Nick Morgan, Public Words

The Wonderful Exception to the Power Point Rule

I've finally found the exception to the rule that Power Point is a bad tool for preparing speeches, delivering speeches, and reading them afterwards.  Most speakers misuse PP as speaker notes, to the detriment of their speaking style, and to the horror of the audience.  But Garr Reynolds proves that PP (or its equivalent) can be used by an artist to create something very special:  http://www.publicspeakingforgeeks.com/2008/07/18/the-brain-rules-for-presentations/. 

Amazingly, this presentation is 131 slides and yet I guarantee that you'll tear through them all right to the end.  All hail Garr!

Reynolds presents a very engaging, witty slide show on John Medina's new book, Brain Rules.  The book consists of 12 rules your brain runs by, and it's stuff you need to know, especially if you're a student of the craft of presenting. 

Of course, Garr focuses on one rule primarily, the one that says that your brain learns best visually, so indulge it.  But another one that caught my eye is equally important for speakers and their audiences.  Medina says that audiences don't like to be passive -- they find it boring. 

Amen, brother.  So, what do you do?  How do you engage your audience? 

Following are 7 ways to engage audiences that I have found gets them active and using their own energy to take what you say and make it their own.

1.  Get them to tell stories about who they are (in relation to your topic). 

2.  Ask them to brainstorm a problem or a solution.

3.  Get them to play games (and award prizes).

4.  Ask them to report to the group (on something you've asked them to think about, or discover, or learn).

5.  Ask them to teach others (the fastest way to ensure that an audience learns something well).

6.  Get them to design responses (to some challenge or problem you've set for them).

7.  Ask them to design a path forward (imagine what you'd want them to be doing back at their offices once the speech is over, and get them to start that activity now). 

If you're not already doing any of these things in your speeches, you're not allowing the audience to be anything but passive.  That's bad.  Turn them loose!  Get active with your audience.  The burst of energy will at first alarm you, then thrill you once you learn how to channel it successfully.  And your audiences will reward you with a vastly better reception. 

John McCain's hand, redux....

I've had a number of comments on my recent posts on commencement speeches and John McCain's wandering hand.  So I'd thought I'd continue the discussion here. 

People have sent me some great commencement speeches, analyses of them, and links to video.  It prompts a comment right from the start:  being a member of the audience and reading a speech are two very different things.  An audience member is part of the performance art that is a speech.  Readers come after the sparks have flown; they're late to the discussion. 

The reason is, of course, that delivery is just as important to speechmaking as content.  The non-verbal conversation, as I've talked about before, is just as crucial to comprehension and success as the verbal.  You have to get both right.

And the non-verbal conversation is what everyone was bloviating about when John McCain's hand went wandering.  What did he mean?  Why did he pause so long?  What was up with that hand?

The crucial point here is that it's a mistake to try to read specific meanings into hand gestures, or body language in general, as if it were a secret code.  We are all unconscious experts in understanding body language at the emotional level, but most of us are poor at consciously decoding non-verbal communication.

Hence, I labeled my analysis of what John meant as speculation.  Only someone very close to John, and used to his gestures, would be a good analyst of what he meant.  Perhaps his wife understood immediately, but the rest of us are much better off just reading the emotion he was conveying, not intellectually trying to decode something more specific.  Let your gut tell you what the other person is feeling, and don't try to analyze gesture too consciously, and you'll be more accurate more of the time.  McCain was flummoxed, clearly, but more than that is difficult to be precise about.

We are already expert readers of body language, as long as we let that part of the brain that's good at it do its work.  It's when we try to consciously decode gesture as if it were a system of precise signals that we get into trouble.

 

John McCain's Hand

You take your eyes off the political scene and go on vacation and what happens?  John McCain's hand becomes news -- a gift to those who study non-verbal communications, and a lesson in the limits of body language 'reading'. 

What was the fuss about?  McCain was asked an embarrassing question about why many health insurance policies cover Viagra and not contraceptives.  He hesitated for 8 seconds before giving a fumbling answer.  While he was hesitating, his hand shot up to his mouth and covered it.

What did the hand signify?  Not, as the commentary has suggested, that he was trying to keep himself from lying.  Children do that, not adults, and especially not adults as comfortable with evasion as seasoned politicians.  And that's the wrong way to think about hand gestures.  They usually don't convey specific meanings like that; rather, they spring from emotion. 

