New York Executive Speech Coach » elements of presentation style

Public Speaking: The professorial Approach

SimsBeth — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:10:09 +0000

It just so happens I have two clients who talk too much in public. Both are extremely bright, and both strive to speak as though they were writing lapidary prose.

When in the act of public speaking, they challenge themselves to cover all the bases, approach the topic from all sides, and construct clause-laden sentences in the workshop of the mind before putting their polished utterances on the market for others to consider.

Each of them has been asked to stop it – to talk like a regular guy, get to the point, stop hemming and hawing. None of their colleagues could quite put a finger on the problem, but the feeback flung in their general direction was, “You talk too much. It takes you too long to say stuff, and it’s hard to follow you.”

It’s as if both of them imagine themselves back in graduate school giving their oral arguments for their terminal degrees. The number of “whereases, howevers, neverthelesses, and consequentlys” puts them at a disadvantage in the boardrooms where they often present. Senior executives want the executive summary, which they will probe with questions should their antennae sense something amiss.

Theirs are cases of style blocking substance. An impulse to wordiness obscures the meaning of their words. They both do too much public speaking and not enough private thinking. Or, they’ve done their thinking but cling to a professorial style that puts their business colleagues on edge.

Simple arguments stated simply do not necessarily lack sophistication. In fact, they may be the hardest to create. You have to know what you want to say, and say it as clearly as possible, parting with all extraneous information, boiling it down, and talking in plain old English.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

The champion of brevity: A man of few words

admin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:01:17 +0000

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States, was called “Silent Cal” because he was a true “man of few words.”

His predecessor in the White House, Warren Harding, was an expansive orator, who described his own style of speaking as “bloviating,” by which he meant “speaking a lot and saying nothing.”

Coolidge was a refreshing contrast. Once, after the president had attended church, a reporter had this conversation with Coolidge.

“What was the sermon about, Mr. President?”

“Sin,” answered Coolidge.

“What did he say about it?”

“He was against it.”

There’s another story about Coolidge’s brevity.

A woman in a receiving line at the White House once gushed to him, “Mr. President, I bet my husband that I could get you to say more than two words.”

“You lose,” was Coolidge’s reply.

While this is not an entertaining way of speaking, and actually conceals a contempt for the power of speech to enchant an audience, it is concise, matter of fact, and reveals a bone dry sense of humor.

Most of us talk too much. I know I do. I just got feedback from one of my clients, letting me know in no uncertain terms that they wanted to do more of the talking at any seminars I might have the privilege of running for them in the future.

My goal is to say what I want as efficiently as possible so that people actually are pleased when I open my mouth to talk.

Talk is cheap. There’s an over-supply and little demand.

Silent Cal was onto something.

The wonders of vehemence

admin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:42:36 +0000

Just back from a trip to the West Coast, where I was working with people at the top of the food chain in terms of their cognitive intelligence. Yale, Stanford, Notre Dame–brainiacs. My assignment? Help them get presence!

I skirted that word by simply saying that presence is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. So we did not spend any time trying to define it. Instead, we spent time trying to display it.

So far, having dismissed the foggier aspects of the topic as too obscure for our purposes, we are working on vehemence as a behavior that could lead to presence.

We’re not saying that being more expressive is the only way to have presence, but it’s a start. To speak with vehemence makes people pay attention, which makes the speaker more of a presence in the consciousness of the listener.

I am aware of the argument that to speak with vehemence is to assert one’s truth by increasing the violence of the assertion. But I am also aware of the unfortunate fact: if truth were self-evident, eloquence would not be necessary.

We are working on vehemence of purpose, vehemence of structure, vehemence of word choice, and vehemence of speech and gesture. The before and after contrast was astounding.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Storyboarding your presentation

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:39:11 +0000

I recently came across Lillipip, a company that creates animated videos about your product, service, or concept. Check them out.

They have a simple storyboarding template of four blank squares. In the first, you draw or paste a picture of your client in pain, along with the exclamation that’s coming out of your customer’s mouth. Nice and simple.

