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Overcoming Public Speaking Panic
by Dr. Marc S. Friedman
Just because you love education, and the intersection between learning and corporate profit, doesn’t mean people are lining up to hear you speak. As acute as your understanding of the human brain is—what with your psychology and higher education degrees—getting your own fears of public speaking under control can be daunting.
Some tips:
• Know your audience. Your new hairdo and fresh blazer from Brooks Brothers are fabulous, but your employees—and any bosses who happen to be listening—won't care. What will perk up their ears is how well you're able to tailor your talk to their needs and job roles. Whether they're Ph.Ds, middle managers, or technical people should guide you in the words you choose, and the examples you use to illustrate your points.
• Know your theme and subject matter. Of course, you'd like your audience to think you're sophisticated, but keep in mind sophistication doesn't equal overly complicated drivel. Your workers have enough on their minds. Boil it down to what you want them to take back to their desks and work routine. Every speech should have a single theme easily expressed in one or two sentences that typically opens the speech. A speech without an overriding and quickly evident theme will appear to the audience as no more than a verbal scavenger hunt.
• Connect with your audience, no matter the size. Try not to speak to your employees as though you were an emperor addressing his loyal subjects. Take a friendly approach so audience members feel as though you're speaking directly to them. A public speech should not be a soliloquy. A speaker should think of a presentation as a one-on-one conversation, albeit with each individual member of the audience. The more conversational the speech, the more likely the audience will be connected to the speaker.
• Open with power, and speak with passion. Your workers might have to be in attendance due to your clever corporate mandate, but that doesn't mean they have to find anything you’re saying even remotely interesting. Start with a powerful opener that grabs their attention right away. Think of Franklin Roosevelt's description of the Pearl Harbor attack: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." Chances are the news you need to impart won't be as important. But even the need to refrain from ordering more staplers until the beginning of the year can be compelling with the right opener. Then, once you get them up in arms to scour empty cubicles looking for staplers rather than ordering new ones, keep up the passionate tone. Show them how not ordering new staplers, and other office supplies, is part of an important effort to help the company stay out of the red.
• Be conversational. You want them to take you seriously, but that doesn't mean you have to be overly formal. Think about how you would explain the same concepts to a friend before facing your employees. A speech is not a platform for the speaker to exhibit her vast vocabulary, or ability to weave compound, complex sentences together. Large words, complex sentences, and the use of the passive voice will suffocate your audience.
• Don't depend on visual aids. PowerPoint and slide shows are fantastic, but they shouldn't comprise the bulk of your presentation. You're not showing family a slide show of your trip to the shore, after all. You're addressing your employees, who don't need pictures of every word that comes out of your mouth. Slides or other visual aids may be helpful in reinforcing a point, but they should not be used to make the speaker’s point. Slides and pictures are flat and one-dimensional. If a speech is merely the verbalization of slides, the speech, too, will be flat and one-dimensional.
• Close with a bang, not a whimper! After getting your workers interested enough to stop text messaging their colleagues about the weird new guy on the fifth floor, don’t end with a letdown. The power of the opening statement and theme must be complemented by the power and theme of the closing. Remember the closing lines of Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address?
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Hopefully, a civil war is not in full swing under your roof, but that’s no excuse to end limply either. Think of a punchy line or two that sums up your main argument. Maybe your employees will remember it in time to boost next quarter's numbers.
An international lecturer and teacher, Dr. Marc S. Friedman is the author of "Seven Steps to a Successful and Spellbinding Speech." For more information, visit www.ez-speech.com.