What happened in that moment was that John McCain had a strong emotional reaction to the question.  We put our hands to our faces when we are thinking, and to cover our mouths when we're shocked or appalled.  John was shocked or appalled by the question, and then he started thinking.  The whole process took 8 seconds, which suggests he was quite flummoxed. 

Why was he appalled?  That's where it gets interesting, and body language along can't tell us.  We need to know something about the man.  Was he appalled because he's a prude?  Unlikely; he's a former Marine.  Was he shocked because he was afraid his use of Viagra was going to become news?  Possible, but that's sheer speculation.  Was he appalled because it was a 'gotcha' question and there was no good answer immediately in sight?  Most likely. 

All body language can tell us is that McCain had an emotional reaction strong enough to last 8 seconds.  That's significant, because 6 seconds is the average length of time people in conversation or discussion will let a silence lapse (try it yourself).  That means that his emotions were stronger than average.  Or perhaps that he was just tired and slow on the draw.  It's a great lesson in the insights and limitations of reading body language.   

Commencement Speeches

Tis the season to be wary -- of commencement speeches.  We're almost through the danger period for another year, but it doesn't pay to relax your guard too early.

I had to write a dozen (that's 12) commencement speeches -- on different topics -- over 2 summers for the Governor of Virginia when I started my career as a speechwriter 20 years ago.  That experience left me wary of the genre and easily spooked by the thought of hearing another one delivered. 

It almost goes without saying that the majority of commencement speeches are terrible -- vacuous, platitudinous, and ponderous.  And too long. 

I heard a contemporary example recently at Columbia University.  It was a proud day for me; my daughter was getting a degree.  Like so many others in the audience, I was thrilled to be there, and disposed to be charitable to all and sundry.  In fact, there was a great vibe in the crowd -- lots of joshing of neighbors and jolly comments about the day, the giant TV screens we were watching (because the crowd was so vast) and how proud we all were.

Then the President of Columbia stood up to speak.  It's always a danger sign when the head of an organization gives his/her own speech.  Ego, arrogance, stinginess -- I found myself wondering -- which was it gonna be?  Those are the only 3 reasons not to hire someone from the outside. 

I don't know about the stinginess, but ego and arrogance were certainly on display as the President droned on for far too long about far too little.  This was the guy who had brought the President of Iran to campus only to browbeat him like a naughty student in a public exchange, leading many to question his political savvy and his general acumen.  I mean, why bother if you're just going to insult the guy?  You can do that from a distance and save the air fare. 

I guess that's why the Prez went on so long about freedom of speech.  But it wasn't convincing, the prose was pompous and in love with itself, and the speech was only too typical of the sickly genre.

Contrast that one with the one J. K. Rowling delivered to the Harvard graduation.  (I didn't attend, just read it on line.)  I don't know how it sounded, but it read beautifully.  It was a moving tribute to Amnesty International and the power of the human imagination.  Timely, important, and worthy of her enormous talent.  I hope she got a standing ovation.  The good commencement speeches are rare, and deserve accolades.

So if you're going to give a commencement speech, please remember three things.  One, keep it short.  Twenty-two minutes is the absolute top, since that's the average attention span of an adult who doesn't have ADD.  Twelve minutes is better.  Two, make it about something you care about.  You're there on the dais because of who you are.  Speak from your passion.  And three, don't give advice.  Ever.  That's taking advantage of a captive audience and (usually) a beautiful day.   

How to give a short speech

I often get asked about short speeches, and off-the-cuff remarks.  How do you do them well?  What are the pitfalls to avoid?  It can be surprisingly hard to say something interesting in a very short time, and to avoid running on at the mouth and saying too much.  What's the happy medium, and how do you think about it?

First, I would distinguish between responding to a question, or making a statement of less than a minute or two, and making a short speech of, say, 5 to 7 minutes.  Time constraints necessarily make them two different genres.

The minute speech is best handled as follows.  Decide what you're going to say, take a deep breath, and then give the headline.  "I don't think that mice should be allowed in the Vatican."  Then go on to give up to 3 supporting reasons, depending on your thinking and the time allowed.  Hygiene, worry about the destruction of precious manuscripts, and the eek factor during prayers.  Finally, finish off with a repetition of the headline:  "So that's why I think that mice should be banned from the Vatican."

When you've got more than 3 but less than 7 minutes, think in terms of problem-solution.  If you have a great story to begin the problem section, then do so, but don't allow it to take over the problem section entirely.  You need to spend half of your allotted time discussing the problem in as much detail as you can (which is not much).  Heretical mice are running amok throughout the Vatican.  This deplorable plague has led to illness, destruction of some of the Vatican's most precious artifacts, and the discomfort of many visitors and residents....About half way through your total time, switch to the solution and buttress that with as much logic and passion as you can muster.  I recommend beginning with an excommunication, followed by mice traps, poison, and the playing of Barry Manilow recordings in the basement.... 

