Public Speaking

Public Speaking… Badly

I was in a temporary office job and they had arranged for an external speaker to attend. This can invariably be a risky affair because as a temp not only do I rarely have a clue as to the subject matter, but I also have to sit through speakers of varying quality. Over the years in various jobs like this I have suffered a fair few people who can't do public speaking. And this time was no exception. I have to say that he was probably one of the worst speaker I’ve seen.

Even though some of the subject matter went over my head, my fellow colleagues told me that I wasn’t alone in thinking him bad.

Firstly, he had his “notes” on his laptop and kept leaning into it to read off the screen. They weren’t even notes for him they were points projected onto the screen behind him.

His hesitations would’ve put Eddie Izzard to shame and then when he spoke he swallowed his words, rambled and digressed. Someone obviously told him that all he needed to do was speak naturally because he certainly did that and was dull as hell.

He didn’t even pause correctly. He was halfway through a sentence drank some water and then went back of the sentence he’d already begun. If you’re going to drink water, either because you need it or because it’s a timed pause, then try to at least do it before or after a sentence, unless it helps with a punchline. But then there’s a danger of talking into the glass, which thankfully he didn’t do.

Even though you may want to speak naturally you still have to make points that need to be reiterated. You don’t just tell people everything you know about a subject and keep going until you cover the items on the screen.

For me a public speaking speech should sound natural, you should capture your own speaking rhythm. But this should be refined and edited to cut the useless words, right? You know what I mean?

If it’s appropriate for the speech then try to lace it with humour. Or if it’s not you could be amusing about yourself in your intro and then segue into the speech proper. And this is probably going to sound like I’m preaching to the converted but it might also be worth writing the speech down and learning it until it sounds natural, because it was clear to me that this guy hadn’t.

The scary thing is he was a Chief Executive of the company he represented and so everything I’m talking about here should be basic stuff for someone of his level. But it is amazing how often I've suffered through similar speeches which are delivered by people who are more than competent at their job, but lousy at conveying an important message.

I know that many of the people that they are speaking to know the subject really well, so they can essentially chat about a topic. But there are always going to be people like me taking the minutes, or others in different scenarios, who are not going to be able to follow the speech. Generally because the public speaker in question contradicts, digresses and doesn't speak loudly enough - to outline a few problem areas. In my experience, the amount of public speakers I've seen who can deliver a clear and concise speech, who work in either the public or private sector, I can count on the fingers of one hand.

Which is, frankly, absurd. This stuff should be prerequisite training. If it's not allowable by budget constraints then people should investigate and research what they need to do in order to improve in this area. But unfortunately, there aren't that many people around with either the courage or the knowledge to be able to tell them.

Public Speaking