Brilliant minds but...

Let me state it upfront. Not everyone is born an amazing public speaker, it takes years of practice to become one. Public speaking or simply put, addressing a gathering of more than 3-4 people where the communication is purposeful is a skill one must learn in the 21st century. Sadly, not many pursue developing the skill seriously. Within this, I largely see two categories, one who do not know how to improve this skill and the others who think they are great on stage anyway!

I have sat through thousands of pitches, meeting addresses, speeches in my corporate career which has put me to sleep, not because the ideas were not great but just because the speakers were poor communicators. Ever since I have joined the post graduate course in Azim Premji University, I have sat through few more hundreds of group and individual presentations (I am not considering the faculty lectures in this) by my peers who are at least 15 years younger to me. Most of them are brilliant minds but nervous communicators. They remind me of how nervous I used to be on stage when I was in my 20s, just that many of them speak much better English than I used to speak.

Today, we had one another such series of individual presentations. Sitting through such presentations tempts me to raise up my hand and say, "Your generation is much better than mine. You guys are fast learners. But don't postpone learning public speaking until your promotion is withheld by your manager quoting the same reason… Don’t wait for the day to wonder, despite having a great idea, why couldn’t you create the impact you expected". During one such presentation, few in the audience had resolved to their phones, few pursued the art of doodling, few excused themselves out of the classroom. I too got up to refill my water bottle.

After the class was over, the presenter friend of mine who had seen me walking out of the class while she was presenting asked me: "I saw you walking out of the class, didn't you like my presentation?"

me: (feeling terribly guilty) Sorry... had to refill my water bottle.

she: yeah.. yeah.. I know (and she walked down the corridor)

I could not help but notice the unhappiness in her voice. I usually never ever get up while a presenter is amid his/her presentation, but today, I had committed the mistake. However, I thought of using the opportunity to give her some unsolicited advice. Thank God the university campuses have long corridors which give us the second chance to muster up the courage and resume the conversation. I paced up and told her, "See, your content was great, however you need to engage the audience better."

she: What do you expect me to do? dance on the stage?

me: (smiling) no, there are many ways to engage the audience...

Here is the short list which I gave her. It may seem obvious to read but is an arduous task to focus even on one of those and master it:

• Hook the audience in the first 10 seconds. Apart from the usual rhetoric questions, there are myriad other ways to do it.
• Modulate your voice
• Make eye contact with possibly everyone in the audience (we were 30 people in the audience)
• Have a great narrative to tie up facts, figures and concepts.
• Share few personal anecdotes - Stats Tell but Stories Sell
• Deliver it with conviction
• Trust the audience. Hardly there is an audience which wants you to fail.
• Being fluent in English (or the language in which you are presenting) does not mean, you can go on stage unrehearsed. Practice... practice... and practice.
• Seek feedback - the genuine one, the detailed one.

Well, I departed only after delivering the cliched dialogue of, "Public speaking is like going to a gym. One needs to practice regularly to become better."

Thanks to Toastmasters International for making me realize what I lacked as a skill and giving me the necessary tools in public speaking. I use those tools every time I get onto the stage.

#toastmasters #publicspeaking