Caroline Casey gives a stirring speech here…let’s look at it from the perspective of leadership, and non-verbal communication. When we are presenting, we often feel that we need to move in a certain way, a way that conveys “leadership”. I find that trying to move in a way that conveys “leadership” or “confidence” just creates tension. I like the way Caroline Casey moves. She gestures freely, and speaks passionately, and doesn’t seem to be trying to imitate other speakers. She moves in a way that feels comfortable, a way that is her own . This is the key to conveying leadership with your body language, not imitating “successful speakers”, but finding a natural, organic way to move that expresses you.
Vocally, I think Caroline speaks eloquently and expressively; however, I would quibble with the pace at which she speaks. She’s motoring through the speech, and I think she would benefit if she slowed down a bit, took some deep breaths, and clarified her points a bit more.
What do you think creates a confident speaker? Do you move in a way that is comfortable to you? Do you speak with a voice that is your own, and not an imitation of other speakers?
Sir Ken Robinson is hands down one of the world’s greatest speakers. I defy you not to be immensely entertained and enlightened by this twenty minute speech.
Almost every moment here is a gem. Let’s start with his body language. Notice how still he is. Of course, one should feel free to move throughout a speech, there are no hard and fast rules about body language, but few among us have the tolerance to explore stillness while speaking the way Sir Robinson does.
Now let’s take a look at his language…every word is articulated clearly, and he uses an abundance of inflection and pitch. He hits his content words, and makes every point clear, yet never over-articulates. Because he is physically relaxed, we are not distracted by his gestures from the most important component of his speech, his ideas.
He uses his wit to wonderful effect in this speech, eliciting a laugh a minute. Every trick in the public speaking book is used here, analogies, stories, quotes (including a gem from Abraham Lincoln), one-liners…. the speech is crammed with interest. It’s no wonder his last TED speech was downloaded over 10 million times!
Notice the structure of the beginning of his speech; an attention getter at the top that elicits a big laugh, then a clear thesis statement outlying his topic, than a wonderful analogy is made playing off of the public’s fascination with “resources”. Now we are hooked, and we know where we are going. The discussion section of the speech is a series of short, pithy stories. The story he tells about the child who wants to be a fireman, and is humiliated for not wanting to go to college, is one of the best, most appropriate, and powerfully told stories I have ever heard. Watch when he polls the audience as to who is wearing wristwatches… he manages to make a point, and leave everybody in stitches at the same time.
I could go on, and on. Each brilliantly told story weaves effortlessly into his main point: education is in need of reform. He culminates with a lovely quote from W.B Yeats.
A colleague of mine once said to me; “You know a standing ovation is authentic if the audience stands as one unit, immediately after the speech has finished”. Sir Robinson’s authentic ovation here was well deserved.
How much should you reveal in a speech? Should you put yourself on the line? Tell something private about yourself? In this speech, Tony Porter uses a number of deeply personal stories to drive home his point about the socialization of men. His thesis is stated early, and is crystal clear; men are taught to hide their emotions, and disrespect women, and this needs to change.
Many speakers would resort to dry statistics in order to prove their point, but Mr. Porter makes a much shrewder choice by using deeply personal stories. He begins with a story about his children, and his overbearing need to discipline his son because he is crying. He moves on to a story about his father crying in a limousine after a funeral, and then a story about his first sexual experience. Each story builds in intensity and personal revelation, and weaves effortlessly into his thesis. The effect is very powerful.
Statistics help build a case in a speech, but they are not the lifeblood a good speech. Good stories are at the heart of a good speech, and the more personal, the better. Ultimately, the audience wants to connect on a human level to a speaker, and deeply felt stories help build this intimacy.
So what do you think? Are you willing to tell a secret in a speech?
Clients often say to me “I understand how to relax my nerves before a speech, but what do I do when I feel nervous while I’m speaking?” This is a tricky problem, but solvable. Check out Chimamanda Adichie’s TED speech above. Ms. Adichie has a wonderfully crafted speech, there is clear intention to it, and she states that intention early: “I am here to talk about the danger of a single story.” The speech is filled with wonderful stories that all work effectively to prove Ms. Adichie’s central premise.
But she’s tense at the top. Her breathing is a little labored, and her voice quivers a bit. Does it matter? Not terribly. Why? Because she handles it well. She stops when she needs to, takes a break when she needs to, slows herself down, and breathes. Great speakers own their speeches not by powering through tension, but by yielding to relaxation. Speaking is a letting go, a releasing, of thoughts, of feelings, of ideas. Tension is simply the opposite of that; it happens when a speaker is trying to make a moment into something other than what it really is. Made a mistake? Don’t worry. Laugh, sip some water, breath. Start again. Feel your hands shaking? STOP. Breath. Start again. Lost your place? Ditto.
Statistically speaking, our number one fear, NUMBER ONE, is speaking in public. What does that mean? It means that if you were at a funeral, most of the people attending would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. It’s natural to feel nervous while speaking in public, the question is, what do you do about it?
One of the first questions I ask when I hear that an executive is nervous about an upcoming speech is how much time was spent preparing for the presentation. Sometimes I will hear “Well I looked it over last night”, or “I made a few bullet-points”. Usually I think to myself, “No wonder you are anxious!”. A good speech requires work, sometimes hours need to be spent culling together material, weeding out weak points and extraneous data, finding the main point of the speech, and developing interesting questions to ask the audience. At the very least, familiarity with the material is essential.
Sometimes we feel tense about a speech simply because we are in the habit of preparing at the last minute. It’s important to break this cycle. How can it be done? Make a plan:
1) Tell someone you know (a friend, a coach, a spouse) that you are struggling to find time for your presentations, and ask them for help. Support is important.
2) Set a certain number of hours allotted for your preparation, and report your progress to your coach or friend.
