Know Your Draft Needs
When writing an important letter that will go to all of your clients, customers, colleagues and boss, you usually want to go through several drafts. There are very few among us who are so confident in our writing skills that we simply dictate a first draft and then say to an assistant, "Send it out, as is, to the media and the rest of world."
No, most of us like to write a rough draft. Then we hit spell-check, and perhaps grammar check. Next, we may ask a colleague or a public relations counselor to take a look and give a critique.
Steven King and Scott Turow may be good, quick writers, but they still got through draft versions and edits of their work. Why? Because you can improve the quality of writing with each new draft.
Somehow, this simple fact escapes people when it comes to their speeches. I am not referring to the written text of speeches (people do rewrite those ad nauseum). I am talking about the actual giving and speaking out of a presentation. Even if a person has re-written a speech ten times, he or she will usually speak out the speech only once to the actual live, final audience. That means the spoken speech is given out in its first draft form - "literally its roughest draft form.
THIS IS INSANE ! Skilled writers never publish their first unedited drafts, and yet mediocre speakers give out their first draft of speeches.
If you want to give a good speech, you need to go through various drafts of the speech in its final form, i.e., the spoken word. Many of my clients who come to me for presentation training admit that they never rehearse their speeches before giving them (and they are surprised that their speeches don't go over well). Once I get them to start rehearsing, they always see improvement.
However, here is where it gets complicated. Some people make huge improvements with just one draft/rehearsal. They practice once and are rough-to-bad. They do it a second time, and then they are fabulous - near perfect (this is rare). Others make small incremental improvements. After six different practice speeches they have gone steadily from bad to excellent. Another group makes erratic jumps. These people start off OK, but then they get worse and then worse again. Only after a depressing couple of takes do they finally become good. Finally, there is a group that starts off lousy and then stays lousy sometimes two, three, four, even five takes. But then, seemingly miraculously, everything clicks. On their sixth practice of their speech, everything clicks and they deliver a marvelous presentation.
So which group are you in? Ultimately, it doesn"t matter as long as you figure out what your exact rehearsal needs are. If you become great after only one speech rehearsal, you will still be awful if you don't practice once. If you need six practice runs for your speech, that doesn't matter either, as long as you practice your speech six times.
The key is finding a system that works for you and then sticking to it. Know your rehearsal needs and then budget time accordingly.
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