Why I love working with boring speakers

Audiences may hate boring speakers, but as the UK’s most trusted speaker coach, I know that they are sitting on gold - and it’s my job to find it

Monotonous voice. A dry subject. Slides cramped with unreadable paragraphs and data.

As an audience, you may hate boring speakers. As a coach I love them.??

Why? Because as a coach you live for the moments the lights go on behind your client’s eyes. I’m in the business of change and there are few changes as dramatic as a speaker who transforms from boring to brilliant. And best of all, with some people it doesn’t take much to get them out of the doldrums.?

What even is a boring speaker??

Hitchcock used to tell an anecdote about filming a scene of people sitting around a table. If a bomb under the table suddenly goes off, there will be a 15 second surprise. But if the audience knows the bomb is on a timer, the tension will increase to unbearable levels - even as the people in the scene jabber on about inconsequential nothings. Which goes to show, there’s no such thing as a boring subject, it’s all about how you treat it.?

When people say a speaker is "boring," what they really mean is that they were disengaged.?

Hitchcock’s bomb tells us something important: if we use shock tactics to engage the audience, we will have to keep making bigger and bigger explosions. Alternatively, keeping the audience informed of a threat creates a longer-lasting emotional response.

People think that minutiae makes a speech boring. Not true: comedians get huge laughs out of the most mundane details. The secret? Specificity and finding the unexpected. "Boring" speakers, often experts in their field, simply need to learn to translate their deep knowledge into something engaging and relatable - without resorting to putting a bomb under the podium.

My late and much-missed friend, the legendary TV producer Danny Greenstone, once said the key to a good speech is "tell the audience something they don't know about something they do know about." I thought of Danny when I walked around the Harry Potter studio in Watford. I have no interest in the Potterverse, but I’m very interested in the nuts and bolts of film making and storytelling, so I had a fun day out and picked up a few facts about dragons and potions along the way. On the train home, eavesdropping on some of the other die-hard Potter fans, I realised they’d had an exactly complementary experience: they’d come for the wizards and now knew a bit more about making a series of fantasy effects-driven films.?

Who’s the muggle now??

Feel the fear and do it differently

Many times, "boring" presentations are simply a symptom of fear. Fear of public speaking can lead to monotone delivery, a lack of eye contact, and an overall disconnect with the audience. I once watched a speaker put his nose down into his script, willing the audience to disappear. But they didn’t. The only thing that vanished was the speaker’s personality as he drove through the script, regardless of whether the audience was following him, speaking faster and faster as he saw the time was running out.?

On that occasion, the speaker was awash with adrenaline, triggering the “fight, flight or freeze” response. (I think ignoring the room counts as “freeze”.) Adrenaline can trip you up, but it’s not the enemy. My keynote is an hour of high energy audience interaction. If I don’t have some adrenaline I cannot do it as well as it deserves to be done.?

Adrenaline that trips up speakers is the same stuff that they dish out on the rides at Alton Towers. I ask my audiences: “Who enjoys speaking?” and get few takers. Alton Towers has hour-long queues for their biggest rides.?

Quick fixes for boring speakers

Here are a few things you can do if you are a boring speaker (or fear you might be):?

• Fix your materials. A new slide costs nothing, so don’t try to get everything on one slide. Make sure that any data or words earn their place on the slide. Zoom in on the important bits and cut what can be cut. Remember: you the speaker are the presentation, the slides are there as your support -? they are not the main event.?
• Ditch the script. Your words are important but only as a means to helping the audience understand what you mean. In themselves, they are nothing. Use bullet points to keep you on track rather than scripting every word.?
• Start and end strong. People forget what happens in the middle, so know the first and last things you’ll say. Great beginnings may include your name, qualifications for speaking or reasons for being invited to speak. Good endings are a clear call to action, a thank you and a hand back to the presenter.?
• Your time is a gift. If you’ve been given 20 minutes, feel free to use all of it. The audience will grant you the time you have agreed to speak. They will very quickly turn against you if you over run.?
• Dialogue, not monologue. A speech is a conversation with the audience. You’re not talking at them, you’re speaking with them. Look at them - are they following you? I’ll often say: “You look skeptical, let me give you an example,” or “You look confused, let me put it another way.”?
• Speed is no substitute for understanding. The most powerful speakers are the most measured. Those… pauses… give the audience time to think… and process… your words. I once walked out of a speech because therewerenogapsinwhatthespeakersaidand therewerelotsoffillerwordsaswellwhichmademybrainoverheatuntilIhadtorunforthehills. You’ll be lucky if the audience remembers one thing. So know what that is, focus on that and anything else is a bonus.?
• You’re in charge. Audiences hate not having a clear direction. Your job is to lead the audience through the speech or presentation, point by point, until they reach the conclusion. This is where you can release them - when your time is up.
• Warm up. Every speaker benefits from a warm up to get the oxygen out of their limbs and back into their brain. I stretch my arms and legs, look around the room and do some mental exercises before I speak in front of an audience. Last week someone said they wondered what I was doing at the back of the room behaving weirdly. Ah well, one person thought I was weird. The 200 other people thought I was an amazing speaker. Not bad stats.??

In short, engage with the audience in the room. Lead them through your speech towards your conclusions.?

In my last moments today

My coaching focuses on turning boring speakers who please nobody (including themselves) into engaging speakers who represent themselves and their organisations in a way that benefits everyone in the room. We work on storytelling, fear and stagecraft so that speakers can find their voice, connect with their audience, and ultimately, share their message with confidence and passion.

Unlocking the potential of a "boring" speaker is incredibly rewarding. It's about helping them discover the excitement within their own expertise and inspiring others with their unique perspective.

If you’d like to learn more, check out this free webinar I recorded about speaking skills:?

https://forms.gle/r73UfM9q6WjkDqbk9

Ian Hawkins has been described as "the UK's most trusted speaker coach" by Square Mile. As well as delivering his keynote, "Everything you know about public speaking is wrong (almost)" Ian is a busy events moderator and leads speaking workshops.