Then, you draw or paste a picture of the visual metaphor for your product, service, or concept. For example, a health club might visualize itself as being able to turn a couch potato into an Adonis.

In the third panel, you draw or paste a picture of your client– happy after you’ve removed the pain. Again, you also draw the exclamation that comes out of the client’s mouth.

Finally, in the fourth panel, you draw or paste a picture of you, your logo, or your product, and write one thing you want the client to do or remember.

This is good stuff for presenters too. It helps us think visually. It keeps our presentations focused on our listeners’ problems, and forces us to present solutions. It makes us think about emotions in addition to information. It encourages us to use metaphor, which is the ability to link what is new to something familiar. And finally, it demands that we have a call to action at the end of our presentation.

Plus, it helps those of us who are word people speak the language of picture people, which gives us stereophonic input into the brains of both tribes.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Movie Review: The King’s Speech

admin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:13:38 +0000

It begins with an agonizing silence–The Duke of York standing at a microphone in Wembley Stadium trying to bring the world’s greatest exposition to a dignified conclusion for the entire British Empire listening on the radio. His stammering and stage fright make him unable to speak.

In the historical moment, when the new medium of radio is the new global technology for the dissemination of the English language, this is a crisis both personal and institutional.

The institution of the monarchy is shaken by the death of George V, the Duke’s father, and the abdication of Edward VII, the Duke’s brother, leaving the stammering Duke (and future king) to be regent of the Empire as Hitler sets war in motion.

The country needs a king it can stand behind in its darkest hour. The Duke and his wife search for a speech teacher, and after engaging a few quacks, find a keeper in Geoffrey Rush playing Lionel Logue, the Australian son of a brewer smitten by Shakespeare yet lacking in the peculiar talents required for the thespian art.

Nevertheless, Lionel is a fine teacher, and pulls the King out of his tailspin to stir the nation with his radio addresses to the Empire.

If you’ve ever had stage fright; if you’ve ever stuttered; if you like anything English; if you like eavesdropping on Royals; if you are fascinated by history; if you love Shakespeare and “sad tales of the death of kings”; and if you want to see two or three extraordinary performances in one movie, go see this film.

I particularly liked it because it casts a speech teacher in a heroic light. There is in the film acknowledgement that through his speech, the King confers an identity on his people, that through his personal courage in overcoming his affliction, he communicates courage to the nation.

As the new King is left alone and ill-equipped to lead by the death of his father and the abdication of his brother, so is England left alone in Europe to confront the German war machine. The king rises to his challenge, and in so doing, embodies the story of his people.

Over-pursuit of goals

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:15:15 +0000

Suppose you went to a workshop and the leader threw a balled-up sock on the floor about eight feet in front of you.

“Visualize the path to the sock, then close your eyes, walk to the sock and put your hand on it,” you are told.

Your fellow work-shoppers watch in silence as you move toward the sock, and miss it completely. You hear them laughing and open your eyes. It’s there by your left foot. And then it’s their turn, while you watch them.

At the end, only two people out of ten succeed in doing it.

The instructor asks, “Who really wanted to touch the sock?” Six hands go up. “Pathetic,” says the instructor.

“When you’re too goal-oriented, focused on succeeding, you’re preoccupied with being perfect. Perfect is boring,” says the instructor.

He goes on. “There’s no story in perfect. ‘She walked across the floor and touched the sock. The end.’”

“But if you walk right past it and bump into the wall, then turn back and search the carpet with your feet, give up and get down on your hands and knees to sweep your arms in front of you, or roll across the floor to maximize your sensory exposure to the bump of the sock against your skin, that would be a story we’d all be telling when we get home tonight.”

Actors do this for each other. They change their reading of their lines depending on how their scene partners deliver theirs.

Cabaret singers look for accidents so they can humanize themselves, and break through the imaginary wall that exists between performer and audience. For instance, a man spills a drink during one of her songs, and she pulls her handkerchief out of her bra and mops up the martini with it.

