Your Speech Coach

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.”

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.

 The article shares stories that show the importance of a CEO having a presence online and the shift in our media driven culture from a “keep it secret” corporate PR mentality, to “tell them the truth and they will love you” mentality.

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.

Your number one job as a speaker is to be the conduit to connect your presentation to the audience.

We know you are smart. You may have expertise no one else in the room has and you are likely to have more information on the topic that anyone else in the room as well. You may believe that showing the audience how much you know and how smart you are about the topic will make you look your best as a speaker. It won’t. When your goal is to look smart you tend to give your audience too much information. When you know so much, you may want to use all the big technical industry specific terms. You look a lot smarter when you choose the most important information, edit down the material for your audience, and use your knowledge and insight on the topic to simplify processes, procedures, and data for your audience. If you overwhelm and or confuse your audience they will walk out of the room thinking, “what a stupid speaker he didn’t think about my needs.”

Consider this: to create a hand written document that’s legible to a reader you must write each letter clearly without a lot of extra curly cues and fancy pants scribbling, so it follows that to create a speech that is understandable to your audience, you must speak clearly and simply, without a lot the erudite monologues with the fancy pants words.

This week I gave a three day workshop on Presentation Skills. What surprised
everyone is that I did not use powerpoint!!! (Collective gasp….)
And during the attendees’ speeches they learned that they could feel and be
so much more powerful without it. Most importantly, they felt how great it is
to be connected to your audience and not stuck facing your projector and or
screen. My students often say, “But I need the slides for my notes.” That is
not what slides are for. They are visual aids for the audience. Last night I
watched the republican presidential candidate debates and talked about my
analysis this morning as a guest on FOX and Friends on the Fox news network.
Guess what? The canididates did not use slides.
Obviously it would have looked funny if they had. We would have thought,
“Why do they need notes?” ” Why aren’t they looking at us?” ” Why aren’t they animated.?”

For more, there here is an NY Time article on the subject of powerpoint. Use discretion folks.

There is another important reason for breathing through the nose. This has to do with maintaining the correct balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our blood. When we breathe through our mouth we usually inhale and exhale air quickly in large volumes. This often leads to a kind of hyperventilation (breathing excessively fast for the actual conditions in which we find ourselves). It is important to recognize that it is the amount of carbon dioxide in our blood that generally regulates our breathing. Research has shown that if we release carbon dioxide too quickly, the arteries and vessels carrying blood to our cells constrict and the oxygen in our blood is unable to reach the cells in sufficient quantity. This includes the carotid arteries which carry blood (and oxygen) to the brain. The lack of sufficient oxygen going to the cells of the brain can turn on our sympathetic nervous system, our “fight or flight” response, and make us tense, anxious, irritable, and depressed. So remember, when possible, to breathe through your nose.

As a body language expert I often get called at the last minute to do media interviews, but strangely enough, I rarely get nervous. Typically I will get an urgent call and then rush to a TV studio to make comments about a breaking story. When I get to the studio, the producer or journalist I will be working with shakes my hand and ushers me into the studio. I sit calmly as they mike me and we do a sound check. One day got a call to do a read of President Bush’s body language. I have done that dozen of times, so I thought it would be fun, and no big deal. When I entered the Fox news affiliate studio, I put out my hand, but the producer pulled her hand back said, “I’m sick and don’t want to give you germs.” She then turned and walked ahead of me. As I followed her into the studio, my heart began to race, I began to sweat. When I sat in the makeup chair and I had to ask for water because my mouth got dry. My hands shook as I sat on the stool in front of the cameras. I was overwhelmed with anxiety, and the damp spots under my arms showed it to the world.

What was different this time? I didn’t get to shake hands. As we enter new and possibly unsafe environments we have a primal need that dates to prehistoric times to see if we are going to be safe, that no one will hurt us. The producer had previously acted as the host or “tribal chieftain” as I entered the studio to immediately shake my hands to show, “hey we are cool, and you won’t die today”. Without that warm greeting I felt danger, my cave woman instincts kicked in and I had a great need for a good antiperspirant! So when you go to give a speech or to be interviewed by the media make it a point to shake hands with every single person you meet along the way. If you are doing a face to face interview ask if it is possible to shake hands with your host of interviewer before you go live on the air. You will be amazed at the difference this small ritual will make in your speech or interview. And hey… you will save money on extra deodorant and dry-cleaning as well!

Oh, what was the outcome of the interview? Well my spot was canceled for a breaking story of plane on fire in Toronto. So I came back the next day to do the story. And I shook hands with the producer that day, who thankfully wasn’t sick and everything was hunky dory.