What makes the most popular TED Talks so popular?

The most popular TED Talks have notched up over 40 million views each. That’s impressive by any count, so here’s a quick look at three top TED performers to see what we can learn from these rock-stars of rhetoric.

At first glance, the top three TED speakers’ styles are so different that they serve merely as healthy reminders that there is no single formula for a successful speech. As you’ll see from the extracts below, anything can work when you’re on stage: some make jokes, others don’t; some pace, others don’t; some actively engage the audience, others don’t.

Your rhetorical style can, and should be, entirely yours. But there is one common denominator here: what makes all three of these TED speakers’ performances so compelling is their clear, oft-repeated expression of a single clear idea.

TED’s #1 - The amiable wit: The most widely watched TED Talk ever – with 53.7 million viewers – was given by an amusingly self-deprecating British education expert, Sir Ken Robinson. He peppered his 2006 talk with colourful anecdotes, whimsical asides, and deadpan humour, all delivered without props or slides, standing almost motionless on stage (he walks with difficulty having had polio as a boy).

His clear idea: schools should focus on fostering creativity as much as literacy or academic excellence. The statement of that idea, which he took a full three minutes to get to in his TED Talk, provided the thread for the rest of his 18-minute speech. It proved an entertaining ramble through personal reminiscences and other musings, but throughout the performance Sir Ken never lost sight of his key idea. Driving his point home, he ended with a call to action, reformulating his initial premise: “Our task is to educate (our children’s) whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.”

Watch Sir Ken Robinson make the case for encouraging creativity in schools (1m05s)

TED’s #2 - The slick social scientist: The second most popular TED Talk ever, with 49.4 million viewers, was delivered in 2012 by Amy Cuddy, an American social psychologist who speaks fast, fumbles her words, never pauses, and paces the stage frenetically. Nevertheless, she is fun to watch.

Her clear idea: Acting as if we are powerful makes us believe we are powerful, thereby giving us confidence when we need it most. She launched straight into her talk by asking her audience to think about their posture, promising them that by the end they would have the secret of a better, easier life. It sounded enticingly simple, and over the following 20 minutes she drew on politics, the animal kingdom and academic experiments to explain how “power posing” works. Clinching the show, her conclusion was a restatement of her original claim combined with a proselytizing call upon the audience to “share the science”: “Give it away. Share it with people, because the people who can use it the most are the ones with no resources and no technology and no status and no power…it can significantly change the outcomes of their life.”

Watch Amy Cuddy explain the importance of posture (1m08s)

TED’s #3 - The intense paper-boarder: The third most successful TED Talk ever was given in 2009 by a dry British-American management consultant, Simon Sinek, armed with nothing more than a paper board and felt-tip pen. He made little attempt to connect personally with his audience. He barely cracked a smile and didn’t seek to engage them with empathy or any call to action. That hasn’t stood in the way of his clocking up an impressive 41 million views.

His clear idea: “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Illustrating his idea as crudely drawn “golden circle”, Mr Sinek tapped business lore and political anecdotes to explain that we are more inspired by other people’s beliefs than by their products or plans. It was hardly a colourful presentation, despite the wide variety of examples, ranging from Martin Luther King to the Wright Brothers and Apple computers. But Mr Sinek made his case compelling by hammering home the same idea after each example like a mantra, ending with a ringing conclusion: “We follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with "why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.”            

Watch Simon Sinek show “the world’s simplest idea” here (This is the full 18 minute speech. He exposes his big idea after just two minutes.)

 Charles Fleming, 29th  October 2018

 You can read my other articles about rhetoric and public speakers in the news on the Expression/Impression blog, available here.