That's really all there is to it.  Keep it simple.  If you want to conclude by describing the benefits of your solution, then go ahead, in a sentence or two. 

Repetition and simplicity will help you keep your remarks organized and under control, and will help your listeners follow you. 

How to write a great speech -- 8

By now you have written a persuasive speech, with a structure that respects the audience's need to hear your message in a certain order that makes sense to them.  All you have to do is hit the print key, grab the pages, and you're off to the podium, right?

Not quite yet.  First of all, never hide behind the podium, but that's another blog for another day. 

Second, there are a couple more things that it would behoove you to think about. 

I like to apply Maslow's hierarchy of needs to a talk to see how viscerally it's going to grab the audience.  Start by turning the hierarchy upside down.  Maslow's whole point was that people work their way up the pyramid by satisfying their needs in the order that he describes.  So, if you're worried about food and shelter -- basic physiological needs -- you're not going to be thinking about whether or not you've got the esteem of the local flower club.  That comes later, after a good meal and the prospect of more to come.

Turned upside down, Maslow's hierarchy becomes a way to gauge whether or not someone will pay attention to your talk.  Most people don't start attending closely until their personal safety or the safety of their business is at stake.  So try to find a way to express your message in safety terms.

Don't make it up or distort things to accomplish this feat.  Make it real.  But do your best, because your audience is probably going to be thinking about the critical issues nagging at them, and to cut through that clutter, you have to be at least as low on the hierarchy as they are. 

The other way I like to think about speeches overall is to apply one of the great stories of our culture to them.  There are only five basic stories -- the quest, rags to riches, the love story, stranger in a strange land, and revenge.  These are powerful stories that we learn from the cradle, and we know them deeply and respond to them powerfully.  So if you can fit your message into a quest for profits, say, or a chance to beat the competition at a new product launch, or a merger that is a love story, then your audience will 'get' what you're saying more powerfully than otherwise.

Don't be obvious about it.  Don't say, "Let's go on a quest."  Instead, say, "Today, I'd like to ask you to begin a journey with me.  We've got difficult terrain ahead, and there will be many obstacles to overcome.  But at the end of the journey, we will achieve something that very few other companies ever get to achieve, a ....."  In other words, tell the story, don't announce it.

I say a lot more about these stories and how to use them in my first book.  Next time I'll conclude this series of blogs on writing a great speech with some thoughts about Power Point and other visual aids. 

How to write a great speech -- 7

Your audience is chattering away amongst themselves because you've given them permission to become active, in some step that is designed to help cement your message into their minds.  It's chaotic, but the audience is happy, and cementing, and those are good things.  You're tempted to leave now, but you know you have to finish the speech off in some style.  And anyway, you're the one they came to see.   

Here's where you need to expend some energy to get them back.  They will come back, but you have to insist, politely and firmly, that they do.  You're asking them to sit down and become passive again, and that's asking a lot, so don't hold them for long and don't try to do much.

Your goal at this point is to remind the audience, in a stirring and powerful way, of the central theme of the talk.  Great closes are inspirational, and aspirational.  Remind the audience of the big reason they're all there, or point the way up the path to greatness, or quote some great words by some other orator if none will come to you. 

Keep it short (under 3 minutes, closer to 1 minute is better), keep it inspirational, and then NEVER FORGET to say 'thank you'.  That's the universally understood signal that a speech is done and the audience should applaud.  If you've done well, they'll leap to their feet. 

By the way, if you're going to take questions, then save this ending segment until the very end.  If you end with Q and A, then you're at the mercy of the last question.  Often, the last question is not the best one, and it may even be asked by a crank who has been waiting, and fuming, for some time.  So deal with the questions, but then close with your own statement.  Audiences tend to remember best the last thing they hear, so make it yours.

Next time I'll talk about thematic ways to think about the whole speech. 

How to write a great speech -- 5

You’ve reached that point in creating your speech where you’ve worked with the audience to understand the problem, and you’ve offered a solution.  Now, you need to take a couple of steps to seal the deal. 

Remember what you’re doing:  you’re trying to persuade the audience of something.  Now put yourself in the audience’s shoes.  It has just been presented with a compelling problem and a solution.  Where is it likely to be?  Fully or nearly persuaded.  It needs just a little more help to push it into the comfort zone.