Performers are always looking for happy accidents like that. Your listeners will remember how you responded to the accident better than they’ll remember all your well-rehearsed and well-chosen words.

I just saw a client giving a live demonstration of web-based software to about 100 people when she lost her internet connection. She called up the technical people to the stage and kept right on going, even while we could see all the screens the techies were trying to fix the problem.

She got credit, not just for the content, but for the qualities of character she displayed in coping with the technical failure.

The lesson? Don’t be so afraid of problems or accidents on the presentation platform. Problems can bring out the best in you.

As Al Gore said, “…defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”

Ideas for better Investigator Meetings

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:21:26 +0000

You may be aware that I’ve been going to investigator meetings and finding them kind of out-of-date.

We’ve got to get away from what’s easy for the sponsor, and instead move toward what is effective for the investigators and their associates.

What is easy for the sponsor is to have the usual cast of characters give PowerPoint presentations—all day, if need be.

What is effective for investigators and their associates is engagement with the information being presented.

When adults engage with new information, they assimilate it more easily into their already crowded store house of information.

Engagement with the information includes, but is not limited to:

- Spot quizzes

- Small group problem solving

- Case studies

- Competitive games for small groups or teams

- Live enactments with faux-patients and product

- Small group role plays in which investigators and associates play themselves, the patient, and individuals from the sponsor company who will be interacting with them during the course of the study.

- Hands-on experience with data systems

- Social time with sponsor personnel

Not only would investigators and their associates retain more of the information. They would enjoy the experience, and that enjoyment would attach to their perception of the sponsoring organization.

A win-win, right?

3 Ways to Avoid Communication Failure

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:03:05 +0000

Within less than a second, using your facial expressions, people make what are called spontaneous trait inferences about you. Warmth and competence are the two critical variables that other people use to assess your character and intentions.

According to Amy Cuddy, a Professor and researcher at the Harvard Business School, these two categories account for 80% of our overall evaluations of people, and shape our emotions and behaviors toward them.

Warmth is not only perceived first, according to Cuddy’s work, but accounts for more of someone’s overall evaluation than does their perception of competence.

If you happen to be a really serious, competent person (as I know you are since you are reading this), and you are also someone whose temperament, face , and voice do not readily communicate gladness, delight, and enthusiasm, you might be wondering what you can do to warm it up some.

Here are a few behaviors that can help you light up the room.

Appropriate self-disclosure, such as telling a story that reveals a relevant aspect of yourself that isn’t immediately apparent. For instance, I often speak about a recurring dream I had as a child, in which I stand atop a dam in Katonah, New York, wearing long white robes, looking like Lawrence of Arabia or Jesus of Nazareth, saying beautiful, powerful, and eloquent things to little tiny people standing way down below in the valley.

Then, to alleviate their concern that their speaker may be half-nuts, I go on to explain how the dream has played a significant role in my professional life, and may have some relevance for them.

Displaying a sense of humor is inherently persuasive. Getting people to smile or laugh literally changes their neurochemistry. This does not mean that you should tell jokes, but it does mean that you should visibly enjoy the company of others—visibly being the operative word.

For instance, I worked with a physician who was born in India. He gave many talks on HIV/Aids, and would open with, “As you can tell from my accent,…I am from Cleveland.” Audiences were delighted that he poked fun at himself (the best kind of humor) and no doubt paid closer attention to his serious talk about a deadly epidemic because of his energetic and engaging personality.

Smile for real—a natural smile –not the one you manufacture for the photographer. A real smile signals warmth, and amazingly, makes you and your listeners feel better. Many people find it hard to smile at the beginning of a talk because they’re nervous, which causes the muscles of the face to tense. But that’s even more reason to lift the corners of the mouth—and raise the eyebrows–to help yourself and to create that all important first impression.

