3 things every great communicator gets right

Years ago, the BBC's The One Show called and asked me to come and sit on the sofa to talk about public speaking. I couldn't do it, because I was in New York doing two weeks of stand-up and improv. So they asked my old boss instead, and he went on national television and said the thing people often say: always open with a joke. And it's the worst advice you can give somebody.

I spent five years as an agent, sitting backstage with some of the best speakers in the world before they walked on. Comedians, CEOs, cabinet ministers, world leaders. I'd chat with them, then watch them deliver. If you do that for long enough and don't learn anything, you haven't been paying attention. What I learned is that being good at this comes down to three things, and once you can name them, you can fix almost any problem you have when you stand up to speak. Here they are: Authority, Authenticity and Audience.

Authority: this is my space

Authority is the one people find hardest, and it's where stage fright lives. It's also where the filler words come from ( the ums and the ahs and the "so what I wanted to say was") because underneath them is a person who isn't sure they're allowed to be up there.

Watch what a professional comedian actually does when they walk on. They don't open with a joke. They take the microphone out of the stand, they move the stand somewhere else, and they say "hello everybody." That's it. They've said almost nothing, and they've already told the room who's in charge.

When I walk on, the job in my head is simple. This is my space. I'm in control. It's going to be a conversation, but I'm the lightning rod, because I conduct the energy in the room. You don't get that by being loud or by making a pantomime of confidence you don't have. You get it by making the deep-down decision before you open your mouth, that you have a right to be there.

This is also why opening with a joke is such a risk. What if you're not funny that day? What if the joke doesn't land? Now you're standing in front of a room having failed at the very first thing you tried, scrambling to win back ground you should never have given away.

Authenticity: they always know

The second thing is authenticity, and it's connected to the first. The reason a failed joke costs you so much is that it usually isn't you. It's something written, something borrowed, and the audience can feel it.

That's the part people underestimate. Audiences always know when you're lying to them. You can stand up there thinking "I feel like a fraud," and somehow they pick it up. So the answer is the least glamorous advice in the world: be yourself. There's no point turning up and being someone else, partly because it doesn't work and partly because it's exhausting.

Being authentic also means being willing to be a bit vulnerable and say the things you maybe think you shouldn't say. People get caught between the tension of wanting to be seen as professional and being open and honest. Good communicators lean into this tension rather than hiding from it. The moment you're prepared to be honest about something real, the room comes with you.

Audience: keep your promise

The third thing is the audience and it starts before you've said a word. The audience knows what they came for. If the introduction says "Here's Ian Hawkins, he's going to give you some trick and tips to help your speaking," and I walk on and do twenty minutes of anecdotes from my storytelling show, I've let them down. The storytelling show is excellent, by the way, but it breaks the promise that was made to the audience and they have a right to feel let down.

Think of the title of your talk as the promise you make: "I'm going to be here, and for the agreed length of time we're going to talk about this one thing, and I'm going to finish one minute before the clock runs out." An audience that gets exactly what it was promised, and gets its time back, is a happy audience.

The other half of this is something I rarely see professional speakers do, even though most comedians do it by instinct: check in. A speaker is travelling in a straight line through time, always moving forwards, and it's easy to forget there are people out there. So I look around. I watch the faces. If I've said something and I can see someone shaking their head, I stop and give them more, such as a bit of detail, an example, a reason to trust me. You're leading, but you're leading people who are actually in the room with you.

And the room needs a voice of its own. You know that horrible moment when a speaker says "any questions?" and not a single hand goes up? That silence isn't because nobody has a question, it's because putting your hand up is an act of leadership, and there's already a leader in the room holding the microphone. So I'll walk out among them with a mic and gently draw the first question out of someone, because once one person has done it, the rest feel allowed to.

Where most of us actually practise this

Most of us will never stand in front of five hundred people. But the same three things decide whether it lands every time you run a meeting, pitch an idea, sit across a table from someone you're trying to convince, or send a message you want people to act on. None of that depends on the size of the room. Authority, Authenticity, and a real read on the Audience in front of you are what make anyone worth listening to, whoever they happen to be talking to.

So the next time someone tells you to open with a joke, you have my permission to ignore them. Walk to the centre of the stage, take a breath, look at the room, and say hello. You'll have done more in those five seconds than any punchline could.