So now you’re going to spend a few minutes helping them along with a great example of the wonders of your solution.  If you’re a consultant, for example, touting the benefits of a new way of managing customer service, it’s time to present a case study of a company that adopted your approach and succeeded magnificently.

Think of this section of the speech like the counterpart to the opening hook.  If you used a 3-minute story there showing what happens when customer service goes horribly wrong, then this is your chance to close the circle logically and emotionally by telling a 3-minute story (or case study) where it goes right. 

This section doesn’t have to be long, and in fact it shouldn’t be.  Three to five minutes is optimal.  The point is to give a concrete example of something that shows the benefits of your solution.  Audiences aren’t very good at imaging new states, so help them. 

If you’re discussing ways to stop global warming, this is the point in the speech where you tell a success story, or draw a picture of a world turning the global warming problem around.  What would that look like?  How would people feel, and what would the benefits to them be?  Use specifics and concrete imagery as much as possible. 

After this step, you’ve only got one more to go before you’re done and ready for a celebration at the bar.  I’ll talk about how to close a great speech next time.

How to write a great speech -- 3

So you’ve captured the audience’s fleeting attention, with a great story, a statistic, or a compelling question.  Congratulations; you’ve survived the first few minutes of a speech better than most.  But what do you do now?

How do you keep the audience’s attention for the next 15 minutes or so?

There’s only one way that works reliably, and that involves asking yourself one simple question:  What’s the problem the audience has for which the information I’m ready to talk about is the answer? 

So for example, let’s say you’re a world-class expert on bees and their diseases.  You’re ready to go crazy on the subject.  All you need is a problem. 

Fortunately for you (and unfortunately for the bees) they’re dying of some mysterious disease that some say has to do with global warming, and some say has to do with viruses, maybe from Israel, and still others say has to do with a combination of the two. 

That’s what you should spend the next fifteen minutes (of a 45 minute speech) talking about.  The only prerequisite is an audience of people who care about bees. 

Or at least, an audience that cares about what the bees can do.  If it’s a general audience, in other words, the problem becomes, what are you going to do in a world without bees, where crops don’t grow, flowers don’t bloom in spring, and honey is gone forever?  Different audience, different problem. 

The point is to shape your talk to the audience’s problem.  Talk about that, because that’s the only topic that answers the question the audience has – what’s in it for me? – with sufficient punch to hold their attention for the next while. 

Go crazy, because audiences love a speaker that understands and talks about their problems. 

Next time I’ll talk about what to say after you’ve exhausted the problem, but not the audience’s patience. 

How to Write a Great Speech -- 2

So you want to write a great speech, and you’ve thought about the audience, and the occasion.  You understand what makes the audience tick, and what’s happening on the day, and the days leading up to it. 

 

The next thing to think about is how am I going to get that audience’s attention?  You need a great hook.  The idea is to frame the talk in the first 1 – 3 minutes, in a way that draws the audience in, but doesn’t simply give them an agenda.  That’s boring.  No one pays attention during the presentation of the agenda slide, so don’t do it.

 

Instead, tell a compelling story, one that shows (rather than tells) the topic you’re going to be discussing.  If you’re giving a speech on trends in customer satisfaction with your premier line of products, and the trends are down, then tell a quick story about a particular customer and how she was unhappy with the product.  That gets the audience’s attention, lays out the problem (without suggesting the solution, yet) and suggests the agenda for your talk rather than spelling it out. 

 

Another way to start is to ask a question, either rhetorical or real.  I started a recent talk to a group about authenticity and branding by asking them what the following famous brands had in common:  K-Mart, Sears, Old Navy, AOL, Circuit City, and Dodge. 

 

I let the audience guess the answer, and they did, without too much trouble.  Each of those brands is in trouble, and will probably be gone within a year or two. 

 

That was enough to hook the audience, and suggest that the topic of the morning was to be something about how strong brands go wrong. 

 

A strong statistic can also get things going, providing that it is startling enough.  Big numbers don’t hook us as much as numbers that we can process in human terms.  “Look around you.  You are seated in rows of ten.  One of you in each row will be diagnosed with cancer before the year is out.”  Or something like that. 

 

You need to find a way to encapsulate your talk vividly and quickly, so that you get the audience’s attention, and hold it long enough to get started, in an era when attention is famously a scarce commodity.  Think of it like the way filmmakers start movies these days.  In an action movie, there’s at least one big explosion before the opening credits are done.  Or, in a murder mystery, at least one body turns up.  We may even start with a murder.  Gone are the days when a movie would start with credits that went on, over cheery music, for 3 minutes or more, without any plot at all. 