A word of caution: too much warmth can make you appear to be a lightweight. People can think that if you were really competent, you wouldn’t need to be so nice. Or, conversely, they might assume that competent people don’t need to be nice. Nevertheless, the fact remains, competent people are more effective when they are perceived to be warm.

The work being done by social scientists such as Amy Cuddy continues to support the need for business communicators and leaders to master not only their content and the needs of their customers, but to master the signals they send when they speak.

Snap judgments and first impressions get no respect from serious people who want logic to rule the world. But the human tendency to leap quickly to judgments about others is a fact of life. We ignore it at our peril.

Presenting for Results^SM Update:

We have scheduled our 2nd public seminar called Presenting for Results^SM.If you are so inclined, please join us on Nov 18 & 19, 2010, at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, NJ, which is on Rte. 3 East, just east of the Garden State Parkway. The program is fun, eye-opening, highly experiential and beneficial to your confidence and career, and thus good for your company as well. Or let somebody who could benefit know about the program. There is very limited enrollment to keep it practical and interactive. Click here to learn more.

What’s the point you’re trying to prove?

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:01:32 +0000

Right now I’m sitting in the back of a hotel meeting room near Washington, DC, where two dozen physicians are rehearsing for a presentation to the regulatory authorities. They are debating what point they are trying to prove.

The question has to do with the use of a certain methodology to measure, in clinical trials, the efficacy of a class of drugs.

There is no agreement amongst those currently engaged in the discussion as to what the point is. Does the proposed methodology relate to clinical outcomes? Will it yield usable data? Should it be used only in high risk patients? Should it be mentioned in the label?

These people have been working on this issue for months, and yet here they are, not quite clear on what point they are arguing.

Because the key point in this situation is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to explain, they are instead discussing the relative value of certain pieces of evidence.

Evidence of what they are not sure, but they have evidence, so they are determined to use it. And maybe the debate will lead them to what they can and cannot claim.

It is interesting to consider whether, in situations like this, we determine our point by wrestling with our evidence and beating it into a clear point, or whether we decide what point we think we want to make and then test it against the evidence we have in our possession.

It seems to be me that rehearsal, or debate, is the forum in which we test our hypotheses against our evidence. It is the trial by fire, the stress test, by which we learn if we ourselves, and others, hear the ring of truth in our talk. If we have trouble making our evidence support our point, we must change our point, not our evidence.

Although if we want, and if we have time, we can look for more evidence to support our point, except in this case—in this room, at this moment—we don’t have time, and we’re still trying to agree on the claim that we want to make.

I think the key point is buried in our pile of data, like a needle in a haystack, and while we can see it glistening through the stalks, we can’t quite reach it with our mental tweezers, or find the right words that would pull it, like a magnet, out of the confusion.

Presenting for Results^SM Update:

Presenting for Results is Reborn

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:55:36 +0000

I am excited about the rebranding of our public program, an executive education experience called Presenting for Results^SM.

This is not like other executive education programs. It is creative rather than analytical. It calls on the imagination more than the intellect. It asks that you work from the neck down as well as from the neck up. It demands presence more than subject matter expertise. And it attempts to get you to care more about audience outcomes than you do about how you look.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to serve our client base in New Jersey and the larger metropolitan area, where so many large organizations must attract and retain executive talent. Talent is considered the scarcest commodity in business, and perhaps the key differentiator.

While I agree with the premise, (that talent is important), I think the statement is missing a qualifier. It would be more accurate to say that “developed talent is the scarcest commodity.” Everyone has talent lying dormant in the cells of their body. It requires effort to wake it up and get it in shape.

Presenting for Results^SM is designed to develop the most valuable talent that a person or a business can have—the ability to communicate well. Most of our careers depend largely on how we speak, write, and think, in that order. But nobody knows or cares what we think until we speak or write, and these days, no one has time to read. (Geez, why am I writing this?)

So speaking is crucial to those of us who aspire to leadership and influence. And speaking not so much about information that we’ve mastered, because information can be gotten in any number of ways, but speaking in order to make people feel something.

