Looking for an Effective App to Develop your Public Speaking Skills? Try Poised
When we avoid situations with public speaking, we end up BECOMING even more FEARFUL about the experience. Practice is a key part of breaking the cycle. practicing public speaking is easier with today’s technological tools. Poised is an app I’ve discovered that helps when practicing public speaking skills.
When we avoid situations with public speaking, we end up feeling even more tense about the experience. Over time, our worries are reinforced by the negative cycle of fearful thinking and avoidance - which only leads to more fear. Even the most seasoned public speakers feel some level of fear, but too much of it can hold us back from saying yes to an opportunity or experience we might enjoy.
Practice is a key part of breaking the cycle. Learning how to continue showing up to your public speaking fear makes facing it easier in the future. Avoiding the experience can make things worse, but practicing public speaking is easier than ever with today’s technological tools. This year, I discovered the Poised app.
Poised is a tool backed by world renowned organizational psychologist Adam Grant, among other notable figures, including NBA player Andre Iguodala. I was impressed with the feedback the app offers, and now recommend this tool in my public speaking groups as a means of receiving real-time, objective feedback on our speaking skills.
Poised: based on speaking science
Apps like Poised are a great way to measure and improve public speaking. Poised is designed as an AI feedback partner. When the AI coaching feature is enabled, you can record meetings and conversations both as they happen or after the fact. Feedback is private and only visible to you.
This kind of AI-powered coaching provides help and insight into your speaking performance. Poised gives you real time feedback into what you’ve done well and what you might need to improve. Factors such as tone of voice, clarity, persuasiveness, and ‘filler’ words (like um and ah) all impact your overall score. Whether you’ve used an introduction, spoken clearly, persuasively, or under/over dominated the conversation is noted as part of your score.
What kind of feedback does Poised provide?
Poised looks at factors such as pace, body language, and persuasiveness - as well as whether you’ve added an introduction, provided enough detail, asked questions, or used any ‘hedging’ language (phrases like ‘kind of’) that you might want to avoid.
One of my favorite ways to use Poised is to get instant feedback on speaking. Recording meetings (or replaying ones you’ve already had) with Poised can help you access real time analytics on your performance. The Poised application will then offer you guidance — not just on the number of times you used filler words like ‘um’ or ‘kind of’, but also on your clarity and confidence as a whole.
When you first start seeking help for public speaking anxiety, you may not notice how often it appears. Many people:
Avoid situations where they may have to speak up in public
Decline opportunities for jobs or personal growth because it may involve having to speak
Avoid even smaller social situations, such as speaking up in meetings or chats
The nice thing about tools like Poised is the ability to learn from speaking scenarios both large and small. Many of the tasks you do on a daily basis can involve speaking, such as meetings or social media posts. With Poised, you can get feedback on everything from Instagram stories to presentations, turning even the smallest speaking window into an opportunity to improve.
Why is Poised so effective?
Tools like Poised give you the ability to learn from all kinds of speaking scenarios. Many of the tasks you do on a daily basis involve speaking. With Poised, these daily tasks are opportunities to practice, too!
Poised offers real time insight into speaking skills
Although some people might find live feedback distracting (realizing you use too many filler words…can lead to more filler words!), you can also record audio from an event after the fact. This gives you the ‘real time instruction’ without the added stress of being put on the spot. As a bonus, Poised can also provide you with a summary of your meeting, as well as a visual representation of your key items and action items.
The public speaking confidence chain
Unlike the negative feedback loop of avoidance and fearful thinking, Poised gives you the chance to start a more positive cycle. When learning a new skill or honing an old one, practice is what helps take your abilities to the next level. However, deliberate practice happens when you work with both concentrated effort in an environment where you can receive immediate results and feedback.
Deliberate practice is a popular idea when learning a new skill. While it’s not as straightforward a concept as say, tennis, better public speaking can also be accomplished through deliberate practice. Getting feedback continuously in a private space builds confidence and breaks the cycle: less fear, and less avoidance.
Use feedback and get results
It’s difficult to measure fear. Your wearable tech might pick up a racing heart or sweaty palms, but speaking clearly and confidently hasn’t been as easy, although technology (and AI) have made it easier to measure and improve aspects of your speech.
Practicing public speaking with a virtual tool not only offers you a chance to see your speaking skills in action (and evaluate where you need to improve), it also offers some objectivity around the process. With no one keeping score, technology can help you (and you alone) see your progress. On the flipside, Poised can also help you see your strengths instead of your flaws: which, for ‘perfectionist professionals’, can be a very good thing!
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