Читать книгу On-Camera Coach - Reed Karin M. - Страница 16

Dateline: Summer 1991

Location: Altoona, Pennsylvania (specifically, Jaffa Shrine)

Event: Final night of competition at the Miss Pennsylvania Scholarship Pageant

I was the season shocker. How could I, Miss Butler County, a pageant neophyte who only entered on a lark, be in prime position to represent the Keystone State in the Miss America pageant?

Talent Competition: I nailed it thanks to a decade of voice training.

Judge's Panel Interview: I aced that, too.

The vast majority of my fellow contestants had been priming themselves for this moment for years, sharpening their skills on the lower-level pageant circuit. Me? I was a total newbie and on no one's radar as a potential threat. But after chalking up two preliminary competition wins earlier in the week, the dark horse had become the front-runner and likely winner.. save for a slight miscalculation by my team.

You see, along with the tiara from the county win, I had acquired a cadre of pageant professionals who were in charge of coaching me for the state pageant. They taught me how to strut, wobble-free, across the stage in a bathing suit and four-inch heels made of Lucite. They explained the importance of displaying off-the-charts enthusiasm when I introduced myself at the top of the show. We even ran through my song from Phantom of the Opera ad nauseam just in case.

What we didn't work on was my on-stage interview question. Why would we? After all, I was a top student and had even skipped my senior year in high school just to get a head start on college. I was on track to receive my undergraduate degree magna cum laude with highest honors. Public speaking was my forte. I even won a scholarship for “Excellence in the Use of the English Language.” Why would I need to practice how to answer one question?

So there I was on the final night of the pageant, ready to tackle the last part of the competition: the on-stage interview question. The crowning achievement seemed like a fait accompli.

I made my way downstage toward the emcee, who held a stack of index cards laden with real stumpers – or so he thought. He selected my question.

“If money were no object, what would you do to make the world a better place?”

Could there be a bigger softball of a question than that? I'm sure you can think of dozens of answers that would have elicited a round of applause and perhaps even brought a tear to the eye of some touched by your empathy for the needy, the disenfranchised, the unfortunate souls you wanted to help.

My response: “Laughter.. I'd give the world laughter.”

Say what?

There are no “take-backs” when answering a question live before thousands of people in a concert hall and countless others watching on television. I knew I had to find some way to make this substantive despite its laughable start.

I wracked my brain and free-associated laughter with monetary value. After a less than one second pause, I continued my response with this:

“So I'd buy everyone comedians.”

My entire entourage from the local pageant collectively slumped in their seats as if they'd been sucker punched.

I knew that I was in the process of completely tanking any chance I had to head to the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. Ironically, however, I thought it was hilarious. In fact, I remember trying to stifle a giggle as I fumbled through to the end of my clunker of an answer. There was some polite applause as I walked off stage.

I have to say I was heartened to hear some of the other contestants swing and miss on their questions, too. Here are some of my favorites (with italics added for emphasis by me):

• Question: “If you could meet any famous person, living or dead, who would you want to meet?”

Answer: “Jesus Christ, because he did so much for our country.”

• Question: “If you could live in any era, which would you choose?”

Answer: “I'd live in the South, because I really like the warm weather.”

So what on earth does this have to do with presenting on camera?

My pageant team assumed that I could handle any interview question thrown my way. Heck, I did, too. Your team may assume you can present on camera because you are a solid speaker. And herein lies the problem. Everyone wants to leverage video across all the many channels it now occupies, but very little thought is given to how to use this tool effectively. Too often, business executives are put in front of a camera and expected to perform well without any training. They're obviously intelligent folks who are in their positions of authority based on their achievements. But speaking in front of a camera requires a skill set that is never taught in business school, and very few of us possess the innate ability to do it well.