you do good work. You matter. After that, you could hear a pin drop.

How will you favor your audience? Think about it when you're giving a speech or presentation: can it include a compliment, or something else that crosses over into their environment? Try it, and you'll see: it's not just critical eyes and judgmental brains out there in the room. They are people just like you and me.

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