For most of the six hours I was conducting the seminar, I had an attendee in the third row who mostly stared at the ceiling with his mouth partially open.
It distracted me greatly and made me a little crazy. After all, if he thought the seminar was that bad, couldn’t he at last have pretended to be interested.
So at the end of the day when I saw him making his way to me, I expected the worst. Not only did he think I sucked, but he was going to tell me specifically why.
“I just wanted to tell you..” he started…
“…that this was the best seminar I’ve ever attended. I’ve been to a few and they ranged from worthless to pretty good, but you really delivered today. Thank you.”
I shook his hand and expressed my appreciation while slightly in shock.
As I thought about it, I learned an important lesson: an audience member’s non-verbals provide clues, but not conclusions.
Lots of laughter is a obviously a confirmation of well received humor. But other behaviors are less definitive.
Some audience members can not only fake interest but can game a speaker by how they position their cell phone or computer. And “note taking” can actually be social media posting.
Sometimes a speaker is pleasantly surprised, as I was, that the reaction of the audience member appears less than receptive but isn’t.
The point is to use caution in assuming what an individual or audience’s reactions really mean. A speaker can too quickly reach incorrect conclusions when all they really observed were unconfirmed clues.
Mark Sanborn is an award winning speaker and Leadership Expert in Residence at High Point University. For more information about his work, visit www.marksanborn.com.
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