设想一下，现在你正站在台上，面对着台下的几十甚至几百个观众。你迫切想让自己看上去不那么紧张。屋里的所有人都有一大堆事要做，每个人脑子里都想着事情，大家要么在打电话，要么在发短信。面对这种情况，你怎样才能抓住甚至保持大家的注意力？

尼尔·戈登是一名行政沟通教练，他在沟通方面有丰富的经验。他表示：“观众在15秒钟之内，就会对你形成第一印象。”所以说，从你开口时起的短短15秒钟，就将决定你的演讲的成败。戈登接着解释道：“人们之所以愿意听你讲话，之所以会产生投入感，是因为对接下来的事情感到好奇。这种悬念感会在一开始时达到顶峰。这是一个强大的工具，不要浪费它。”

可惜的是，在演讲、开会或参加其他聚会的时候，我们大多数人都忽视了这一点。有时候，演讲者本身就小有名气，可能根本不需要介绍，但是按照惯例，主持人通常还是会礼貌地介绍一番。如果演讲者恰好是你，“你有可能犯的最大的错误，就是在接下来的15秒甚至更长的时间里，感谢介绍你的人，感谢观众，感谢他们花时间听你演讲，或者说你很高兴来到这里。”

当然，很多人之所以这样做，是想给人留下友好和谦虚的印象。不过在戈登看来，问题在于，这种话大家已经听得耳朵都起茧了。他指出：“这是一个意料之中的开场白，这时你的听众就会在脑海中自动‘关掉’你的声音，然后查看一下电子邮件。你白白浪费了那种悬念感。”

那么，你应该如何充分利用这至关重要的15秒呢？戈登建议道，你只需要对介绍你的人微微一笑，简单点个头，深呼吸一下，然后“马上进入演讲中最吸引人的部分”。如果你不确定哪一部分最吸引人，你就要站在观众的角度来考虑。他表示：“人们会根据自身利益行事，如果你谈的是他们最关心的问题，他们就最有可能仔细倾听，记住你和你所说的话。所以你的演讲就要从这里开始，之后，你可以加入自己的视角。”

戈登的很多客户听了他的建议后，演讲的出场费翻了一番。戈登对经验还不丰富的演讲者也有很多建议。首先，在计划说什么的时候，要现实地考虑你的演讲应该包括哪些内容，又应该去掉哪些内容。他指出：“人们通常认为，演讲的信息量越多越好。但事实上，大家每天都要面对大量信息，所以注意力都很有限。因此，如果你想让大家继续听下去，就不能在一个45分钟的演讲中塞入七八个要点。”

他表示：“你应该将最重要的观点提炼成一个大的想法，我称之为‘银色子弹’。要将你的主要观点用一个有力的句子表达出来。”戈登对TED的演讲者做了仔细分析，发现在前50个最受欢迎的演讲者中，有46个都是这样做的。同时这也是职场中最常用到的TED演讲策略。不过戈登也承认：“一开始的时候，可能没有你想的那么容易。”如果不行的话，就要再想。理想状况下，“银色子弹”应该是“一句简单深刻的话，但能够让观众想到跟以前不一样的东西”。他还表示，《孙子兵法》上随处可见这种精辟的小短句，比如“兵者，诡道也”。

如果你的演讲带有教学性质，比如你在教你的团队如何利用新软件提高效率，你可以直截了当地介绍它的工作原理、使用方法，以及出现问题该怎么办。“更有效的方法是，直接说这个软件旨在解决什么问题，以前的办法为什么不管用，特别是这个新软件怎样能够让大家变得轻松一些。只要你告诉了大家，他们为什么要学习这个东西，他们就更容易接受，而且更有可能记住它。”

如果不论什么场合，你只要一想到要当众演讲，就感到精神高度紧张，那也不要紧，并非只有你一个人有这毛病。戈登表示，他的大多数客户，甚至是一些经验丰富的演说家，都有焦虑的毛病。“有些人看到托尼·罗宾斯这样的名人浑身上下都散发着魅力，便对我说，他们的性格当不了一个吸引人的演说家。”

然而事实并非是这样。戈登表示：“记住，不论你是一个多内向的人，或者一开始你有多焦虑，你的目标是帮助你的听众更接近他们的目标。任何性格都能够做到这一点。”（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

So there you are, up onstage in front of an audience of dozens or even hundreds, hoping fervently that you don’t look as nervous as you are. Everyone in the room has an endless to-do list and too much on their minds, and the ones who aren’t talking into their phones are texting. How do you grab their attention—and, even trickier, hold on to it?

