MBADiversity Fellows Spotlight: Nick Soman

MBADiversity Fellows are passionate about life... they strive for business excellence, personal integrity, and social sustainability.
We caught up with Nick Soman, 2005 Fellow, to learn more about the company he founded to help us with the phobia of public speaking.

The NetWork: Okay, what's the story behind Speak On It?

Nick: I came out of high school a mumbler, and one of my first goals in college was to learn to speak clearly. A group of student engineers created Stanford's first public speaking course in 1976, when they realized that a huge majority of their peers felt uncomfortable standing up in front of people to talk about their work. I took this course, loved it, taught it for three years, then graduated in 2002 and developed a program called I-SPEAK to train Stanford PhD candidates to speak compellingly about their cutting-edge research.

I loved working with PhD candidates, but I soon recognized that my program was just one of a host of resources available to them - if they didn't develop speaking skills in I-SPEAK, they might develop them elsewhere, and if they didn't do that, their research accomplishments virtually guaranteed them plum jobs in academia. I wanted to work with people for whom success seemed like less of a sure bet, so I moved to San Francisco, founded Speak On It and began to offer free workshops to organizations that serve at-risk youth throughout the Bay Area.

Nick with sister

The NetWork: Why did you decide to target young people for your workshops?

Nick: There are several answers to this. I believe that the ability to communicate with clarity and comfort empowers young people to speak their minds in classrooms, in job interviews, and in their personal lives; I find that young people gain speaking skill and confidence more quickly than adults whose habits and self-concepts are firmly entrenched; nonprofits that serve young people are perenially underfunded and are really receptive to free help; and I am a bit of a ham, which makes it great to work with young people. Last year I ran a two-hour workshop in Oakland with twenty juvenile offenders who attended as a condition of their parole. To keep the interest level high, I facilitated several discussions and exercises around the theme of how to overcome shyness and talk with women. I've also hosted two three-hour sessions with forty Public Allies Fellows, taught first period at Richmond Leadership School for two weeks in order to work with every student and faculty member, and developed a workshop for Lockheed Martin's internal Diversity Awareness group.

The NetWork: What are some of the most common obstacles people face in public speaking? What are your recommended solutions for each?

Nick: The most common obstacles I see are anxiety and a lack of awareness about body language.

Many studies have found that public speaking is our nation's #1 fear. But I don't think the recognition that this fear is widespread is a sufficiently effective antidote. Americans are scared of cancer as well, and we should be. The point I try to emphasize in my workshops is that the public speaking failures we imagine are far more devastating than the failures we experience. Most people haven't given themselves ample opportunities to fail or succeed as a speaker, so they don't know the exhilaration of a well-received speech or the frustrating-but-not-fatal feeling of sitting down in your chair after a choppy presentation and thinking about what you could have done better.

The best way to get over anxiety is to practice: know your content, and try a dry run or two several hours before you plan to speak. Right before you speak, take some deep breaths, and loosen up your vocal cords by humming the musical scale or enunciating the alphabet. Rather than sticking to a written or memorized script, keep the structure and the key points of your speech clear in your mind and give yourself room to improvise around these points while interacting comfortably with your audience. Feel free to show a little vulnerability, and when you make a minor mistake, move on gracefully rather than starting over or belaboring the point. Make the energy of your listeners work in your favor by looking to a few friends or visually responsive faces throughout the audience to carry you over rough spots.

Lack of awareness about body language has a painful but effective solution. Videotape yourself practicing your speech in a relaxed environment, and watch the tape to find out what your body is doing. Seek feedback from friends. Human beings have surprisingly consistent opinions on what confident speaking looks like, and a few film sessions can improve your delivery tremendously.

The NetWork: Given your past success, why are you interested in obtaining your MBA, and what are your plans for the future?

Nick: I've gained exposure to a variety of industries and business functions while working at a strategy consulting firm since September 2004, and I am particularly interested in biotechnology, negotiation and business development. I'm learning everything I can about these topics, continuing to offer workshops and strengthening my relationships with organizations in the Bay Area. I admire business leaders who achieve financial success while emphasizing integrity and collaboration in their relationships and global sustainability in their work. I will look for an MBA program that can help me develop the skills I need to translate my values into the business world.

The NetWork: Nick, thanks for sharing this information. For more information about your company's services, how can readers contact you?

Nick: I'm always looking for opportunities to collaborate. If anyone reading this knows of an organization in or around San Francisco that might be interested in a free workshop, please contact me through my website, www.speakonit.org.

-end.

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