Could Your Stage Fright Be Warning You To Shut-Up?

June 20, 2012 - PRLog -- The Negotiation School’s Dr. Gary S. Goodman gets chills when he sees Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings, especially the one where a fellow in a leather bomber jacket rises up in a crowd to exercise his freedom of speech.

So it seems odd that someone that has taught public speaking, is himself a professional speaker, and has authored a best-selling audio program, “Crystal Clear Communication,” should be saying:

“Some people would be better off avoiding the platform, altogether, especially when they're negotiating.”

“It isn’t that they have nothing to contribute; they might well have,” he adds.

Staying seated might be better for them based on the fact that they are so riddled with stage fright that the prospect of having to address a group is more terrifying than the fear of death.

Goodman has developed a contrarian view of public speaking:

“To put it plainly, it isn’t good for everyone,” he says. “It doesn’t instill self-confidence in every case; in fact it can boomerang and decrease your chances of succeeding,” he maintains.

Goodman used to advise stage fright sufferers to do two things: To speak a lot, and thus systematically desensitize themselves to their fear, and to imagine outrageous success, audiences approving wildly to one’s oratory.

But now, he argues that for the worst sufferers, the best advice may be to “Run away from the platform, quit, turn your back on public speaking, if it puts you and your interests into jeopardy.”

“About 80% of us are situationally shy,” Goodman reports, making us potentially ineffective and apprehensive in certain communication modalities.

“Your fear may be speaking before groups; others may avoid one-to-one conversations; and yet others might be phone-shy,” he explains.

So, his tip is to “Choose your communication and negotiation media, wisely.”

Some people negotiate best, for instance, over lunch with one or two counterparts at the table. Others are writers, expressing their thoughts easily through emails, formal proposals, and position papers.

“Negotiating in a group-interview situation is one of my least effective modalities.” the best-selling author of Dr. Gary S. Goodman’s 77 Best Practices In Negotiation, concedes.

What we shouldn’t do is to “Try to fix our weaknesses,” Goodman warns, saying it is mostly a waste of time and energy.

Echoing his former MBA professor, the sagely Peter F. Drucker, Goodman says, “We wouldn’t want a modern day Mozart to divert his or her attention from a world-class strength simply to try to become a barely competent public speaker."

Outlets for negotiating are many, so why punish yourself by focusing on platform skills?

Simply put, Goodman believes your aversion reaction to public speaking may be warranted. It could be signaling the fact that you don’t belong on the platform.

“Happily, there are some viable alternatives in our technological age,” he notes.

Specifically, “You can get your message out to a wide audience by uploading a YouTube video, or by hosting a webinar.”

“These might give you a nice adrenalin rush without drowning you,” he says.


Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top negotiation speaker, sales, customer service, and procurement consultant and the best-selling author of 13 books and thousands of articles. His current book is Dr. Gary S. Goodman's 77 Best Practices In Negotiation available online at Amazon, Lulu, and Barnes & Noble. Gary is President of The Negotiation School and a top-rated instructor at U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, and U.C. Santa Barbara. He speaks at corporate meetings, conferences, and convention programs, and he can be contacted about speaking engagements at gary@negotiationschool.com. His web site is http://www.negotiationschool.com.