The Ideal Communicator

Question: “I know I’m not *supposed* to put my hands in my pockets or hold them behind my back when I give a speech, but most of the time I just don’t know what to do with them. What do you recommend?”   – Max, Toronto ON

Answer: How you move around depends on how you feel most comfortable. I’ve seen some speakers give a 30-minute speech with their hands by their sides the whole time, and some speakers give a presentation running around and waving their arms, and both looked perfectly appropriate because it fit that speaker’s style and personality.

Question: “I’ve been told that I say the words “um” and ”uh” throughout my presentation. Most of the time I don’t even notice that I say them. How do I get rid of this habit?” - Josh, Montreal QC

Speaking at a London girl’s school, Michelle Obama makes a passionate, personal case for each student to take education seriously. As far as persuasive speeches go, this one is clear, concise and passionate.

In this 12-minute speech, she engages the audience and develops a mutual connection with them right from the start with stories of her family, her modest upbringing, hardships experienced and overcome by her parents and herself, and how she met her husband. It is these stories that add the most colour to her talk, and that I believe provide the greatest bond with the audience.

This is a very inspirational speech that does not waver from its goal. Every story and example gets the point across of how “regular” people all have the power to do remarkable things if they get educated, help each other, pursue their passions, and use their talents to help their communities grow. If I was in her audience, I would feel like she’s speaking directly to me.

What would a presentation skills coach say?

The speech content is inspirational and well-structured. Very tight, direct, and persuasive. Calls-to-action at the conclusion, coupled with a smile, a strong voice and eye contact send off the audience with drive and motivation. The only thing I would add to the content would be a little more detail on her first date with her husband. My guess is that she didn’t want stories that were not relevant to the overall theme of her speech to overshadow the points she wanted to make. But it certainly would have been interesting!

So it all comes down to her delivery.

Where could she improve?

—  Microphone placement – Throughout most of the speech, she holds the microphone directly under her mouth, covering her chin and therefore obstructing part of her face. Holding the microphone two inches lower would have virtually no effect on the volume or clarity of her voice, and would allow her audience to see her whole face.

—  Filler words and sounds – “Uh” and “tsk.” In this speech, I counted 28 “uh’s” and 12 “tsk’s.” For a 12-minute speech, that’s almost 2.4 “uh’s” and one “tsk” per minute, which is quite a lot for someone who has to speak so regularly. These filler words can get quite distracting if they occur too often in a speech. Fortunately, once someone is aware of this problem, it’s easier to start fixing it.

The Undecided Issue: What about reading her notes?

I have to admit, I’m a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, although she read from her notes at times, she made sure to look up and maintain eye contact with her audience at least 75% of the time. However, a persuasive speech can be even more powerful if the speaker maintains eye contact with the audience 100% of the time. Notice the difference when she reads her notes, and then at the 11-minute mark, where she looks up and speaks from the heart in her concluding statements. Her passion really comes through whenever she looks up and speaks directly to the audience; and this passion is slightly diluted when she looks down to read her notes.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever use notes. However, you can reach much deeper into the hearts and minds of an audience if you speak directly to them, and not read from notes. What do you think?

A few weeks ago, I attended a full-day marketing and branding conference to listen to six individuals, all professional speakers, authors, and experts in their field. They were scheduled to take the stage for 45-60 minutes at a time, to an audience of approximately 1,000 people. Some of these speakers were more well-known than others, but all had a specific expertise, and I was eager to listen to them all and hear what they had to share.

What did I come out with?

1. The speakers who can make the audience laugh the most will be rated the highest
2. You don’t always need slides to get your point across concisely and powerfully
3. Even the best professional speakers can miss the mark and completely alienate the audience

Let’s focus on point #3.

All the speakers had their fan base. There were two speakers who were big draws – one of them was an author of several books, very active on social media, and a true expert in his field. I know many people who RT him on Twitter regularly, who read his books, and follow his advice. The other had fewer books, a little newer to the speaking field, but is a well known local personality.  And while I can accept that even the best speakers can have an “off” day (as I was told by someone who had seen these people speak before, who assured me that they are generally much better than their performance on that day), here’s what these speakers did that really annoyed the audience: Read the rest of this entry »

I went to a wedding over the weekend, and had the opportunity to listen to at least 7 different speeches given by the family and friends of the happy couple. The content of all the speeches was great – all were very heartfelt and warm, and written from a place of deep caring for the couple. However, in terms of how the speeches were delivered…well, that’s where there may have been some ‘cracks in the pavement’ for a few of them.

That’s not to say that they were bad – not in the least! Each speech was straight from the heart, and it was obvious that each speaker truly cared for the couple. Hey, it’s not easy to get up in front of a room of 300 people – many of them strangers – and deliver a speech. So I applaud each and every speaker for making the decision to put themselves in this situation and having the courage to give a speech.

Some speeches had an ‘edge’ to them – they were delivered loudly, clearly, and humorously. The others had some ‘issues’ – that could have been easily resolved – which would have made them even more well-received. Read the rest of this entry »