 

Next time I’ll talk about what to do once you’ve got the audience’s attention. 

How to write a great speech -- 1

I'm going to write a series of blogs on how to put together a great speech, since I've heard a number of bad ones lately. 

Let's begin with first principles.  A great speech puts the occasion, the audience, and the speaker together in an unforgettable way.  All three pieces of the rhetorical puzzle are important. 

When Churchill was going to give his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech after WW II, he didn't go over to the House of Commons, where he delivered most of his orations.  Churchill knew that the speech would be controversial, since the post-war world was not in the mood to hear that war-time ally Stalin was launching the Cold War.  So instead, Churchill traveled to Fulton, Missouri, Harry Truman’s home turf, with the President in tow.  He wanted the imprimatur of the U. S. Presidency so that people would be forced to take the speech seriously. 

The gambit worked.  The speech took a pasting in the press, as Churchill knew it would, but it began a discussion that alerted the world to the dangers of the USSR.  And Churchill’s prescient words remained relevant until the Berlin Wall came down, more than 4 decades later. 

But what if you have to give a speech and you want it to be well-received now, not forty years after the fact? 

You need to consider the audience’s needs.  A great speechmaker possesses great tact.  You have to be prepared to speak to a particular audience on a particular occasion.  Ultimately, then, a great speech is only partially about you.  It’s also about the audience and the occasion.

If you keep that rule in mind, you won’t go wrong.  Ask yourself, who is this audience?  What does it want?  What does it fear?  Why has it invited me to speak to it?  What aspect of my message is relevant to it? 

And then ponder the occasion.  What’s happening right now that will be on the minds of everyone in the room?  What should I not talk about?  What does that audience need to hear?

The first rule of great speechmaking:  consider the audience.

Why Do People Insist on Using Power Point?

I've fought the good fight against bad Power Point (PP) for some time now, and the forces amassed against the Microsoft Juggernaut have made some headway at the level of the debate, but not much at the practical level.  There's still a whole lot of bad PP going on. 

Let's get some things clear.  First of all, bad PP NEVER helps a speech -- whether it's a presentation to a team, or a keynote, or a Senator's filibuster.  All bad PP does is document the horror.  What do I mean by bad PP?  Anything that involves more words than pictures.  Those are speaker notes, and they should not be shown to the audience.  I gave a speech this week, and there was one speech before mine at the event.  That speaker included two columns of bullets on one slide, which he introduced by saying, "You probably can't read this, but...."  Please!

Second, PP rarely improves a bad speech.  A bad speech is just that, bad.  Whether it's because the speaker hasn't adequately prepared, and rambles, or the non-verbal conversation is at war with the verbal, or the topic is not right for the audience -- there are a million possible ways a speech can go wrong -- when it's bad, it's bad.  Of course, PP gives you something to look at if your mind is wandering, but that's like starting to study the scenery in a bad movie -- you're still not having a good time.  Worse than that, your time is being wasted.

Third, good PP (see Presentation Zen, which I've recommended before) CAN add to a good speech, under certain conditions.  First of all, the PP has to do something that the words can't do.  So, a great picture can bring something to life in a way that it takes too many words to do.  A bit of video can add emotion and context, and put you in a place that words can't do so easily.  And so on.

But, NEVER use even good PP as wallpaper, especially for a speech, such as a keynote, when inspiration is supposed to be part of the deal.  Here's what happens:  you're asking the audience to multitask, and the studies show that multitasking makes us STUPID.  So don't do it.  Of course, we're used to multitasking, and having lots of distractions, and some people think they're not being fully utilized, or pampered, unless all that's going on, but a GOOD SPEECH holds an audience WITHOUT the need for PP. 

Bottom line:  use PP with care, make it about pictures, and focus on getting the speech right first.  If people need PP to get through your speech, there's something wrong with the speech.

The Obama-McCain Matchup

Now that the fall political line up is (semi) official, what can we expect from our two candidates, and what do they have to do to achieve their goals as public speakers?

Senator Obama's oratorical skills are already widely praised, so I won't go there.  Instead, I'll talk about ways he could improve. 

Content.  The great thing about Obama's speeches is that they are about the audience, not the candidate.  The tendency to focus on self is what did Senator Clinton in, I believe.  Obama and his speechwriter have their attention squarely focused on exactly where it belongs.  Every other word out of Clinton's mouth was 'I', always a tip-off that the speaker is narcissistic.  Obama always makes it about you, the voter, the American, the one with dreams and ambitions.

