What the Good Samaritan can teach you about being a better speaker
At Princeton University in the early 1970s, social psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson asked a group of 60+ seminary students to prepare a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
If you’re not familiar with the parable, the basic premis is that a man in great need on the side of a treacherous road is overlooked and shown no compassion by several ‘holy’ men, but is only helped by the samaritan.
The seminary students were then instructed to walk to a nearby building to deliver their sermons.
At this point, they were randomly assigned to one of three groups:
Group 1 was told they had plenty of time to walk to the nearby building and would be early.
Group 2 was told they were on time but would need to walk to the nearby building now so they wouldn’t be late.
Group 3 was told they were late and needed to hurry to the nearby building.
Here’s where the research began…
On their walk to the nearby building, each had to closely pass by a man slumped over in a narrow walkway, clearly needing help.
The experiment found…
63% of the seminary students in group 1 (plenty of time) stopped to help the stranger.
45% of the seminary students in group 2 (right on time) stopped to help the stranger.
Only 10% of the seminary students in group 3 (running late) stopped to help the stranger 🫣 (Very ironic considering they were seminary students and about to give a sermon on the Good Samaritan)
What does this mean?
Our decisions are more influenced by situational factors (like time pressure) than they are by dispositional factors (natural temperament, personality).
Even seminary students studying to go into THE profession of helping couldn’t overcome time pressure to help a man in need.
When we’re under pressure or rushed, we have to choose between serving our own goals or serving others, but we can’t do both — and most of us choose to serve our own goals.
When we don’t have that pressure, we can do both.
What does this have to do with speaking?
The most common mistake we make as speakers in both informal and formal settings is to create pressure-filled speaking environments that don’t give us the time and space we need to notice and respond to our surroundings and our listeners.
Some examples of the pressure we create:
…We try to share too much information in the time we have.
…We script and memorize what we want to say, then recite it word for word.
…We try to over-manage how people perceive us by speaking and behaving in ways that don’t come naturally to us.
…We marry ourselves to our speaking ‘plan’ even when the situation demands flexibility.
When we do these things, we put ourselves in a position for our own goals and comfort to become more important than serving our listeners. We become the seminary students in group 3.
In any speaking scenario, your listeners’ experience IS what determines your outcome.
You need to create a speaking environment that leaves room for you to see, notice, reflect, and respond to the real-time reactions of your listeners.
Is this easy? Of course not.
So here are a few ideas to get you started.
Before going into the speaking scenario:
👉 In writing, describe exactly how you want your listeners’ thinking, feelings, and/or actions to change as a result of your message. This will help you determine what’s important to say and what can be left out.
👉 Write down (loosely) everything you want to say to your listeners, then cut it in half. This will ensure you have space to interact with your listeners throughout your message.
👉 Write down three to five specific things you expect to see and hear from your listeners that would prove they’re engaged and understanding your message. If you know what you expect to see/hear, and then you don’t, you’re now empowered to do something about it.
👉 Out loud, talk through the general structure of your message: “I’ll start by giving a short summary of the Good Samaritan research. Then, I’ll highlight the lesson from the research and talk about what it has to do with being a better speaker. After that, I’ll give some examples of how we create unnecessary pressure when we speak…”. If you do this several times, you’ll deeply internalize the structure of your message which will give you the confidence to go unscripted (while following a structure).
While you’re speaking:
👉 At the start of your message, tell your listeners exactly how you want their thinking, feelings, and/or actions to change as a result of your message. Doing this will create focus for both you and them. Then, at the end, you can check whether or not you were successful.
👉 At the start of your message, tell your listeners you’re going to give them two minutes to write down what they expect to learn from your message or what questions they have on your topic. Then, during your message or at the end, you can check in with them on whether or not they got what they expected/needed.
👉 If you notice during your speaking that someone looks confused, say something like: “I’m going to stop for a moment because I’m not sure I’ve done a good job explaining this. Would anyone like me to explain it another way or give an example?”
👉 Protect time for interaction and Q&A at all costs. If you notice you’re running short on time, instead of sprinting through your remaining information, stop and say something like: “I’m behind schedule and it’s important we have time to talk about this together. I’m going to stop here and briefly summarize the most important points and next steps. Then, let’s talk.”
In closing…
Great speakers are Good Samaritans. They have their own goals, but they don’t make them more important than serving their listeners. They create speaking scenarios that allow them to do both.
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Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Jenny