How a Penalty Shootout is equivalent to Public Speaking

With the just concluded soccer world cup in Brazil, it just seems right to look at Penalty Shootouts a little more deeply.

It is a foregone conclusion that winning a soccer game through a penalty shootout is more psychological than technical, though many still call it ‘luck’. While individual players are quite successful in hitting penalty shots in the middle of a game, if a penalty is awarded, the same player can ‘choke’ when taking a shot in the penalty shootout that determines the outcome of the game. Consider that England has never won a penalty shootout at the World Cup. 

In the quarter-final match between Costa Rica and Netherlands, Dutch coach Louis van Gaal sent the taller Krul in as a last-minute substitute for starting goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen just moments before the shootout.

Some spectators may have thought this was because Krul had been stronger in the shootout scenario but British journalist & author of the 2001 book On Penalties, Andrew Anthony told CBC News that van Gaal wanted to get to the Costa Ricans psychologically, by getting Krul to fill "the space as much as possible with his physical presence, and clearly it worked."

So, Why am I speaking about penalties while considering public speaking? (And here public speaking does not mean giving a speech to hordes of people....it could even be addressing a meeting or making a presentation or being on stage for a talk). What is the commonality between a penalty shoot-out and public speaking? Anxiety is one of them and lots more….Read on to find out.

According to Andrew Anthony, author of the 2001 book "On Penalties", the shootout is about "the drama of decision-making."

"It all comes down to that moment as you walk from the centre circle to the penalty spot", which is the walk that players have to do. "You are walking down a kind of corridor of truth."

He notes, "Life often comes down to these dramatic moments of decision-making, although usually not watched by a billion people around the world."

When you are preparing to go out to the podium for a public speech or a presentation to a group of people where the outcome is very important for you, have you ever thought, ‘I have to nail this’ and then you start thinking about how to do that – whether your opening line needs more punch, what if people donot respond, what if somebody asks a question that you cannot answer etc etc. So, at that moment, while you are deciding how to nail it, you are already setting yourself up for failure.

"Anxiety is the most significant contributing factor to performance failure in football penalty shootouts" according to an Expert Statement on the Psychological Preparation for Football Penalty Shootouts, a paper prepared for the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences in 2013.

The penalty shootout is one of the few occasions in the game when players “have sufficient time to think about the consequences of failure”.

So, in those crucial minutes before the actual performance, getting into that mind space where we allow our bodies to instinctively react rather than allow our mind to dictate, is very important.

How does a football player practice for a penalty shootout? Anthony advises players to have in mind before the referee blows the whistle, where they are going to kick the ball. "Whatever you decide, you should stick to that and not change it." When they try to second-guess the goalkeeper, that's when they come undone.

"You've got to practice, you've got to have it as part of your muscle memory exactly where you are going to put the ball."

Basically, what this says is for the players to ignore the goalkeeper completely (who is bouncing about and also sledging and heckling, by the way) and focus on that one spot where he has practised hitting. Allow his muscle memory to take over and not his mind.

What about a public speaker? Likewise, practice your speech again and again and again and once more. You have to create your muscle memory first unless you have done this multiple times already before.

Have you ever thought ‘I will see how the audience reacts and I will change my game plan accordingly?' Wrong.
It is just like the football player thinking I will see which way the goal-keeper goes and then shoot, which never works. That will only increase the ‘anxiety’ – focus on the game plan that you have practised. Focus on ONE person in the audience and speak to that person as if you are having a 1:1 conversation – find your spot. Donot try to scan the whole goal post figuring out where to hit or donot scan the whole audience speaking to everybody. And if your mind comes in and says ‘you are doing this wrong’, or ‘people are not responding’, ‘make a joke now’, ‘you did not follow what you had practised’, ask your brain to take a small vacation.

The good part is, you have multiple opportunities to redeem yourself unlike a penalty shot. Do stop and assess and engage with the audience but DONOT allow your mind to take control of the proceedings, which is when you will know that you have missed the shot.

What happens when the mind takes control? Instead of engaging with the audience, you are actually having a dialog or listening to your head. So, if you are engaged with yourself, how can you possibly be engaged with the audience?

Taking a penalty in the shootout is a psychological game and so is public speaking. While getting your content, your tone of voice, your body movements etc are the technical aspects of public speaking, focus on your inner game as well.

The same dutch team lost out on penalty shootout to Argentina in the semi-finals - why? Could this be more than just bad luck? The discussion can go either way. And the fact remains that Ron Vlaar took the first penalty because nobody else was ready to take the first penalty and probably (tiny possibility) Ron Vlaar allowed his head to start thinking of consequences. And of course, Van Gaal had exhausted his substitutes and so he could not use his psychological move of using Kraal again.....

Sorry Skirt

Whenever you are late for work or for a meeting, do you just say “Sorry, I am late” or do you feel the need to explain yourself? “Sorry, I am late – my son missed his bus today, had to drop him off” or “Sorry, my in-laws arrived today and I started late from home” and so on...

If you do feel the need to explain yourself, you are a “Sorry skirt”. This phenomenon is more noticed in women than in men, though I have noticed men fall prey to this as well – does anybody really care WHY you are late? What everybody cares is about the impact you are having because you are late. So instead of explaining yourself, apologize for the negative impact that you have had.

‘Sorry, I kept you all waiting’ or ‘Sorry, this work is impacted because of me’ or just ‘Sorry, I am late’ with no explanation of the ‘why’ – it is really not needed. But we feel the need to explain because we want to give the message ‘I am really a good person but……’.

