Corporate E-Learning

Welcome to the Public Speaking workshop. According to a survey by the Sunday Times of London, 41% of people list public speaking as their biggest fear. Forget small spaces, darkness, and spiders – standing up in front of a crowd and talking is far more terrifying for most people. However, mastering this fear and getting comfortable speaking in public can be a great ego booster, not to mention a huge benefit to your career. This workshop will give you some valuable public speaking skills, including in-depth information on developing an engaging program and delivering your presentation with power.

The key to effective public speaking is preparation. The better you prepare, the more confident you will feel. Preparation begins with identifying your audience. What do you know about your audience? What do they care about? What’s important to them? Do they have any misconceptions about your topic? These are the kinds of questions you should ask as part of your preparation. Sitting down and listing the questions, and your answers to them, will give you a basic structure for your speech, around which you can add things and take them away as you see fit. Holding the attention of an audience and speaking to what interests them is the most important thing about any public speech. It is not merely about what you say, but also how you say it. If you have a message you wish to get across, then think of how that message will communicate itself best to the audience you are speaking to.

The main advantage of creating an outline is that it helps you to organize your thoughts. The audience gets more out of a presentation when it is well-organized. They also are more likely to think that the speaker knows the subject thoroughly and has given some thought on how to present it. In this module we will be considering a hypothetical presentation about a project that has just been completed, but the general approach we will consider is applicable to just about any type of presentation. Often this approach is seen as being similar to creating a body. You start with the skeleton – the basic outline, the bare minimum of the speech in something like the shape that it will eventually take – and progress by adding meat to the bones, and layering the rest on top of that. At key points of the presentation, specific issues will need to be confronted, and by allotting them a place in the basic outline you will be able to ensure that these are prioritized and addressed correctly.

The key to creating a well-organized speech or presentation is to keep your audience in mind. Start with something that will capture their attention and give them a clear idea of your topic. Organize the body of your presentation in a way that will be easy for your audience to understand. Plan to review your main points briefly and then wrap things up on a positive note, perhaps giving your audience a “call to action.” The essential thing to remember is that you are giving your presentation for the benefit of your audience. That means you need to organize it in a way that will make sense to them. The most important thing to keep in the forefront of your mind is that you are not making the speech for yourself, but your audience. Think of how politicians do things. When they are campaigning they will speak to groups as diverse as different occupations, different ethnicities, and different ages. How they will speak to each changes between speeches. Then, when they are speaking to a cabinet meeting of fellow politicians, the language and the issues will be different again. Keep this in mind when giving a presentation.

Audiences are often a little skeptical about a speaker’s message, especially if the speaker is addressing a controversial issue. You can build credibility with an audience by using reliable sources of information and backing up your statements with citations to trusted authorities. You need to think about your presentation as though it was going to be written down on paper and distributed throughout the audience and their bosses. Throwaway lines which you assumed would just pass over people’s heads will end up being the bits that certain people remember – so be sure to keep a close eye on what you say and how you say it. Often, people make the mistake of believing that the more they say, the better their speech is. Others, feeling that brevity is the soul of wit, keep what they say to a minimum. As with so many things, the truth lies somewhere in between and the key to making a presentation as powerful and as well-received as it can be is to say enough, and make what you say mean enough. There is no point in fleshing out a presentation with extraneous detail which no-one will remember, and at the same time you should avoid leaving out anything remotely important so that your message is strong, coherent, and memorable.

Once you’ve outlined your speech and lined up some solid evidence to back up your ideas, it’s time to put all the pieces together. Whether you plan to write out your speech word for word or just speak from notes, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to say — the actual words, not just the ideas. It is generally recommended not to have everything you want to say written down but rather a series of prompts. If you appear to be reading from a script, then there is less chance of you getting your point across with the power that you want it to have. Nonetheless, you should refrain from improvising too much as there are clear disadvantages to this process, not least of them the fact that this is filled with risks such as momentarily being lost for words. This makes you appear less competent, and people will be less likely to take you seriously. The general impression is that you should have in mind the body of what you want to say, and any additions which occur to you can always be included. Therefore, you do not have to worry about deviating from a pre-written speech, while also avoiding the dangers of having nothing to say.

