Three Ways to Prepare for an Ovation-Worthy Performance

Any conversation has the potential to be an ovation-worthy performance! This is the basis of Michael Port’s book, Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life. As a former professional actor and the founder of Heroic Public Speaking, Michael has tons of insights on how to improve speaking skills and turn every conversation into a dynamic performance.

One of my favorite takeaways from Michael’s work is the importance of preparing for your audience. When we go into a conversation or situation, we’re often very focused on what we want to say. However, when we’re thinking about what we want to say, we might forget to consider how we want our words to make others feel. This can lead to gaps in our communications, hinder productive dialogues, and lead to frustrations where it just doesn’t seem like the other person ever understands what you’re trying to tell them.

Three Ways to Prepare for Your Audience

After graduating from Heroic Public Speaking and reading Michael’s book, I wanted to learn more about preparing for your audience. I invited Michael to join me for an episode of my Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast, where he shared more insights on audience, preparation, and more.

To get started on creating more mindful and impactful conversations, follow these three steps.

1. Know Your Audience
Whether you’re headed into a job interview, meeting with a big client, or calling in a team member for some tough feedback, you need to know your audience. Think about what they need to feel informed, supported, and encouraged.

2. Think About the Impact of Your Audience
Once you know the needs and mindset of your audience, think about your words and language. For example, if you know a team member gets defensive about feedback, think about how you can frame the conversations to avoid conflict.

3. Keep Conversations Moving Forward
Once you start a conversation, be sure to keep it moving forward. Even if someone expresses feedback or a perspective you don’t agree with, avoid shutting them or the conversation down. Michael’s tip for moving conversations forward is adopting “yes and . . .” technique from improv, which builds on what the other person says.

Must Read-Tip #2: Find Time to Write

To write a book, you need to find time to write! However, this be easier said than done, especially if you’re in a fast-paced industry like manufacturing. You might not have time to write thousands of words every day, but that’s perfectly okay. As AJ stresses in her podcast episode, writing doesn’t have to be daily and you don’t have to get down tons of words every day. As long as you’re finding regular chances to write—and the definition of “regular” is up to you and your own unique writing system!—you’re still working toward your end-goal of writing your book.

Learn More from Michael Port

By using tips like these, you can grow the speaking and performance skills you need to kickstart productive, collaborative conversations. To learn more insights from Michael Port, check out more book report of Steal the Show, or listen to his episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing here.

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website