Women are seldom able to shed their ‘good girl’ image (for some men it is the 'good boy' image). At school, being obedient was considered an asset, a symbol of model behaviour and girls always want to be held up as a model student/girl.

While growing up, a girl child continuously hears the need to be held up as a respected woman, as a ‘lady’ with proper manners and mesmerizing everybody around without being too loud and most importantly keeping everybody around happy. Have you heard this before?

When this girl child grows into a woman, this behaviour starts reflecting at home, at the work place where the primary focus is on keeping everybody around happy, hunger for positive affirmations, living up to everybody’s expectations, doing deeds and hoping people around notice them.

Have you ever felt “I am doing a great job – as long as I continue to do my job well, I will be appreciated” or “I just need to do my job really well, my boss will take care of me”. If you do, you belong to the “Sorry Skirt” group. Ever stopped to assess, whether your boss is in a position to address your career aspirations? If not, what initiatives are required from you?

I have been told since childhood that it is arrogant to be proud of your achievements, others should notice you and not you yourself alone. What that meant was that you do a great job, feel secretly happy and hope that others notice this great job of yours. It is like doing your homework at school and when the teacher gives an ‘Excellent’ or a ‘Very good’, it is positive affirmation.

Likewise, at work, we expect that we do our job well and hope that our boss notices and gives us an ‘Excellent’ for the job done. There are a few differences though – the job is not our homework, the boss is not the teacher and it is not mandatory for the boss to go through the work we have done and unlike homework, in the work place, a work/project is usually a team effort.

This need for affirmation and perceived as ‘good’ typically continues into the work place where doing everything right as per the books, keeping the boss and everybody around happy becomes paramount and for everything else, we are constantly apologizing. Maybe it is time to ask ourselves – ‘What is it like to be an Unapologetic Woman’? 

Warm Regards.....REALLY?

I learnt my letter writing skills in school when emails were yet to make an appearance and signing off was typically ‘Yours sincerely’ or ‘Yours faithfully’ and I remember sniggering at the ‘faithfully’ – who was I being faithful to? What does ‘sincerely’ even mean when I am writing a letter to say a librarian so I could check out more books than allowed… Does it imply that I would sincerely or faithfully return the books? Well, why not just say it then? As my teacher sincerely pointed out ‘these are the rules or guidelines of letter writing – it is upto you to follow or flaunt them’.

And then entered emails…have you ever thought of how you sign-off in an email? Many have carried over the letter writing skills into emails and many have rediscovered their email writing skills. How about you? Do you blindly just say ‘Regards’ or ‘Cheers’ or ‘Thanks and Regards’ or ‘Best’ – These are the most common email sign-offs that I have seen.....until recently....

Before I go into the alternatives, let me focus a bit more on the regular. So, what do you intend to convey with your email sign-off?

A colleague sends an email to a peer disagreeing on the approach suggested and signs off ‘Warmest Regards’ (how do you select the warmest one among your regards?);

A boss sends an email to a subordinate asking for the quarterly forecast and signs off ‘Cheers’ (what is there is cheer about yet? Or do you want your subordinate to start clinking glasses now?);

A subordinate sends an email telling the boss about a lost deal and signs off ‘Best Regards’ (really? Buddy, you’ve just lost a deal!);

A Client servicing manager sends an apology email to the client about a delay and signs off ‘Kind Regards’ (Yes, I am sorry we inconvenienced you but you have our regards that are kind!);

A client sends an escalation to the partner vendor and signs off ‘Best’ (Best what? Best of luck dealing with my escalation? Best of luck because I am going to take away my business soon? What does this mean?)

A friend sends a catch-up email to another friend and signs off ‘Take Care’ (Sounds vaguely threatening…what should the friend be careful about?)

What do you notice? The sign-off most often than not seems to be completely contradicting the email content. So what is the purpose of the email sign-off? What makes us all follow something so mundane multiple times in a day?

You might say, the sign-off is really not that important, in which case I challenge you to do away with the sign-off altogether – if it is not important, don’t waste time doing it. And if you are doing something that is relevant, then I invite you to do it well and to make it exciting and worthwhile (for you and others).

A senior executive in an MNC is a creatively innovative person with an eye for detail – in a bid to be innovative with his communication, he started signing his emails exactly in tune with his emails eg 

if he was sending an celebratory email to the team, he would sign-off with ‘Calling for celebrations, Andrew’ or ‘Happily, Andrew’; 

if he was sending a revenue forecast to his bosses, he would sign off with the accompanying emotion like ‘Apprehensively, Andrew’ or ‘Confidently, Andrew’; 

if he was communicating with a client who gave him business, it was ‘Caringly, Andrew’ or ‘Gratefully, Andrew’; 

if he was angry or disappointment with somebody, it was ‘Disappointingly, Andrew’ or ‘Hopping mad, Andrew’ and so on. 

What do you notice here? The introduction of a human element in the emails rather than a mechanical by-rote email punch line, which makes the reader of the email connect so much better with the writer.

So, while we focus a lot on communication for leaders (verbal and non-verbal), you will agree that emails is one of the most frequent and far-reaching medium of communication in the world today – so why not make an impact right now starting with the sign-off. As a first step, make your email sign-off meaningful, exciting and give it your personal touch.

And as usual let me know at ruma.coach@gmail.com all your innovative sign-offs.

Wishing your creativity,

Ruma