Gavin F. Hurley, author of The Playbook of Persuasive Reasoning; Twitter @Gavin_F_Hurley

When teaching a university public speaking course some years ago, I had a student who was anxious about speaking to large groups of people. In fact, he was virtually paralyzed. Standing up at the front of a 35-student class, he could barely utter a word.

After his first presentation, he met with me after class. He asked if I had any tips that I used when speaking to crowds.

I told him that I never understood the “picture your audience in their underwear” approach. After all, I’ve never really witnessed large groups of people in their underwear. (Has anyone really?) So how am I supposed to recreate that experience? So instead, I visualize the audience in a more relatable manner: as my own tight-knit friend group. As a result, I adopt a more down-to-Earth attitude. And when I do that, the pressure seems to vanish.

During the next class presentation, the student took my advice. He visualized the class as his friend group. And it worked. Sure, he slipped in a few unnecessary curse words into his speech—as he probably would have with his friends—but all in all, he spoke much more smoothly. 

It works outside of the public speaking classroom too.

As a professor, I have presented at academic conferences over the years. And, as you can probably guess, it can be difficult to persuade groups of scholars. Depending on the discipline, they can be stoic, big-headed, or downright combative. Instead of becoming anxious about my audience, I visualize these scholars as friends rather than strangers or combatants. The results have been favorable. I’ve connected more with people. I’ve built stronger professional relationships. The once nerve-racking presentations have become warm conversations. 

So how does this work?

It requires much more than fake smiles and honeyed words. For this to work, we need to fire up our imaginations. We need to actually believe that we are among friends when speaking or writing. It may be a charade, but it is a strategic charade.

The approach is pretty basic. Since we care about our friends, we generally talk and write to them with purpose and sincerity. When we visualize audience-members as friends, that same purposefulness and sincerity radiates effortlessly toward our listeners and readers. They feel this friendly warmth—and appreciate it.

Trust and confidence

When we automatically assume goodwill (as it we do in friendship), we naturally assume trust: the bedrock of any effective communication. Trust allows ideas to pass more easily between human beings. Trust opens up the cognitive flow. Trust keeps us honest. As a result, trustful interactions are much more fluid.

By extension, friendship visualization shields us from our own anxiety. It can safeguard us from suspicious preconceived notions about our audience. Even if the assumptions are true, such suspicion can damage our relationships before they even begin. Its toxic tentacles can wrap around our writing or speaking—and choke our confidence. We may begin to fear criticism—and doubt ourselves. We may start to walk on eggshells. Our credibility can sputter. Our rapport can fade.

But there is hope. Even if we address groups who seem like unlikeable vultures, we can still address them as friends. And this may even gracefully disarm them in the process. Rather than responding to negativity with more negativity, why not break the vicious circle? Why not assume a position of friendship in spite of them? Why not think: “Hey, I will treat you as a friend even if you dislike me.”? It offers a more caring position. It offers a more confident position.

Warmth

When we visualize friendship, our speech or writing becomes more humanized. In the 2020 Harvard Business Review article “How to Develop Your Leadership Style,” Suzanne J. Peterson, Robin Abramson, and R.K. Stutman note a similar advantage. They describe how some leaders (and I would add, speakers/writers), communicate with “powerful markers” to strategically announce authority. For example, leaders may use serious inflections, technical jargon, or declarative statements to command the attention of others. Although these markers are useful, they can be overdone. And when overdone, they put people off.

Visualizing friendship helps us not rely as much on displays of power. Instead, it lends itself to, what the authors label, “attractive markers,” which project warmth. Similarly, comfortable speaking or writing—as would be natural with our friends—offers a lighter tone, everyday vocabulary, and more conversational questioning and answering. Ultimately, attractive markers help temper our powerful markers, so they do not come across so heavy-handed. As Peterson, Abramson, and Stutman endorse, we can blend both sets of markers. We can moderate powerful style with attractive style to craft “presence” into the writing or speaking. This combination can help connect our audience to our message—and build rapport.

Reciprocity

Finally, when we visualize friendship, we may also spark reciprocity—that is, the human tendency to repay kindnesses. As Robert Cialdini notes in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, human beings are hardwired to reciprocate hospitality. When someone gives us something, we look to repay the favor. The return gift doesn’t always need to be proportionate, but receivers feel socially compelled to give back in some way.

Consequently, when we project friendship, audiences likely return the favor within the interaction. Audiences may become more engaged in the face-to-face presentation or within a reading experience. That engagement can be their repayment to us. They may also become more friendly in return—or being more generous with their attention or time. In short, reciprocity can nudge audiences to participate within the back-and-forth cadence. It energizes a dialogue between us and them.

Overall—

As 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche writes in Human All Too Human, “A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.” Effective communication certainly involves “possessing our own spirit” or thinking, but there is more to it than that.

Communication isn’t all about us. Communication certainly involves our inward actions (thinking) and outward actions (speaking or writing)—but it also involves the inward attitudes of other people. And, as Nietzsche suggests, we can think of those other people as friends. The visualization of friendship reminds us that communication is a social act. It reminds us to celebrate speaking and writing as cooperation—and indirectly reminds audiences to do the same.