Posts for Tag: Speaking Tip

The Toastmasters Trap

Toastmasters International has been the most influential organization in my personal and professional development. Over the years I have been a member, I have become more confident, more action orientated, and better able to accomplish the goals I have established for myself. With that being said, there is one trap that Toastmasters has created and I wonder if you have fallen into it yourself.

What is the trap?

Imagine for a moment that you are in a presentation outside of a Toastmasters meeting. As you sit there listening to the speaker, what do you notice?

  • Is the speaker pacing the room in a way that is annoying?
  • Does the speaker laugh too hard at his or her own jokes?
  • Did the speaker point directly at someone in the audience?
  • Was the speaker using ums, ahs, you knows, and other filler words?
  • Did the speaker not have a clear opening, body, and closing?

If that is all you picked up from the speaker, then you have fallen into the trap.

The trap is expecting every speaker to speak like a Toastmaster.

As a Toastmaster, you learn a system for speaking more effectively. The Toastmasters system makes you more confident, effective, and better prepared as a speaker. What the system also does is create a trap that makes you believe that every speaker has to speak like a Toastmaster.

The secret to being a respected speaker is not that you have eliminated filler words, but that you have changed the lives of the audience for the better.

If you have a desire to become a professional speaker, then know that the person that is writing the check is not deducting money for each um and uh. They are paying you to make a lasting impact on the lives of the audience. This can be done with or without the techniques taught by Toastmasters.

I was reminded of this fact when I was reading a public speaking advice blog. The writer of the blog was critiquing one of the most highly paid coaches and speakers in the world, Marshall Goldsmith. In his critique, he talked about the bad habits Marshall had and how it distracted from his effectiveness as a speaker.

Having read Marshall Goldsmith’s bestselling book, I was interested, so I watched the video the blog referenced:

Was laughing at his own jokes annoying?

Did he not follow all of the “rules” of public speaking?

Yes, but that video changed my life for the better. After the first few moments, it didn’t matter what habits he had. All that mattered is that I am far better off in life after watching the presentation. That is more than I can say from many technically perfect presentations I have seen.

Do we need to continue to improve our speaking habits?

Yes, but the most important part of the speech is the message. Focusing on the techniques can be a trap for many Toastmasters and loosening up a little on “the rules” could be good for us all.

About the Author: My Toastmasters Blog is written and edited by Chris Elliott, the founder of the young professional coaching site Young Profit Pros. Chris enjoys using his knowledge and experiences during his speaking engagements, workshops, consulting projects, and one-on-one coaching sessions. The result—connecting people and empowering change. If you would like information on how you can bring Chris to speak to your next meeting, please download Chris' one sheet or contact him by clicking here.

Emphasis mine. Stumbled across on the web

Make Listeners Feel They're Part of Something Bigger

Ron Daly got it. He understood the most effective strategy for any kind of communication: Don’t start with what you want to tell people. Start with how you want them to feel.

This rule comes from a snippet of wisdom that should be taped to the bathroom mirror of communicators everywhere: People may forget exactly what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

And how, exactly, do you want them to feel?

To create the most compelling, award-winning, knock-it-out-of-the-park speech—whether your executive is launching a new product or announcing safety policies—this is your answer:

People need to feel that they're part of something bigger than themselves.

Reported by @OliviaMichell at Twitter.

Characteristics of a great presentation

The ten key characteristics
The research produced 246 descriptions of what makes a great presentation. These descriptions have been analysed and produced ten key characteristics of great conference presentations.

  1. Content. It does not matter how clever you are, you still have to have something interesting to say. If people are going to give the speaker 20-25 minutes of their life, they want more than entertainment, they want to hear something useful, something they did not know before.
  2. Voice. The presenter needs to actively use their voice. One comment in particular highlights the extent to which voice is central to the process, “It’s partly his voice - he never speaks too quickly, and his tone is modulated and smooth without feeling put on - but it’s more that you feel that he’s speaking to you personally, not just reciting a bunch of jargon from a PowerPoint slide.” In a presentation the best way to emphasise a point is not to use caps, not to use bold, not to underline, but to use the presenter’s voice.
  3. Audience. The focus of the presentation has to be the audience, not the data and not the presenter. Key comments include “their understanding of their audience”, “being interactive with their audience”, and “engage the audience (not one-way traffic)”. Like a considerate lover, we need to concentrate on “How was it for you?”
  4. Story. For the last few years everybody who is anybody has been saying that storytelling is the key to better presentations, and there is clearly a lot of support for this view. Attendees are looking for narrative themes, analogies and anecdotes. They don’t want to see data, they want to hear what the data means and what its implications are.
  5. Style. One of the hardest concepts to isolate is style. People know they want style, but they vary in what they mean and how they describe it. For example “Style, speaking to the audience, PAUSING for emphasis, no notes, entertaining with some levity, self deprecation” and “Relaxed and informal style, but also confident, upbeat, lively”. The variation in the descriptions of what ‘style’ means makes it harder to define it. However, it is clear that style is not something that just happens, it is the presence of a personalised approach, something which goes beyond just competence, something which adds that others would not have added.
  6. Ability. The word ability occurs frequently in the responses, linked to a variety of topics. Presenters need to realise that it is not enough to make an effort, presenters need to develop the skills to be able to deliver against these standards.
  7. Argument. The use of the words argue and argument, for example “The way he or she argues the content” and “Argument, passion, and slides” show that people are looking for presenters to be more than a neutral reporter, they are looking for a case to be put forward with coherence and passion.
  8. Confidence. Confidence is to some extent related to ability, but it also expresses the way that ability is used in the communication process. For example: “Confidence, thorough knowledge of what they are going to present, they don’t just read out slides, they summarise well and point out things which are not obvious from slides”. If the audience has confidence in the presenter, then he or she does not need to hear about every step, enabling the focus to be on the findings and not the process.
  9. Engaging. Audiences want to be actively engaged. This is one of the biggest changes that has happened over the last 30 years. It is almost as if audiences are suffering attention deficit syndrome. If presenters do not engage audiences the message will not be heard, and will be of little value.
  10. Humour. Many responses talked about humour. Audiences aren’t looking for non-stop laughs, but they are looking for humour to be used as part of the audience-focused engagement process.

From a long piece (oriented towards market research) on what makes a great presentation.