“An audience forms its impression of you in just fifteen seconds,” says seasoned executive communications coach Neil Gordon. That quarter of a minute, as soon as you open your mouth, can make or break your whole presentation. “What keeps people listening and engaged is curiosity about what’s coming next, and that suspense is at its peak right at the start,” Gordon explains. “It can be a powerful tool. Don’t waste it.”

Unfortunately, most of us do. Take, for instance, a typical speech at a conference or other gathering. The speaker is an illustrious person and, although he or she may need no introduction (as the popular cliche goes), he or she usually gets one anyway. If the speaker happens to be you, “the biggest mistake you can make is to spend the next fifteen seconds, or even longer, thanking the person who introduced you, and the audience for their time, and saying how glad you are to be there,” Gordon says.

People do that, of course, because they want to come across as courteous and friendly. The problem, by Gordon’s lights, is that everyone’s heard it before —possibly many, many times. “It’s such a predictable start that your audience will just tune you out and go back to checking their email,” he points out. “You’ve squandered the suspense.”

Eek. So how do you make the most of those crucial fifteen seconds? Smile and nod briefly at the person who introduced you, take a beat and a deep breath, and “launch right into the most compelling part of your talk,” Gordon advises. If you’re not sure which part that is, he adds, think of it from the audience’s point of view. “People operate on self-interest, and they’re most likely to listen closely, and remember you and what you said, if you address what concerns them most,” he notes. “So start there. You can add your own perspective later.”

Gordon, many of whose clients have doubled their speaking fees by following his advice, has a few more tips for inexperienced speech-makers. First, when planning what you’re going to say, be realistic about what to include and what to leave out. “People often think, the more data they cram into a speech, the better,” notes Gordon. “But everyone has so much information thrown at them every day already, and attention spans are so strained, that you really can’t cram seven or eight big points into a 45-minute speech if you want people to keep listening.”

Instead, he says, “distill your most important point down to one big idea. I call it the silver bullet. Convey your main idea in one powerful sentence.” Gordon did a detailed analysis of TED speakers’ presentations and found that 46 out of the 50 most popular (that is, most replayed on YouTube) do this. It is one of the TED speaker strategies most followed in workplaces, too. “The hard part sometimes is identifying that one idea,” he acknowledges. “It may not be what you think it is, at first.” If not, keep thinking. Ideally, the silver bullet is “a single insight that will make your audience think differently than before,” Gordon says, adding that The Art of War by Sun Tzu is packed with pithy one-sentence silver bullets, like “All war is deception.”

Let’s say your presentation is instructional: you’re teaching your team how to use, for instance, new software designed to boost efficiency. You could, of course, launch right into how it works, how to use it, and what to do if something goes haywire. A more effective approach: “Begin by talking about the problem the software is intended to solve, why the old way wasn’t working, and especially how this software is going to make everyone’s day a little better,” Gordon recommends. “Once you’ve told people why they need to learn something, they’re much more receptive to it, and far more likely to remember it.”

If the idea of talking to a big group, no matter the context, gives you a serious case of the heebie-jeebies, you’re not alone. Gordon says most of his clients —even relatively experienced speakers— suffer some anxiety. “They see celebrities like Tony Robbins who are dripping with charisma, and tell me that they themselves just haven’t got the ‘right personality’ to be a compelling speaker,” Gordon says.

Not so, he adds. “Keep in mind that, no matter how introverted you are, or how anxious you are at first, your goal is to help your audience get a little closer to achieving their goals. Any personality can do it.” Good to know.