Feelings create actions, and that’s what good speaking is about, and what Presenting for Results^SM is about too.

To register, or to download the brochure, go to http://www.simswyeth.com/services/pfr/ And if you know people who could benefit from an invigorating educational experience, would you please forward them this post?

The New is hard

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:21:38 +0000

On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style. On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more customer-centric, a challenge he embraced with enthusiasm. However, when he delivered it, he was tentative and less effective. Why?

The simple answer is that the new is hard. Learning to play a musical instrument is hard, as is hitting a golf ball, or hitting a golf ball with a new grip, or getting used to being alone when you’ve been accustomed to being with people, or being with people when you’ve been flying solo for a while.

This is odd when you consider all the recent neuroscience demonstrating the plasticity of the brain. The research suggests that our gray matter can rearrange itself quite readily. Patients with damaged areas of the brain can, in some cases, recover lost abilities because another part of the brain steps in to lend a hand.

I assume the brain responds to demands placed on it. Maybe not right away. You have to keep knocking on the brain’s door before it will wake up and pay attention. But when it does, it gets busy figuring out how to meet your request, and puts together the infrastructure that will allow you to do what you’re trying to do.

The same is true of muscles. You put consistent demands on them, and they get stronger, more efficient. It’s not easy, but if you push yourself through your own resistance, they respond to the challenge.

I had to leave my client while he was still in a state of uncertainty, frustration, and diminished capacity. He was calling on other parts of his brain, and it wasn’t leaping out of bed and rushing to his rescue. He was in pain.

Here’s the $64,000 question: will he continue to try the new approach to his presentation, which I am certain will raise the level of his game? Or will he give up, and drop back to his default operating system?

The new is hard. If he’s like most of us, he will take the path of least resistance and stick with the tried and true. If he’s got an engine in him, he will drive himself into his pain and frustration, and come out on the other side with a sense of self-mastery and a new skill. He will have made the new familiar, and with the awareness that he is able to persist, he will continue to grow.

At least that’s my hope. I’m going to send him this post to light a fire in him.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Fierce Conversations

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:32:21 +0000

I read the following in The Alternative Board’s newsletter today and want to pass this on to presenters and persuasive speakers.

What conversations are you avoiding? Maybe it’s with a good friend you don’t want to hurt. Maybe it’s with a difficult person and you are concerned about their response. Or maybe it’s with a family member in your business.

Susan Scott, the author of the book “Fierce Conversations,” tells us that people want to hear the truth, even if it is unpalatable. There is something within us that responds deeply to people who level with us.

The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations:

Interrogate reality: Get everything out in the open. Identify the issue, check for understanding and agreement.
Make it real: What are you pretending not to know? Authenticity is not something you have; it is something you choose.
Be in the moment: Simply paying attention to someone, really asking, really listening can evoke a wholehearted response.
Tackle your toughest challenge today: Go directly to the source and confront the person, one-to-one, privately.
Find a way to say the things that can’t be said: Bring some of your private thoughts into the conversation without labeling them as truth, only conjecture to be explored together.
Take responsibility for your emotional wake: Deliver your message without the emotional load – blaming, sarcasm, exaggerating, labeling. Leave every conversation with the other person feeling better than before.
Use silence: Fierce conversations require silence. Ask a question that expands possibilities, then, wait.

The Three Steps in a Fierce Conversation

Make a clear, concise opening statement: Name the issue; give examples; describe your emotions; clarify what’s at stake; identify your own contribution to the problem; indicate clearly your wish to resolve the issue; invite the other person to respond.

Inquire into the other person’s view: Really try to understand their perspective, but don’t be satisfied with defensiveness or surface explanations. Ask for more, saying “I see things quite differently.”

Resolution: What have we learned? Where are we now? Make an agreement and determine how you will hold each other accountable.

What fierce conversations are you avoiding? Or what fierce presentation are you avoiding?

Maybe it’s time for a fierce conversation. Maybe it’s time for a fierce presentation! Thank you Susan.