What Obama needs to do is to learn how to use the telling specific detail.  His speeches are too general, and that kind of general uplift will pall after a while if it doesn't get down to specifics.  We certainly need to feel that we are going to have an uptick in America's fortunes in the next 4 (or 8) years.  We're tired of war, the economic squeeze of the middle class, high gas prices, being trashed around the world, and so on.  We want the good news.  But Obama is going to have to tell us how at some point.

Style.  Obama does a couple of interesting things as a speaker that are not optimal.  Watch him after he delivers a line and the crowd roars its approval.  What does he do?  He listens to the audience.  That's a wonderful sign of a great speaker.  But, as he listens, he tips his head back.  The effect is to distance himself (ever so slightly) from the audience.  The result is that he doesn't close the sale as much as he could, and he risks coming across like an elitist, someone who is literally looking down his nose at the audience. 

He's best in front of big crowds.  There, he rises to the occasion.  But in front of smaller crowds, he seems not to make the effort.  He's got to learn how to captivate all sizes of audience.  The way he dominates a big audience is instructive.  It's mostly through volume.  He's like a rookie pitcher with only one pitch:  the fastball.  He's going to need a curve and a changeup to go the distance.

Now, McCain.  Once again, his rhetorical skills have been widely panned, so I won't go there.  Much.  I'll focus instead on what he does right.

McCain is at his best off the cuff with reporters, and in question-and-answer sessions in town-hall style meetings.  He's famously awful with major speeches and teleprompters.  He can't sustain interest in front of a large audience, or a small one, for that matter, when he is scripted.

The solution?  Keep him on talking points all the time.  Never give the man a script.  Give him a couple of points to cover, and let him go.  He'll go off the reservation at times, but that's preferable to the appalling performances you're going to see otherwise.   

How did the speech go?

I gave the speech this morning in a conference room holding about 60 people in that banquet-round-table style beloved of conference organizers.  The round tables make it hard to work the audience properly, but everyone loves a challenge, right?  So I stood in the middle of the long side and that way was able to see and be seen reasonably well by most people.  The arrangement made for a lot of weaving in and out of tables, but there you are. 

Lesson:  always ask up front about the room layout and negotiate a good one if you can. 

The event ran late, and my own start time was delayed 25 minutes.  I had to give a little time back on the fly, which is always annoying and challenging.  In the end, we compromised and they let me run a little long.  The overall event ended on time, something I believe to be essential.  No one ever wanted a meeting to run longer than scheduled, and no one ever complained when one ended early. 

Lesson:  be clear about your time requirements and their time constraints. 

How did it go?  I had fun, especially because I went to the audience from the very start, interacting with them, giving out prizes for participation, running a contest, and generally carrying on.  I like to make audiences 'work' and they like it too.  It beats passivity and boredom. 

Lesson:  the more audience interaction the better. 

In the end, I had the audience divided up, telling stories (the speech was about authentic storytelling) and competing for the best story.  It was a nice group, and they wanted to declare everyone a winner, so we did, with one participant a little more of a winner than everyone else. 

Lesson:  everyone's a winner if everyone participates. 

Overall, it went fine.  I could have done with more rehearsal.  I've been spoiled by giving the same speech, or similar speeches, many times.  I've forgotten how hard it is to give a speech for the first time. 

Lesson:  rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. 

I'm Giving a Speech Tomorrow

I'm in the unusual position of having to take my own advice -- I'm giving a new speech tomorrow.  I usually talk on individual communications, but this time the topic is communicating brands.  That's a subject I've worked on with companies over the years, but I don't usually lecture on the subject.

I rehearsed on Friday, and it did not go very well.  I realized that I need to take my own advice, and quickly.  So here are my three most essential rules for fixing a speech and getting it ready to go, when you're facing a deadline.

First, focus on one message and one message only.  I realized during rehearsal that I was trying to do too many things.  I need to whittle the speech down to one clear message:  Why each employee must become a passionate storyteller on behalf of the company brand in today's marketplace.  I'm going back to the draft to eliminate everything that doesn't support that one point.  Focus is essential for successful public speaking. 

Second, find a good hook that frames the message of the speech so that your audience is intrigued and brought into the discussion.  I've been trying out several openings, one a story, one a question, and a few others.  I've got to pick the one that best answers the question, why are we here?, for the audience. 

