Stephen Sondheim on the value of Surprise, Specificity and Being Too Safe
Three keywords to memorable presentations
Surprise is one of the most undervalued element in presentations. Many clients view “surprise” as an add on -- business leaders in particular think only analytical is good, and that any form of anecdote is bad -- but I’ve come to view surprise as crucial to connecting with an audience. Think about it: attention is a precious and diminishing resource these days. If you demand ten minutes of someone’s attention, what you say and how you say it should be worthy of every one of those minutes. If it isn't, you're going to be facing a sea of glazed eyes and an audience that's tuning you out anyway.
I recently read an interview between Stephen Sondheim, the man who many think reinvented the Broadway theater (Company, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George to name but a few) and Hamilton creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. In it, Sondheim cites three elements that all performances need to have to sustain an audience’s attention. And, if for a second you mistakenly think that your presentation is not in part performance, you are missing an opportunity. When you read Sondheim’s wisdom below, substitute the word “presentation” for “theater.” If you take this to heart, I promise your audiences will thank you for it. You’ll probably have a lot more fun on stage too.
Give your audience what they need, but not what they expect
Sondheim: Peter Shaffer (the Tony-winning playwright) and I went to see a play once about the mad Queen of Spain and in the first act there were two rapes, an evisceration, a fire, and something horrible with a child, I don’t remember. At the end of the first act I said, ‘This is so much my kind of thing. Why am I bored?’ He said, ‘There’s no surprise.’ And I thought, ‘Put that on your bathroom mirror.’ Surprise: If it’s in the lyric, the unexpected word, the unexpected note, the unexpected incident. The unexpected, the unexpected, that’s what theater is about. If you had to patent one thing in the theater, it’s surprise.
Miranda: Can you think of any times you’ve surprised yourself during the writing process?
Sondheim: As a writer you’re always surprised when you think of the right note or the right word. You think, ‘Oh, I didn’t know I could—oh, that’s good!’ You know, writing’s full of surprises for oneself -- it comes with the territory. But this is a different kind of thing. This is surprising the audience.”
Be specific. It’s more memorable than the abstract
As a great storyteller and story creator Sondheim also had some wisdom on the power of being specific. So many of presenters default to abstractions rather than specifics, but it’s a huge mistake. If you're going to use abstraction, always follow it up with specific detail. This is especially true when trying to explain science or business concepts to people who are not in your field. If you want your audience to respond, give them details they can see, feel, smell, taste.
Not only does detail make for better storytelling but it’s the best way of establishing you as an authority on your topic. There’s truth in detail. You don’t need a million details. Just pick one or two that enable you to paint a picture with words.
And don’t try to appeal to everyone in your audience. Tell your story. As Sondheim put it: "Oscar Hammerstein once told me when criticizing my poetic lyrics when I was starting out, ‘That’s not what YOU feel. Don’t write what I feel. Write what you feel. It had never occurred to me to write what I felt.
Or, as George’s muse, Dot, says to him in Sunday in the Park with George,‘Anything you do, /Let it come from you. / Then it will be new.’
Sacrifice something safe
Finally, Sondheim advises everyone to forget about staying safe if you want to make your point. This isn't only true for artists. Successful business leaders take risks when speaking in public this all the time, by the way. Steve Jobs is one obvious case in point.
Here’s how Sondheim puts it: You shouldn’t feel safe. You should feel, ‘I don’t know if I can write [or say] this.’ That’s what I mean by dangerous, and I think that’s a good thing to do. Sacrifice something safe.”