My book Confessions of a Public Speaker is published and doing well – but to write it well I did much research. Here’s what I learned from reading more that 50 books on public speaking:
50% or more of the advice is the same. Dale Carnegie got much of it right 50 years ago in Public Speaking for Success (one of the best I read – I’m surprised too). And he hits the same points Aristotle and Cicero taught 2000 years before. You can throw a dart at a stack of these books and get much the same advice. It goes like this: know your audience, be concise and practice. The problem is this takes effort, more effort than buying books. Knowing and doing are not the same thing. Joining Toastmasters, where you practice, is likely one of the best things you can do.
You can’t learn a skill by reading alone. My book makes fun of this in several places as I do want you to be a better speaker. But public speaking is a skill and the only way you get better at any skill is to do it, not just read about it. You’d never expect to be a good guitar player just by reading about it, yet somehow for things that scare us that’s exactly why we buy and read books. We’re hoping to dodge a bullet. Books can help but only if you practice.
Rhetoric is boring. Many of these books have several chapters on rhetoric, or the construction of arguments. This is good stuff, but it’s oh so boring. Even chapters in these books about passion (ethos) are boring. It’s the common academic trap of people writing for comprehensiveness rather than for pragmatics. Thank You For Arguing, by Heinrichs, was the best of the bunch in that respect.
Standard books might be the wrong way to learn this. As great as Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepare’s is (he’s the guy who originated Method Acting), can you be a great actor from reading it? Not unless you do a lot of acting after you read it. I’d say 30-40% of the books have nearly the same textbook structure of chapters and content. At least An Actor Prepare’s is an intimate personal read. Many books on speaking are shallow and stay on the surfaces of things, never touching on why people fail even after they’re read these books.
There are many fancy methods and tricks that play on people’s interests to make this seem simple. No surprise here, but books with titles like power speaking, magic presenting, instant persuasion, extreme lecturing, etc. mostly just rehash Carnegie’s advice, and do it poorly. Performing, which is what speaking always is, resists being boiled down.
Lecturing has been well researched it’s just no one knows about it. There is so much misinformation about what works or doesn’t in public speaking. One magnificent gem is the book What’s the use of Lectures? In all my interviews and chats I haven’t found anyone who’s heard of this book despite how amazing it is. It’s on the dry side, but it’s a summary of all the research that has been done on lectures and what makes them work well or not. No myths. No voodoo. Just good advice based on actual research.
20-30% of the books focus on one tool or specific type of speaking. There are piles of books just about PowerPoint, many about Keynote, and tons about pitching, or teaching, or doing seminars. And they mostly strike at the branches, rather than the roots. If you get the core dynamics of style, attention and making points, it’s not hard to move from one form to another. And books about software, in the guise of books about speaking mostly promote slideuments, something Garr Reynolds rightfully fights against.
So what am I doing What’s different in my book?
There is a real person here. It’s titled Confessions of a public speaker for a reason. I’m completely honest with you. I have license, via the title, to call bullshit on myths, and legends that get in the way and to tell you useful things some are too polite to mention. I can share the messed up things that happen backstage, what speakers really think of their audiences, etc.
I tell real stories. Many books take on a “I’m a perfect speaker” tone that doesn’t help people learn. I know I’m far from perfect, as my speaking experiences over the last 15 years, which include many embarrassing, comical, and occasionally criminal behavior. I learned the very hard way and I’d love for you to do better. I also have stories from other veteran speakers, teachers, and professors who were happy to share their honest thoughts about all this.
Like my other books, it’s fun, direct and honest. I’m write books I wish someone had given me when I started.
One of the most annoying bad habits some people have when they give a presentation is the use of “ummmm” to fill the space between words. Why do people do this?
There are four reasons:
It’s a habit in normal speech. People don’t just do it on stage, they do it in real conversations all the time. We just don’t notice it as much. In one study 40% of all verbal mistakes are umms, or filler noises, of some kind (From Errard’s book, below).
It’s a way to hold the floor. By making noise you indicate you’re not done and prevent other people from interrupting you. This is not necessary of course when on stage, unless it’s a really tough crowd.
It’s a nervous habit. Some people do it more when they are nervous. Generally the worst way to express nerves is through your mouth if you’re giving a presentation.
We are afraid of silence. There is the feeling among many people when they speak that if they are silent people will boo them off the stage. So they feel obligated never to stop making some kind of sound.