Scientific research on communication

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:41:51 +0000

I was steered to a web video the other day by an e-mail from a friend, and found myself in a garden of presentation skills coaches (also on video), many of whom quoted research done by Dr. Albert Mehrabian of Stanford University.

You may be familiar with the data, which suggests that voice and body language carry much of the message spoken by a presenter, while the actual words used carry much less meaning.

I have spoken to Dr. Mehrabian, who is now retired and dealing in antique musical instruments. He is powerless to do anything about this misunderstanding of the findings of his research.

As a professor at Stanford, his research investigated how human beings communicate emotion. His data do not suggest that the fine distinctions needed for strategic plans, legal arguments or scientific presentations are communicated predominately by voice tone and body language.

His data do suggest that humans communicate emotion primarily through tone of voice and body language, which confirms intuition and/or common sense. They do not suggest that the entire meaning of your careful and thoroughly prepared presentation is carried by your voice and body.

How you feel about your content is important, but it’s not the whole story. Of course your delivery is important, but it is in service to ideas made of words that delivery earns its value.

Your speechwriter: How to get the most out of him

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:18:53 +0000

A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter.

And yet us speechwriters are often given only a brief time with the speaker to determine what she wants to say. From that brief meeting, we are expected to extract the message she wants to impart, and the sound, tone, texture, and rhythm of her verbal personality.

So, if you are a speaker, and you are working with a speechwriter in New Jersey or New York, (or anywhere else for that matter) how can you maximize the few minutes you have with your speechwriter?

Be prepared for the meeting with the speechwriter. Know the DNA of what you want to say. You can come up with this DNA by imagining that an audience member is considering coming to hear you, and asks, “What’s your speech about?” You’ve got less than 30 seconds to tell her. What do you say? Your answer should be one sentence long, and should contain the benefit that the listener will derive. For instance, President Obama might have said about his speech on race relations, “ My speech urges every American to have the difficult conversations about race so that our country can move beyond the historical divisions that have plagued our nation.”

Next, in order to help your speechwriter (and yourself), figure out the question to which your information is the answer. At the heart of what you will say is the information that you have mastered and your own interpretation of its meaning. But you can’t just dump the info on your listeners. You’ve got to figure out what emotional concern drives their interest in your topic. What question would the audience have to have in mind in order to make that information a fascinating, provocative question? Believe it or not, you have to spend about a third of your speech asking the question—even more if they are not that familiar with the topic or the issues. For instance, when trying to raise new rounds of venture capital, a biotech president might have to answer the question, “Why do we have to spend millions of dollars creating a new formulation for the molecule when it already demonstrates efficacy in its current formulation?”

Finally, give your speechwriter plenty of time to ask questions. Encourage him/her to get to know you. Take her out to lunch. Have a glass of wine with him. He or she needs to soak up who you are, what you care about, how you think, what you like and dislike, and your personal verbal style.

Only by inviting your speechwriter into your inner circle will you get what you want and need—a speech that captures not only what you want to say, but how you want to say it.

Creative Public Speaking and Presenting

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:43:53 +0000

Frank Kern is senior vice-president of IBM Global Business Services. On May 19, 2010, he released a new survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Are you ready for this? According to that survey, today’s CEOs identify “creativity” as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.

“That’s creativity—not operational effectiveness, influence, or even dedication. Coming out of the worst economic downturn in their professional lifetimes, when managerial discipline and rigor ruled the day, this indicates a remarkable shift in attitude.”

Creativity is also important in public speaking and presenting, and in the training and coaching of speakers too.

Many years ago, I heard Kathleen Hall Jamieson speak about the future of public speeches. She predicted that politicians and business leaders would be using music in their presentations—not just as preludes and postludes, but as integral parts of content, just as movies use scores.

We haven’t seen that yet.

And in the realm of training, the standard approach to developing people as speakers is a small group seminar that lasts a day or two in which people give presentations, see themselves on videotape, get feedback, and try to make adjustments.

