I am a reader who finds a great author and reads everything she or he has written and devours it. One of those easy to read good authors is by Adriana Trigiani; her first and best book is Big Stone Gap. Other titles from her include Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Lucia Lucia, and The Queen of the Big Time: a Novel.
Good writers know how to choose the perfect word. They know how to phrase a sentence so that it has the right rhythm to hit your subconscious. They can grab you in the first sentence of a book and draw you into a story. They can create an image that sticks in your mind Elmer’s clue and doesn’t let go. Reading good writing can make you a better speaker. So, this summer, while I am sure you have so much spare time, I want to recommend some great reads. Starting tomorrow, watch for my reviews!
Your job is not just to compile material and merely repeat it back to your audience. Your ultimate job, your mission if you choose to accept it, is to connect with your audience. That means you need to: stay focused on the audience, be aware of their body language, adapt to their needs and keep them with you.
I have said this in many different ways throughout my book. That’s because it is the single most important thing to remember as a speaker. Sometimes you get so caught up in the momentum of the presentation you forget it. I know you worked hard putting the speech together and heck! you only have so much time to give all that great information you put together… but if you’re just pouring it on the audience and they have their umbrellas up it does not matter how much your pour or even how great the data is. They must be with you, paying attention. And don’t think, well they are like this with everybody, or only a few people are really bored. Each presenter sets the standard and the behavior for his or her audience. You are responsible for getting your audience to pay attention. So do it. Be radical if you have to. Sit down on a chair, wave a white flag of surrender, and ask your audience what you can do to help them get this information. Don’t attack them. Take responsibility. It’s your speech. Go get ‘em Tiger!
That fact that women speak differently than men is not surprise. What is enlightening is to discover how those differences effect the way women’s messages are perceived. Unfortunately they are often perceived as less credible and less persuasive. My first paid speech 26 years ago was on gender differences in nonverbal communication and I remember women in my audience being upset with that finding. If you have read any of John Gray’s Mars and Venus books you know that men often see women as being too emotional and that aspect of our voices is one of the factors that reduce our vocal credibility.
I coach women in my public speaking workshops and my women and leadership programs to hone their voices on certain factors that will affect their persuasiveness and credibility. Recently I read research that indicates there is another reason that men perceive female voices as emotional.
Dr. Michael Hunter, of Professor Peter Woodruff´s group in the Department of Psychiatry and Division of Genomic Medicine at the University of Sheffield studied the differences in the way men’s brains interpret voices and found that, “The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between women and men, and also due to women having greater natural `melody´ in their voices.. This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice.†What is interesting is that when a man hears a female voice, the auditory section of his brain, that is in his emotional right hemisphere, is activated so he hears the voice as being more emotional rather than rational and when he hears a male voice the part of the brain, sometimes called the mind’s eye, that compares current experiences to one’s self is activated. Female voices sound more emotional to men than their own based purely on where they are processed in his head!!
I will be blogging about other factors like breathiness, up endings, vocal qualifiers, and pitch that effects our perception of voices. I would love to hear how you think Hilary Clinton’s vocal characteristics effect her credibility. In the meantime, listen to some of the voices of the women speaking here ( This site is a great source for both written transcripts of speeches and well as audio recordings) and tell me what you think.
At CEOgo.com you can read about CEO Capital: A Guide to Building CEO Reputation and Success (John Wiley & Sons). The book describes the inextricable link between CEO and corporate reputation. The author of the book has a great blog called Reputation Watch.
One blog entry talks about research done by Standford and Wharton professors on the effect of public knowledge of CEO salaries. Surprisingly the researchers found that, “…negative press attention about CEO salary had little or no effect on how much chief executives get paid. The authors examined 15,000 press articles on CEO compensation between 1994 to 2002 and found little change in how much companies paid their chieftains despite harsh criticism from journalists.â€
It is important to know that in whatever job you have, every time you communicate, you want to be you, the very best you, but truly you. I agree with the article’s recommendation for transparency… showing some vulnerability and admitting your mistakes is part of being an honest human being. Though I, like many others have a problem with people who do horrendously ugly and or unethical things… think Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Hugh Grant, and recently Alec Baldwin, and act as if an apology on a TV talk show should absolve them of their sins. Read the Wired article and let me know your opinion.
I just finished reading a fascinating article in Wired Magazine called The Transparent CEO. Some of you know that I coach CEO’s and other high level executives on their interpersonal skills.
When I coach CEO’s and other high level executives I work on their interpersonal, speaking, and media interviewing skills. One of the most important attributes of a CEO is integrity. 96% of CEO’s believe that a good corporate reputation is important to their companies, but how many know how much their behavior reflects on that reputation and do anything to improve it?
But you say, ” I am the one that did all the work. I am the one that that stayed up late and spent hours putting together all the numbers. Why shouldn’t I think it’s about me?” Because, it’s really about them. From the first moment you put pen to paper or fingers to keys, your whole focus and priority is to create and deliver a speech for your audience. Connected to their needs, their interests, delivered with a style and energy to suit and captivate them. I think we sometimes give our speeches as if our audience was a first date. We worry about how we will look, agonizing over clothing decisions and getting our hair just right. We worry about what we will say, and creating the perfect setting and try to sound really smart. But we forget we are doing this all to make a connection with our date. The focus should be on that. So find out about your audience and what they like. Have a ‘Conversation†with them that flows back and forth. Make significant eye- contact and they may just want to go out with you again.
The audience needs to know the structure of the speech. Giving your speech is like giving them directions to your house. The audience will be happier if they know where you are in your speech at any given time, and where you’re headed.
Helping your audience follow your message throughout your speech requires that you build into your structure a certain amount of redundancy. That means that you need to repeat your main points. When you divide your presentation into an introduction, the main body, and the conclusion, you are building in this necessary redundancy.
In the introduction, you “tell them what you are going to tell them”
In the main body, you “tell them”
In the conclusion, you “tell them what you told them”
This kind of deliberate repetition helps your audience follow and remember the main points you are making. You may think that all the repetition is too elementary, but if you want the audience to remember what your have said, no mater how smart that audience is you must give them a roadmap. Remember readers can “reread” text, but listeners cannot “rehear” oral remarks. To design your presentation with planned repetition, you must clearly know your purpose and what you want your audience to know.
Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you’ve told them.
“Do not compare yourselves with others for you will become vain and bitter.†This is a quote from the famous poem the Desiderata that accurately describes the dangers of comparing your speaking style with other speakers. You may see other speakers who have razzle-dazzle PowerPoint slides or run around the room and jumping on chairs and think I’m a horrible speaker because I don’t speak like that.
If you put all your energy to be like somebody else somebody you think is a top banana you may end up only be a second banana when in truth you are a great plum. So discover your plumness. Bring out the best parts of you in your speaking.