Third, deliver the speech in the problem-solution format.  The rehearsal made clear that I was trying to be too clever with my structure.  The only one that makes sense, when you're trying to persuade the audience of something, is problem-solution.  That's because our minds are structured to solve problems, and when we hear one presented to us, we automatically begin to think about how to solve it.  The structure follows our natural thinking processes, so we're happy. 

So I've got some work to do, to repair the speech, simplify it, and focus it on the audience.  Then, I'll be ready for another rehearsal.  The deadline approaches!

What Is the Secret Language of Leadership?

I picked up Stephen Denning's The Secret Language of Leadership with great interest.  It's a provocative title.  Curious minds want to know, just what is the secret language leaders use, or should use? 

Denning sets up a straw man, an uninspiring leader who tries to lead through logic.  This (imaginary) leader presents facts and expects people to follow.  But they don't. 

Why?  Because we're distracted and it takes more than facts to get us to pay attention. 

What does it take?  It takes emotion, and an understanding of our needs as followers.  Beyond that, it takes a dollop of authenticity and a sprinkling of charisma. 

Here's my take on the secret language leaders should use:  begin by realizing that followers need to be respected, and they have to decide to follow a leader, to enlist in the cause the leader is espousing.

A decision is a measurable activity.  It follows certain steps.  And it's emotional.  Here's how it works. 

First, something has to get our attention:  let's say our car breaks down on the highway for the umpteenth time.

We've had it with the old clunker!  We go through an emotional reaction to the misery of finding ourselves stuck on the highway.  That's what motivates us to change.  We wait for AAA to tow us to safety.  Time to research new models -- and our ability to pay for them.

Eventually, we close in on a model.  We convince ourselves it's the best thing on wheels.  We find a dealer, and grimly haggle over a price, expecting to get taken to the automotive cleaners. 

But eventually we end up with a new car, and leaders should use the equivalent of this secret language when persuading followers of the importance of the cause. 

Get our attention.  Get emotional; persuade us that there's something wrong, or that something could be better, or both.  Help us explore the problem and look for alternatives.  Settle in on a new way forward.  Then, talk up the benefits of that way, so we can get over the hurdle of changing our minds.  Then, get us moving on the new path. 

That's the secret language:  Attention, problem, emotion, decision-making, and action.  Understand your followers and your ideas from that point of view, and you can be a leader.  Add in authenticity and charisma, and you can be a great one. 

The Candidates' Speeches Tell the Story

 Last night public speaking aficionados were treated to a wonderful set of case studies from the last 3 candidates standing -- how not to do it, why it did her in, and how to win.

First off was John McCain, who gave a bad reading of a terrible speech.  Did his speechwriters put <SMILE> on the teleprompter at the end of each paragraph?  He certainly smiled at weird and wonderful places, while delivering bad news and slams at his putative opponent, and lamely trying to distance himself from President Bush.  He adopted a patronizing tone that served the coup de grace to Senator Clinton, managing to praise her campaign and make it sound like he was putting the little woman in her place at the same time.

More substantively, he took a lot of Senator Obama's ideas and prose and tried to use them against him.  But the effect fell flat; it just didn't work to try to pin 'old ideas' on Obama, who is so transparently about something new.  And on top of that, to steal Obama's tag line as his backdrop -- I guess imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.  McCain appeared clueless, and he's desperately taking lessons from Obama in an effort to smarten up.  He needs a different approach.  This one cannot work.

Next up was Senator Clinton, and this was the saddest speech of the night.  Clinton kept her smile plastered on the entire time, but the speech was a giveaway as to why the one-time front-runner didn't win.

It was all about her.  She claimed that everyone wanted to know what she was going to do.  Well, yes, we do want to know.  But we expect her to show leadership at a tough moment, and that's exactly what she failed to do.  She had a wonderful opportunity to exit gracefully and heal the party.  Instead, she held out for a better deal.  What a sad close to a determined campaign.

Finally, Senator Obama gave a decent speech that was rendered better by being all about the audience.  He only once referred to himself, at the beginning, when he was talking about Grandma.  Nice move.  The rest of the speech was about the hopes and dreams of the audience, of America, and about...change we can believe in.  This guy knows how to do it. 

He could be even better if he used the right kind of specifics in key places in his speech, and he got personal in the right kind of ways.  Has no one else noticed that, as good as he is, his speeches are a little impersonal?  He needs to go back and read Churchill.  Still, he's by far the best speaker on the U.S. political scene at the moment.  If it comes down to speeches, my money is on Senator Obama. 

How powerful is a story?