This is fine, but it needs to be re-invented. Too much training is prescriptive and not creative. Most students are told how to organize their talks, how to design their PowerPoints, and how to stand still and use their hands.

We need to create highly effective speakers and presenters who will become creative speechwriters and presentation developers. And to do that we must create highly effective training and coaching programs in speechwriting and delivery skills.

However, I must admit that when I contemplate doing something new and creative with clients, I get scared. The new and unknown is hard to sell. People resist it. I don’t feel as confident as I would delivering the tried and true.

I feel the truth in what Ghandi said:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I want to know how long til the “win” part.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Facts Make the Speech Writer

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:32:44 +0000

The famed defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, was once asked what the key was to a successful case. People expected him to say a spellbinding closing statement or a good jury selection process or an impressive cross-examination of a crucial witness.

Instead his answer was “investigation”—knowing the facts of your case up and down, forward and backward.

The same holds true for a successful speech or presentation. The key is research: knowing everything about your audience, about the place where the remarks will be delivered, about everything that has led up to the planning of the event, and then tailoring a speech to those facts.

In his new book Speech*Less, Matt Latimer, a presidential speechwriter, tells the story of how he prepared a speech for President Bush to deliver on National Adoption Day.

The first thing I did [as a speech writer] was consider the audience. I pictured the president standing before a large group of adoptive parents and their kids. I thought about the portraits of presidents that people would see just outside the East Room, including a portrait of an adopted son named Gerald R. Ford and another of an adoptive father named Ronald Reagan.

And then I thought of the large pictures of George Washington that would be just to the president’s left as he spoke. George Washington had been an adoptive father too, raising two children who weren’t his by birth. (They were the children of his wife, Martha.)

Searching the internet, I found a letter that Washington wrote to his stepson while he was in college, complaining about his lack of attention to his studies. (I had our researchers verify its existence.) This led to a perfect joke for President Bush. After reading the excerpt to the audience, the president said, “Come to think of it, my dad once said the same thing to me.”

I noted that Thanksgiving was approaching and so many new adoptive parents and children, including those in that room, would have the blessing of celebrating it together as a family for the first time. That thought made people cry. The president teared up. Even Mrs. Bush, who usually stood motionless while the president delivered his speeches, took an interest. She leaned forward and stole glances at the president’s note card, as if to see how this was happening.

When writing a speech, or in working with a speech writer, spend plenty of time thinking about the occasion, the audience, the location, and anything else that might give you an “in” with the audience.

Do plenty of research, on line or in a library. Ask your speech writer to do the same. Knowing the facts makes your speech more original and gives you confidence. And that feeling can make your delivery livelier, and your audience more engaged.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

How to work with a speech writer

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:38:50 +0000

Senator Howard Baker said that he and his speech writers had a great relationship. “They write what they want me to say, and I say what I think.”

They got along just fine.

The remark points to the essential challenge of speech writing: it needs to be done in the voice of the speaker.

This is important because the speaker will be more effective if the text of the speech is aligned, in style and substance, with the way he thinks and talks.

There are great speakers who can read anything from a page or a teleprompter and make it sound like them. President Obama is good at this, as was President Reagan.

In fact, anyone continuously in front of crowds develops a knack for reading text.

But most of us are not up at the lectern every day, and so we need a speech writer who has the ability to collaborate with us—who has a good ear for our speech patterns, and can get our thoughts into the right words.

A collaboration with a speech writer should begin with your thoughts about what you want to say and what you want your audience to think, feel, and do after hearing your speech.

Your speech writer should also explore with you the problem that you are trying to solve for your audience. Audiences like it when your speech is all about how they can solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.

Audiences like speeches that are short, humorous, and generously sprinkled with stories. But make sure that the humor is your own, not offensive, and takes a back seat to the point you want to make.

