Whether speakers, preachers or talkers, we must think of what our listeners need to hear, not what we need to say. Our material should not be an expression of egotism, our "much learning," or the things people have complimented. Our content should grow out of a careful analysis of the needs of the listeners. I try to remind myself I'm speaking to people about a subject, not about a subject to people. The focus is on the people, not the subject. That may sound like a semantic play, but many speakers are authorities on a subject without being authorities on the audience. They feel they have communicated whether the listeners got anything or not.
During World War II, when we needed to train technical people very quickly, we had a program called Training Within Industry (TWI). One of the basic tenets was "The teacher hasn't taught until the student has learned." If an applicant for a welding job went through TWI and came out unable to weld, we didn't blame the student; we blamed the teacher.
As communicators, if people don't get what we say, it's our fault, not theirs. Our job is to influence the thinking and actions of the people who hear us. I am not relieved of my responsibility just by enunciating syllables to show my knowledge of the topic If I am teaching the Word, I have succeeded only when they understand and apply the scriptural principles.
I used to do some professional speaking with Norman Vincent Peale at chambers of commerce and other civic meetings. I asked him one time, "How do you decide what to speak on?" He said, "On Friday I ask myself, 'What is the most common problem I've run into this week?' That helps me to decide." He was talking to people, not to subjects. No wonder he's been so popular throughout his long career.
A misconception has gotten into a lot of speakers, based perhaps on something Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." That's just one of the foolish things out of Emerson's mouth. It's basically Eastern philosophy—the guru out on a mountaintop, and people trudging out to hear him.
A lot of empty churches have proven Emerson was wrong. Even Jesus said, "Go into all the world." He didn't say, "Sit here, and the world will come to you." One of our problems, I think, is that we have built a fishpond (the baptistery) and then invited the fish to come in and swim. It has not been the nature of fish to do that. We will have a lot more success if we go out to the lake, their natural habitat.
I used to get up at five in the morning and go to Lake Barkley in western Kentucky to listen to the fishermen. I like to be among enthusiastic people, even if they're doing something I think is strange. Here were perfectly intelligent people getting up at four in the morning to be at the lake by five. Why? Because that's when the fishing was the best. They were even buying night crawlers and red worms. Why? Because that's what fish like to eat.
A singles group asked me to do a retreat: five lectures of two hours each, followed by discussion. I got there and realized what I had prepared was not the most useful thing for them. I didn't deliver a single one of those lectures. Instead, we had a tremendous amount of dialogue. Afterwards I went back to my room, stayed up half the night synthesizing what we'd talked about so that I could bring it back in a cogent form the next session. I left there wobbling on my feet because I hadn't had any sleep. But I got a lot of reaction from those people saying, "This was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life." I was dealing with their problems, taking what knowledge I have of life principles and applying it to their current needs. One woman at that retreat, a successful interior decorator, later wrote saying: "I delayed writing you because I had decided in our session to do three things. I wanted to be sure I had done them before I told you." Nothing pleases me more than that. She made a decision to change and took action.
As a speaker I must always remember that the audience is first ---I am there to talk to them about a subject, not there to have them listen to me discuss a subject.
