Over the course of my speaking career I've had to deal with difficult participants from time to time. Sometimes they're told by their supervisor to attend a workshop I was presenting (on dealing with difficult people) that they didn't want to attend and other times they show up drunk and obnoxious at a dinner speech. Neither are pleasant experiences but both are easy to control ... if you do one thing right.

The key to dealing with difficult people is to never forget that the difficult participant represent the audience. I'm not saying that the audience necessarily agrees with their behavior (sometimes they do) but they do represent the audience. Let me explain.

Let's assume that you're giving an inspirational breakfast talk to a group of salespeople early on a Monday morning. The room is filled with 200 people representing 100 different companies. Three minutes into your talk someone takes a cell phone call and carries on a conversation as though they were in the room alone. They're loud and disturbing. What do you do?

Well, if you remember that the person on the telephone represents the audience, you will soon discover that the audience will get upset that one of their own is being rude to you the speaker. The audience doesn't want to look bad in your eyes by associating with the rude participant anymore than you want to look bad in their eyes as the speaker.

The key to dealing with any ... and dare I say every difficult participant is to be polite, ask them to curb their behavior and allow the audience to deal with them if they don't follow your suggestions immediately. I assure you, they will.

In the example above, I would stop my presentation, look at the person on the telephone and politely ask them to carry on the conversation outside. If they refused, which is very unlikely, I would politely ask them again to go outside and return when they finish their conversation. I would not start speaking again until they left the room. Witness the power of silence.

If they refuse a third time, and I have been polite and respectful, the audience will take care of the problem for me. If they don't, it's due to one of two reasons. Either the person who is being rude is the boss (and if that's the case I would look at them quietly without getting upset until they finished their conversation) or the audience feels I've been a rude to them first ... and they don't want to help me. That is why it's so important that you don't be rude to anyone in the audience under any cimcumstances.

Of my 1,000+ paid presentations I've given in my life, I've never had this technique fail. If it did, I suppose I could either stay and fight or leave the stage. You have the same choice.

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the subject.

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Morning Bob!
Your post is very interesting.
The nasty audience member is only one type of difficult situation....
I have felt quite uncomfortable as an audience member when one of our own (another audience member) is not using good audience etiquette. For example running on and on with detailed info focused on themselves and not the group or subject matter as a whole...really does make the whole group squirm with both desire for the mindless chatter to stop and to please let the presenter get on to the matter we came for.
Thanks for letting me speak.
Much Aloha~ Gina

”Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
-Gandhi

I'm not saying I disagree with you but my take on it is that one shouldn't be in that position in the first place. Firstly, I'd have layed down the ground-rules ("Could I ask you to turn off anything that could go bleep, please.") and secondly, I'd like to think that if no one would want to take the call.

If they actually prefer to talk on the phone rather than listen to the presenter, what's that saying about the quality of the presentation?!!?

Simon

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Good point Simon. If people are easily distracted during a presentation, it could certainly be an indication that the speaker isn't prepared or isn't doing a good job.

Problem is, no matter how well you prepare and no matter how entertaining you are, there are still people in the room who are just rude. Asking people to turn off their cell phone is smart, but unfortunately, you can't think of everything before it happens.

Have you ever given an after dinner talk when the audience has been drinking? You never know what's going to happen.

It's not the things we prepare for that tend to be the problem, it's the things participants do during a talk that we can't comprehend that cause speakers a great deal of anxiety.

I agree with you strongly and appreciate you bringing it up in this forum. Do everything you can to curb bad behavior before it happens. Be so well prepared and entertaining that even if the fire alarm goes off, no one will want to interrupt you.

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Yeah - there's always someone, somewhere who'll throw a curve-ball! I guess that, even though they're prepared to break the rules, the advantage of clearly having established the ground-rules (explicitly) before one starts the presentation is that it's even easier to get/keep the audience on your side (as per your OP).

That said, I once did a traning session where I asked them all to turn everything off but half an hour in, a mobile phone rang and the guy answered it: we all turned and stared, giving him a hard time and waited until he'd finished, in silence, before moving on with the presentation. He didn't say a word during the call and then hung up... he looked at us looking at him and his face was white as a sheet.

He managed, finally to stammer "w w w w w wiiffeee: l l l l lllaabbbb bbor". At that point we all agreed some things are more important than others and cheered him out of the door as he ran!

S

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Great story. This is a perfect example of letting the audience do the dirty work. Thank you.

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Gina,

You said:
This is a great point: there are different types of audience interruptions and not all of them are "rude" but still "disruptive". This person is an example of a "know-it-all" and the presenter needs to know how to handle them. The way to do it is to let the "know-it-all" make their point and then move back into the presentation. If the "know-it-all" runs on too long, the presenter politely interrupts them, suggests that they can discuss this after the presentation, and then gets back to the original presentation. The presenter has to be very careful when giving control to the audience (as in asking "open questions") and has to be ready to take back control after a reasonable amount of time has passed.

About presenter responsibility,

Tim

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We have been known to make a joke of it by issuing a SUMO. Sumo stands for Shut Up Move On. The rest of the people in the room laugh (and usually so does the miscreant) so things work out okay.

S

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Aloha Bob,

your story about the rude person in the audience reminded me of a Willie Nelson concert at the Makawao Rodeo arena. Many people were dancing in the arena, mostly in front of the stage of course.
There was a very obnoxious guy right in front of the stage, making an ass of himself, acting like he was part of the show and being rude to others .

In the middle of a song Willie stopped the music, and said over the microphone, "We aren't going continue playing until someone gets this ass hole out of here, and pointed to the "rude dude." Seconds later about a half dozen guys that had been dancing grabbed the dude and threw him out of the arena.

Willie got a big ovation, and started playing again without any comment.

I realize you can't do what Willie did in your situation, but thought you would appreciate Willie's subtle style of crowd control in Makawao .

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One experience I have had with a difficult participant is when I was teaching some topic to relative "newbies". As such, the seminar - which was a 5 day seminar was at an appropriate level.

Unfortunately, one of the participants was an advanced student of the subject. So, he kept on interrrupting and trying to get me to get the class to go to a higher level. He was also a "know it all" - so he interrupted other people when they were answering questions that I posed.

Here's what I did. During the next break - I complimented him on how intelligent he was and how much he knew. I told him that the audience was not as smart and knowledgeable as he was. I suggested that since his time is so valuable, that this class would probably not be at his level, because he is so smart and knowledgeable. I suggested that he decide to not continue being in this class. I told him that I would love to have him in my workshop; just it might not make sense for someone as talented as him to be there - since he already knows the material and in fact already knows the stuff that would be in an advanced workshop.

He, of course, did not return after the break.

I thought of it as using Martial Arts. I was using his own energy and momentum to get him out of the room.

.. Michael