3) Weed out unnecessary information. Is your speech loaded with data? Putting everybody in the room to sleep, including yourself? Weed out everything that is unessential to your main point, which leads me to my next point…
4) HAVE ONE MAIN POINT TO YOUR SPEECH Ultimately a great speaker does not ramble , but revolves his/her speech around one main theme. The public schools need reform. My company invests more selectively than the rest. You can trust my leadership. You know what it is, pick it, and stick to it.
If you feel like it will help, post your progress to this blog post. Let me know what you’ve done to improve your presentations this week, and what you plan to do next week!
I’m always telling my clients that 80 percent of our impression of a speaker is non-verbal (that’s right, that speech you’re sweating over right now means much less than the quality of your voice, your posture, and how you gesture), so what do you think of this photo of Roger Clemens testifying before Congress? As many of you know, Roger Clemens, the former Yankee, and former shoe-in for the Hall of Fame, is going to be indicted for lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs.
I think this image is a powerful reminder that our bodies rarely lie. No matter what we say, our true feelings will be revealed by our facial expressions, our posture, and our tone of voice. This image just reeks of duplicity; the cocked head, the sideways glance, the backward-moving energy. Throw the jerk in jail.
Here is Harry Markopolos testifying before Congress. Harry is the guy who tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff to the SEC to no avail. What do we see here? Definace, a steady gaze, forward-moving energy, confident gestures.
Laurie Santos, head of the Comparative Cognition Lab at Yale University, gives a great speech here on the roots of human irrationality. The study itself is inspired and creative (she compares human economic behavior to monkey behavior), so a lot of the work for the speech has been done before she steps on stage. That being said, I think Ms. Santos excels at conveying passion and enthusiasm for her subject. I can hear you now: “But Jeff, that can’t be taught”. Au Contraire, yes it can. It’s quite simple if you follow an important guideline: Only speak about topics you enjoy speaking about, and add interest to a speech (quotes, stories, comparisons, contrasts) when your subject is boring you. Ambivalence about your topic is to be avoided at all costs. In this speech, Ms. Santos uses a great quote from Hamlet to humorous effect, and adds interest to an already engrossing topic.
There are two other things Ms. Santos does well; she does not over rely on her Power Point presentation, and she ends her speech on a positive note. Going negative is the cardinal sin of public speaking technique, and she avoids it well, coming to a nice, definitive conclusion.
If I were to quibble a bit with her technique, I would suggest that she could slow down, and breathe more. There are moments when she appears to be a little out of breath. Slowing down, and deliberately breathing more will help her calm her nerves, and will allow the audience to catch up with her ideas.
Overall, however, I consider this a job well done.
In today’s Huffington Post, there is a great article about the verbal cues that give away an executive who is lying. According to a study done by Stanford University, executives who use general phrases like “the team” or “our corporation” tend to lie more often than executives who use more personal pronouns like “we” and “I”. In addition, exaggeration tends to be a key linguistic component of lying. According to the study, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers used the word “great” 14 times and “strong” 24 times while describing the firm’s performance during a conference call. The firm collapsed months later.
What type of language do you use when presenting? Do you keep it personal and use “I” statements? How have you seen language erode or increase credibility?
Let’s take a look at TED’s WikiLeaks Q and A from a public speaking standpoint. What steps are necessary in order to successfully navigate a Q and A session? Listening to the question is essential, as is defining terms, giving your opinion when asked, backing up your opinion with facts, and acknowledging what you don’t know. Given that 80% of our impression of a speaker has to do with their non-verbal communication, open gestures, alignment, and a resonant voice matter a great deal too.
With these points in mind, how successful was this Q and A? My first thought was “My God what is up with the cell phones?!” Julian Assange’s phone goes off at 1:53, in the middle of the Q and A, and he has to turn it off in front of the audience. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not a good start to a Q and A. Uttering “God Damn” afterward did not help his case. The interviewer did a nice job of staying in the moment, and makes a quip which helps alleviate the situation. So no biggie, things happen in a speech.
But wait a minute, hold on, is that the interviewer holding a cell phone and using it like a conductor would a baton throughout the interview?? Why, yes it is! It seems that both interviewer and interviewee are so obsessed with their electronic gadgets that they can’t part with them for any reason, even when they are on television.
Non-verbal analysis aside, the content of the Q and A fares better. Mr. Assange defends Wiki Leaks in a cogent manner, and has details and facts to back himself up. The interviewer does a fair job of asking the tough questions of this controversial guest, when he’s not waving his cell phone around in the air.
I think Mr. Assange’s most impressive moment comes at the end of the Q and A when he is asked about what motivates his work. He says: “Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture victims”. Obviously Mr. Assagne had anticipated he might be asked this question, and he prepared an answer, one that is thoughtful and illuminating.
A great speaker doesn’t speak at an audience, but rather listens to the audience, and responds to the audience. What exactly is good listening on a public speaking level? Is it about simply mirroring the body language of the person (or persons) you are speaking to, as some communication coaches suggest? Or is it deeper than that? I would argue that good listening on the public speaking level is the same as good listening on the personal level; it is the ability to understand the meaning of a question or comment, not just the delivery. On the micro level, this means repeating questions that are posed by your audience, and asking directly if you are understanding them correctly. It means paying attention to the context of the question, and picking up important non-verbal clues.
On the macro level, listening to your audience means understanding what they are expecting of the speech, and what they want, even need, to hear. Do you make sports analogies at a film industry convention with an audience made of movie buffs? Start out an awards ceremony with edgy humor when the audience yearns for sincerity? Perhaps you aren’t listening. Try imagining what you would want to hear if you were in the audience… this is the first step to becoming a speaker who is truly attuned to the audience.