Similarly, the stories in the speech should be your own. A good speech writer should spend time with you talking about your life experience and pull some stories out of your memory. Of course, if your speech writer offers you a story that you can make your own, use it. Just make sure you practice enough so that it feels natural.

For some of us, the chance to speak is rare, and so it leads us to want to say everything. Your speech writer should be firm. You can only say a few things to an audience before they get dazed and confused.

Make sure your speech writer doesn’t use any big words that are undeliverable. Undeliverable is one such word. So is indomitable, which can come out as “indominabubble.”

William Safire, the great speech writer for President Nixon and columnist for the New York Times, was once asked for a synonym for indomitable and gave indefatigable. He was fired on the spot when someone nearby suggested steadfast. Safire says in retrospect that he now sees he was intransigent.

In plain language, your speaking style should never be fancier than you are.

Above all, when you deliver your speech that someone has helped you prepare, you must feel comfortable with it and sound natural. The pleasure of listening to a good speech depends on the connections that can exist between the elements of the occasion.

First, there is the speaker and the speech. They need to connect.

Then, there is the speaker and the audience. The speech should help the speaker create that connection, and not get in the way.

And within the speech, your own thought should connect with the writer’s language deployed to express it.

Finally, the speaker needs to connect with his own feelings, and rehearse enough so he can bring to the occasion, with his voice, gestures, and the vivid words of his speech writer, a full-throated belief in what he is saying.

Defining Presence

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:02:46 +0000

Presence is like pornography: it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it, or in the case of speech, see and hear it.

Presence is a powerful commodity, one that leaders, entertainers, and influencers of all types would like to have. In fact, anyone who wants to be persuasive on the job or in social settings covets it.

Three questions. First, admitting that it’s hard to define, can we sketch in its elements? Second, can we cultivate it? And if so, how?

What are the elements of presence?

Let’s start with what it’s not. It’s not beauty or physical attractiveness. There are lots of Barbies and Kens who look perfect and lack presence.

It’s not intelligence. The socially inept genius is a cliché.

It’s not talent, because some creative people are dull in person but vivid and electric in their work.

So what is it? Here’s my attempt to describe it. Presence is confidence, composure, and responsiveness. It is the capacity to communicate with others in an emotional, intellectual, and expressive manner.

Can presence be cultivated?

I believe it can be developed through deliberate practice, which is a term that has emerged over the last few years to describe how average people achieve extraordinary results.

Actors, singers, dancers, figure skaters and speakers all try to cultivate it. It’s part of their job. For some, it’s a performance, for others it comes naturally.

Presence could include posture and a self-possessed quality of movement. It could include an appealing voice, a sense of humor, the capacity for intimacy, and the ability to respond to the signals you pick up from others.

Presence can also derive from the perception that you don’t care whether people like you or not. Since we are deeply social creatures, a person willing to walk away from the herd tends to get attention.

How can we cultivate presence?

Be curious. Endlessly curious. Be a good listener. Ask a lot of questions. Sit up straight. Be expressive when listening. Acknowledge what the other person has said so that they feel heard and recognized.

Dress in order to dignify your encounters with others. Have convictions and express them with care for the views of others. Develop your voice so that it is resonant and musical.

Explain your point of view knowing what history and science have to say about organizing your thoughts for maximum persuasiveness. Take such an interest in your audience that you care more about their understanding than you do about the outcomes.

This is an important point. If you have an objective you want to achieve, others sense it, and feel that you are talking at them, not with them or to them. You have to start where they are, and lead them from that spot toward the spot on which you would like them to stand.

In other words, you must be highly empathetic, highly assertive and highly expressive. None of us bats 1000 on all three, but presence is a journey not a destination.

It will come and go depending on the circumstances. For some of us who are shy, or young, and surrounded by those with more power and experience, we will have to fake it ‘til we make it.

But the best way to change behavior is to practice changing behavior. We can behave in a manner that is outside our comfort zone for short periods of time, and when we repeat those short periods for lengthier periods, we begin to find a new way of being.

And that can serve us well.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills andpublic speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.