In Michael Errard’s excellent book Um: Verbal Blunders and What They Mean, he explains that we make many verbal mistakes every day, on the order of one every 10 or 15 words. We just overlook them. We stop, restart, change words, clip words, repeat phrases, all the time. He calls these slips disfluencies. Read a transcript of any conversation, even on TV talk shows, and you’ll see what a mess language is if you pay close attention.
However any repeated filler noise like “ummm” becomes distracting if you are the primary speaker. Other fillers include “So”, “Like”, and “Know what I mean” (Curiously different languages use different sounds). Anything repeated unnecessarily can become an annoyance.
As annoying as this habit can be it’s an easy habit to fix.
How to break the habit:
Admit you have a problem. This is always the first step and it’s the hard one. Many have this bad habit but don’t know, since they’ve never listened to themselves speak. Record your next talk and listen. If you umm more than once every 5 minutes, you may have a problem.
Practice with intent. In the privacy of your own home, practice one of your presentations, but stop and start over when you say ‘umm’ or other filler words. Set a goal of trying to go 5 minutes, then 10, then 30, without ‘umming’ once. This is a great way to work yourself out of many bad speaking habits.
Enjoy the Silence. Depeche Mode had it right. Pick your favorite speaker and pay attention to their pauses. Good speakers enjoy their silence. They take patience between points to let them sit. And when lost allow themselves a few moments of silence to sort things out in their own mind. If you notice when a speaker is silent they draw in more power from the room, like a wave going out before it comes back in.
Feel the pain! Some Toastmasters groups go so far as to have an Ummm-gong: someone who rings a little bell every time someone says “ummmm” in a practice presentation. It’s a bit militant but instant negative reinforcement may do the trick for you.
Have a story about presentation death from ummms? or know now a trick for getting rid of them? Leave a comment.
One of the most annoying and bad habits of public speakers is the constant use of “ummmm” to fill the space between words. Why do we do this?
There are four reasons:
It’s a habit in normal speech. People don’t just do it on stage, they do it in real conversations all the time. We just don’t notice it as much. In one study 40% of all verbal mistakes are umms of some kind (From Erard’s book, below).
It’s a way to hold the floor. By making noise you indicate you’re not done and prevent other people from interrupting you. This is not necessary of course when on stage, unless it’s a really tough crowd.
It’s a nervous habit. Some do it more when they are nervous. Generally the worst way to express nerves is through your mouth if you’re giving a presentation.
We are afraid of silence. There is the feeling among many people when they speak that if they are silent people will boo them off the stage. So they feel obligated never to stop, and never to stop making some kind of noise.
In Michael Errard’s excellent book Um: verbal blunders and what they mean, he explains that we make many verbal blunders all day every day, on the order of one every 10 or 15 words. We just overlook them. We stop, restart, change words, clip words, repeat phrases, all the time. He calls these slips disfluencies. Read a transcript of any conversation, even on TV talk shows, and you’ll see what a mess language is if you pay close attention.
However any repeated filler noise like “ummm” becomes distracting if you are the primary speaker. Other fillers include “So”, “Like”, and “Know what I mean”. Anything repeated unnecessarily can become an annoyance.
As annoying as this habit can be it’s an easy habit to fix.
How to break the habit:
Admit you have a problem. This is always the first step and it’s the hard one. You may do it an not know. Record the next talk you give and listen. If you umm more than once every 10 minutes, you may have a problem.
Practice. Most people can learn their way out of the habit if they practice talking and catch themselves every time they um.
Enjoy the Silence. Depeche Mode had it right. Pick your favorite speaker and pay attention to their pauses. Good speakers enjoy their silence. They take patience between points to let them sit. And when lost allow themselves a few moments of silence to sort things out in their own mind. If you notice when a speaker is silent they draw in more power from the room, like a wave going out before it comes back in.
Feel the pain! Some toastmasters groups go so far as to have an “ummmgong”, someone who rings a little bell every time someone says “ummmm” in a practice presentation. It’s a bit militant but it probably works.
Have a story about presentation death from ummms? or know now a trick for getting rid of them? Leave a comment.
It’s kind of silly question as I’m not sure a speaker can effectively ban anything in their audience, but someone asked me this the other day. It’s an interesting question if you pile all the technology of laptops, mobile devices and phones, and how that helps or hurts the ability for a speaker to keep people’s attention.
A better question is: what is the best way for everyone to get as much value from the speaker as possible?