Preparation serves several important purposes: • It boosts your self-confidence. • It reduces the chances of something going wrong. • It creates an impression of you as a competent, diligent person. • It makes it easier for you to give a polished, professional presentation. It is often said that those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail. The reason for this is that only by preparing properly will you eliminate the obvious potential errors that can turn what would be an excellent speech into a mess. By taking the time to prepare, you can look ahead to the presentation and get an impression for how it should and will go. It will also allow you to take into consideration what difficulties may arise, and have a strategy for dealing with each of them. Some people can walk into a room and hold the attention of their audience by speaking “off the cuff” for half an hour or more. These people are naturally gifted, and quite rare. Usually, they make a living as stand-up comedians, as comedy is one of very few fields where the act of preparing a routine is not hamstrung by the necessity for getting every fact right and every detail nailed down. This does not mean that delivering a presentation cannot be an enjoyable process. In fact, the right amount and the right kind of preparation can ensure that the presentation is enjoyable, informative, and useful both for you and for your audience.

Module Eight: Overcoming Nervousness It’s OK to be nervous. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. If you are very calm before a presentation, you may be underestimating the difficulty of your assignment. If you’re calm because you consider the topic an easy one (a “no brainer”), you may not project enough interest in your subject. If you’re not nervous, you may have a hard time projecting the energy and enthusiasm that you will need to win your listeners’ attention. Nervousness can be a tool to communicate enthusiasm. Channel your nervousness by forcing yourself to speak clearly and to make eye contact with your listeners. It cannot be stressed too often that the element of balance is important in delivering a speech. Come across as too relaxed and you will sound a little bit bored. If you are bored, then the audience will expect to be bored as well, and they will need very little excuse to start mentally running through other things that they have to do later on that day. Conversely, if you come across as too nervous, they will wonder why you are giving the presentation rather than someone “competent”. Also remember that although eye contact with your audience is good, staring at them will just make them apprehensive – or worse yet, amused.

A few simple steps can help you improve the delivery of your presentation: • Start off strong by preparing an opening that will capture the audience’s attention. • Learn how to use visual aids effectively. • Check the volume of your voice. • Practice beforehand – to check running time, but not to the point where it is automatic. As long as you have the confidence to use the room to your advantage, and have your ideas straight in your head, the presentation really will take care of itself for most of the time. You will find that, simply through saying it and hearing it often enough, your speech will evolve to a point where you can make slight adjustments on the spot as and where necessary without it becoming confusing.

During the course of a presentation, you need to be aware of how things are going. Are people starting to lose interest? Do they need a break? Do you need to do something different to change the pace? When it’s time to wrap up your presentation, you need to remind people of your basic message. You hope that a week from now, if someone asked the members of your audience they would be able to recall what your presentation was all about. This is something that depends greatly upon the audience, but as you have no control over their reactions your job is simply to ensure that you get your message across as persuasively as you possibly can. You will probably be given an allotted time to deliver your presentation, and it is a good idea to take this time and look at all the elements you need to cover. By doing this you can then divide the allotted time into shorter spells in which you can cover the topics in hand.

The way you respond to questions will have a major effect on what kind of rapport you are able to build with the audience. If you answer questions thoughtfully and respectfully, people will feel that you are taking them seriously. If you give flip, dismissive answers, people will feel that you don’t have time for them. People may ask questions which are not a hundred per cent serious, but even then you should not be dismissive, simply take the question in the spirit it was intended and take the opportunity to display a sense of humor. Questions may well be an opportunity for you to get information into the presentation that you could not address due to overall time constraints. When someone asks a good question, begin your response with a sentence along the lines of “That’s a very good question, and I am glad you asked me that. I think the most important thing here is that...” If someone asks a question which you find either you cannot answer or which is difficult, do not simply say "I don't know" but say “That’s a good question. I have to admit I hadn’t covered that issue – what do you think?” This way you will not lose respect, but will allow discussion to flow more freely.

Although this workshop is coming to a close, we hope that your journey to improve your public speaking skills is just beginning. Please take a moment to review and update your action plan. This will be a key tool to guide your progress in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. We wish you the best of luck on the rest of your travels!