TJ’s Insights

Practicing a speech is easy, but memorizing one is hard. In fact, memorizing a speech is so hard that if that’s your idea of what rehearsal is all about, you’ll probably find a way to avoid practice all together. And I don’t blame you!

Fortunately, practicing a speech doesn’t have anything to do with memorizing words or sentences. Leave verbatim memorization to professional actors. For the rest of us speakers in the real world, memorization is as counterproductive and demoralizing as being forced to dig a ditch and then fill it back up again with the same dirt.

Many of my clients are shocked when they hear their voices coming out of my television for the first time. A typical reaction is “TJ, I never realized that I had such a strong Southern (or Mid-Western, Brooklyn) accent.”

All humans do not have to sound alike, but I do think that it is important to know how you sound to other people. Some people have strong regional accents, but don’t think they have any. Some executives think they have awful and overwhelming accents and yet their accent is imperceptible to most ears.

A quote from a well-known and respected thought leader can spice up any speech, if it is used for the right reason. The following are the wrong reasons to use quotes in a speech:

1. You think you’ll look really smart by quoting Aristotle or some other prestige philosopher.
2. You can’t think of another way to begin your presentation.
3. You can’t think of any other way to end your presentation.
4. You have no genuine insights yourself so you figure you’ll hide behind other people and their quotes.

Nobody likes to feel manipulated by another person. That applies not only to individuals but groups as well. That means your speaking audience doesn’t want to feel manipulated. Nothing makes me groan and grimace more than a speaker who comes out and starts by saying “Good morning” and expects the audience to say “Good morning!” in return. And then the speaker gets upset by the quality or the intensity of the “Good morning” from the audience. Next, the manipulative speaker demands that the audience try it again and shout “good morning” even louder. Audiences typically go along with this ploy because it seems like the speaker will torture them otherwise. But it is my belief that audiences resent being told what to do by speakers every bit as much as teenage children resent being told to turn off the TV and to go clean their rooms.

Savvy media professionals don’t intentionally make blunders, but when
they do, they use them as material for future media success. In a
previous column I wrote about how CNN anchor Kyra Phillips made the news
by wearing her microphone into a bathroom and blabbing her personal
conversations to the world-while the President of the United States was
on the screen giving a speech no less!

Every so often I work with a client who is practicing for a major presentation. We videotape a practice speech and then look at it. Unfortunately, it is stilted and sounds canned. No problem, we’ll just do it again. We practice the speech again and then review. On no! It’s worse. Everything sounds phony and contrived.

The third time should be the charm—only it isn’t. The speaker is getting worse.

On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was interviewed by “60 Minutes.” As you can imagine, this is a tough interview situation for anyone, especially a politician whose competence has been questioned.

After feeling badgered by the reporter during the interview regarding the time it was taking to rebuild New Orleans, Nagin finally blurted out, “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair.”

A great speaker has to learn how to be a good editor. Now most people nod their head in agreement and they have visions of Winston Churchill in his bathtub with a red pen scratching out certain words and phrases. But that’s not what I’m talk about.

I mean that as a good speaker, you have to figure out what to cut out of your speech just moments before you are to give it. This requires judgment and the ability to quickly size up what will be in the best interests of your audience.

The Easiest “Hard” Speaking Situation

If you are like most people, you are uncomfortable with not only “public” speaking, but also speaking in many situations where you don’t know everyone in the room. Large networking events can be intimidating. Huge parties with more than hundreds of people in attendance, bars, concerts and other public venues can also be difficult places to speak with people, especially if you aren’t surrounded by friends. If you are alone and are trying to initiate conversations, you face the most difficult challenge.

Imagine you are giving a presentation and you are using a wireless microphone attached to your tie or dress. And then you have to go to the bathroom. Yes, just like Leslie Nielson in one of the Airplane movies, you forget to turn off your mic and the whole audience can hear you. Only this time, it’s worse; much worse. This time you are anchoring live on national television, and your bathroom activities are broadcast to 198 countries. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it all happens while the President of the United States is giving a speech on the air.