75% of all tweets quote the speaker
13.6% were alerting others where they were
6% arranged for meeting up to discuss something
5% praised the speaker
4.4% were random or off-topic
First off, it’s important to note this breakdown will change wildly depending on:
How good the speaker is in keeping people’s positive attention
The makeup of the audience and their interest in good will
As a speaker, the above seems like good numbers. Some of those tweets repeating what was said will hit people who aren’t in the room, effectively making the audience larger. Assuming they quote the speaker accurately, this makes the effective audience bigger.
But anyone who is staring into a laptop is not making eye contact with the speaker – they are taking a little bit of energy out of the room in order to give it to people who also have their eyes on laptops, either in the room or elsewhere. I’d rather have most people fully engaged on what I’m saying, and a few dedicated people live tweeting, then never being sure if people’s noses in laptops is a good sign or bad.
Read the rest of their post for a summary of kinds of tweets they found – if ever you choose to livetweet a session, there’s good advice here.
Everyone talks about how this room or that room was “a tough room” or a “tough crowd”. What makes one crowd tough and another one easy? Sometimes I think it’s mostly the speaker trying to explain why they didn’t do as well as they’d have liked, and the toughness of the crowd is an easy target.
I’d argue you can’t know how tough a crowd is or not unless you get there early enough to see another speaker present – only then can you calibrate how good they were, with how quiet or hostile the crowd was in response. With a sample size of 1 – you and your talk – you don’t have enough data to say anything about the crowd’s toughness.
I think often the tough crowd is created by the speaker not being informed enough about what’s going on in the room. What are they mad about? Why are they so quiet?
Here’s some advice on tough crowds:
Every audience has a vibe – know what it is. Some professions, countries, and groups are quieter or more reserved than another. Ask other people who have spoken at the group, or ask the host. It might seem tough to you, but entirely normal to them. Calibrate your expectations.
Know the things that make them mad, and avoid. Every company or industry has words they hate or facts they don’t want to hear. For example, mentioning Google at Microsoft, or Microsoft at Google, is sure to provoke a response. Choose stories and examples carefully.
Nothing makes an audience happier than talking about what they came to hear. Perhaps they’re upset because of recent news, layoffs or a product failing in the marketplace. If there’s some constructive way you can work their true issues into your session, you can relieve the pressure they’re feeling.
There is always someone in the crowd who hates you the least. Find the people who seem most positive or active and give them as much of your attention and eye contact. Rewarding their positive responses will encourage them to keep doing it, and possibly help others in the audience follow along.
What are other factors that make crowds tough? And what are counter moves speakers should know? I’d love to hear your stories on tough crowds you’ve faced and what you learned (or didn’t 🙂
We all know most lectures are boring. They go on too long, most speakers are dull on stage, and sitting in big dark rooms for an hour or more is not going to help anyone stay awake.
But if they’re so boring why do we go? We go because we have little choice. If we want to hear from an expert on something, either we read their books (possibly boring) or go listen to them talk (also likely boring). There just isn’t a Bill Nye the Science guy video for most people’s ideas.
But there are things a thoughtful speaker can do -Here’s some simple tricks to fix dull lectures:
Kill the intro. Good storytelling gets into the middle of story fast. Rip out the backstory, the story of how you first got into your field, of where you were when you first got the idea, blah blah blah. Tear it out. Start with the first challenge you faced. The first mistake you made. Keep your intro to 30 seconds – that’s the length of an entire TV commercial and should be all you need to establish what you’re going to talk about.
Structure #1 – Problems and Solutions. Structure your talk around problems people in the audience likely have and how to solve them. Then everything you say will be structured around things they are interested in, or can at least relate to.
Structure #2 – Frequently asked questions. Instead of making your lecture like a bad textbook, all background and theory, structure the talk around the most frequently asked questions you get on the topic. Or the most interesting and bizarre questions. Or the most challenging and difficult questions. Much of the same material can fit into your answers, but because it’s structured differently it’s much more interesting to follow.
Make it shorter. Never use the full time you are granted. Never ever ever. Plan to end 10 minutes early to leave time for Q&A. If the audience fills that time with questions, that’s great. But If they have no questions, it often means they don’t want to hear more: so ending early is a gift to them.
Vary your slides. An endless barrage of bulleted lists is attention death. It divides the attention of the audience between listening to you and reading, which is not good for anyone. Find a way to tell a short story, illustrating each point, with just one nice high quality image, edge to edge, on the screen. Even 30 seconds of strong visual imagery will reset people’s attention spans for the next dull slide.
Practice. Insights and polish come only from practice and repetition. You have to go through your material several times if you want to be comfortable with the stories you’re going to tell and the way you’re going to tell them.
