I know that most people hate speaking in a formal situation but I love public speaking. So why am I strange?
I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I like about public speaking. I like trying to turn potentially complex and boring information into something accessible and funny. I like challenging the expectation that presentations must be formal, prepared and verbose, by speaking conversationally and simply. I like speaking after someone who mumbled and everyone looks relieved/perks up just because I speak loudly.
There is nothing more rewarding than finishing a presentation and knowing that people:
- Heard it
- Understood it
- Absorbed it
- Enjoyed it
At the Environment Group meeting today, the 14 team leaders had to spend two minutes introducing their team and areas of expertise. Now, our company is full of very clever educated professionals so I was surprised that the presentations were mostly bad — worse than university presentations.
How were they bad? All right, putting their boring content aside, the leaders failed very basic rules of public speaking.
- They spoke too softly
- Limited eye contact, referring to notes
- Spoke five minutes instead of two — Come on, it’s two minutes! Why have you prepared five pages of notes? You should have five dot points.
- Used jargon and complex words when simple ones would have sufficed
- “Um, ah, yeah, you know, erm…”
It really was disappointing to watch.
For goodness sake, just speak slower. Prepare your speech then cut it half. Speak up. Stop saying, “In regards to…” These are really simple things professionals should know.
I’m not a brilliant inspirational speaker but I do try to think about the audience when I speak instead of steam-rolling through my speech, desperate for the pain to be over.
For the record, my team put on a puppet show for our presentation 🙂
Addendum at 10:17 PM — My old uni has just invited me to be a graduate speaker at an information night for senior high school kids. Ho ho ho, what fun! *big grin*
It seems that there are many skills that aren’t really taught properly in general mass education but are highly regarded and sought after, with public speaking being one of them. This leaves the door open for people who have a knack for such skills, or have developed them through their own initiative, to be instant tall poppies.
In this case, Joanium, you are certainly not the shortest, and are red all over!
Have pity for us poor souls who have only learnt to mumble and bore… and have never used a puppet.
Public speaking workshops were available at my high school only to “student leaders”. They were fairly good workshops — they told you what the good things to do were, what the bad things to do were, and let you practice them.
But not everyone actually implemented the things they were taught — often people still mumbled in their assembly reports, at presentation night. I guess people don’t really care how they sound. Or they don’t realise how bad it sounded.
I was asked to do a “motivational speech” to year 7s just after I’d graduated from year 12. It was the best fun I’d ever had — I put on a magic show. 🙂
I honestly believe that on average, the younger people are better presenters. The Young Professionals all spoke well at work functions. At uni, the environmental engineering students were all good speakers — even the worst ones would have put in a better performance than the ones I saw yesterday.
After work yesterday I went to a seminar at Engineers Australia and although the presenters there were relatively young, they weren’t great either. They just sounded a bit nervous and apologetic.
Vera, I would have liked to see your magic show!
It really is quite sad that such an essential skill is so lacking in the general population. I think it all comes down to confidence, people aren’t confident in themselves and they don’t like to take risks.
I read somewhere that in one-on-one in-person communication, 70% is communicated by body language, 20% in the tone of your voice and a staggering 10% in what is actually said. This may be a bit extreme, but it is probably not far off the truth.
The truth is, of course, that most people are terrible public speakers and very bad communicators in general… yet another obstacle in my quest for world peace
I agree, Daniel. The obstacle is that madmen and dictators tend to be more articulate and charismatic than sane peope 😛