Just how powerful is a story?  Jim Loehr addresses that question in his book, The Power of Story:  Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and Life.  Loehr thinks about stories the way psychologists do:  as governering narratives that you tell about yourself, your life, your relationships, and that come to have a self-fulfilling aspect to them.  If you believe that you are always fated to screw up intimate relationships, for example, you will do so because you believe it.  Or, if you believe that you will be the next Bill Gates.....maybe you will. 

I don't dispute that what we believe about ourselves often 'comes true' if only because that belief is based on past experience.  But I think a more interesting way to think about stories -- for both individuals and companies -- is to look at how they frame your experiences and thus your life.

If you tell yourself you're on a quest to build the best new little company since Microsoft, for example, then every roadblock you encounter along the way is an obstacle to overcome on your path to the goal.  You'll get past those roadblock with ease because you know the story -- that's what heroes do, they get past roadblock and win through to the goal in the end.  That's a familiar narrative. 

The trick is to psych yourself (and your employees and colleagues) into believing this group hallucination long enough for it to become true.  History is littered with folks who struggled too long, lost hope, and gave up.  In addition to a good story, you need stick-to-it-iveness. 

Yes, stories are important.  They shape how we think about ourselves, our lives, and our work.  But character is also important, and without that the greatest stories in the world will never be lived to be told. 

Authenticity -- how important is it?

The third in my series of blogs inspired by recent books on communication-related issues takes Authenticity:  What Consumers Really Want, by James H, Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II, as its starting point.  How important is authenticity?  The authors basically say that it's everything where companies and their customers are concerned, and I agree, for the most part.  I would add that it's essential in personal communications as well, whether you're giving a speech or conducting a meeting or just chatting with your co-workers.

As I've just finished writing in my new book on the subject, tentatively entitled Trust Me:  The Art of Authentic Communication, we're so fed up with hype that we value authenticity over almost everything else.  Be real with us, if you're pitching a product, leading a company, or telling us about the next greatest thing, we say.  Don't spin me.  I get that all the time, and I'm used to tuning it all out. 

In fact, we're experts as consumers at disregarding ads and marketing.  We have to be; we're hit with ungodly amounts of it from the moment we wake up until the time we collapse, overstimulated and exhausted, into bed at night.  Of course some of it sticks; how could we help but get saturated with the stuff?  But less than you might think. 

What we remember is the heartfelt, the real, the unusual, and the outrageous.  Marketers are much better at the latter two than the former, but they should learn.  The heartfelt and the real not only stick with us, they nourish our souls, and that's what we really need today.

Storytelling as a functional business art

I read What's Your Story?  Storytelling to move markets, audiences, people, and brands by Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker with high expectations.  Wacker has been a futurist for a number of years, and his trendspotting is always interesting and illuminating.  The book is most useful when it gives practical advice on how to tell stories that will resonate with other people, your public, your customers, or any other audience you have in mind. 

The basic point is incontrovertible, that dull recitations of facts can't compete with a good story, whether it's to a friend, an audience, or a legion of customers.  There's not much news here.  But what can stories do for you and your company?  Mathews and Wacker are strong on the how-to.  I'll give a couple of examples.

Stories can explain origins.  Did your vision begin with personal computers in a garage, nerdy and high-tech, or did you have an idea about saving money?  Don't give us the facts, give us the story.  Give us the essential Truth, in other words, not the details.  If your origin was with Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, you'll get one kind of (high-tech) story; if it was with Sam Walton and saving money, you'll get another.  Make sure your story is appropriate to the history you're relating.  Wal-Mart actually leads the way in some areas of automation, pushing suppliers relentlessly to achieve maximum efficiency from supply chain wizardry, but you'd never know it when the company talks about Sam Walton's founding vision about small town America and saving pennies. 

Stories can communicate complicated histories concisely.  One of the beauties of a good story is that it can condense a lot of messy facts into a tidy, digestible story.  And that's all most of us have time for nowadays.  We don't want the legal brief, we want to get the emotional underpinnings and the gist of it.  Mathews and Wacker used the example of Charmin and Mr. Whipple -- all of the science, if that's the right word, of making toilet paper soft is summarized neatly and memorably in the silly story of Mr. Whipple trying to stop people (and himself) from squeezing the Charmin.  Brilliant. 

Stories can model behavior appropriately.  Stories become great shorthand for telling us how to behave.  Adam and Eve, the Buddha, the Tortoise and the Hare, Midas, Icarus -- our culture is full of ancient stories that have the aspect of cautionary tales.  Each of these stories lets us know the risks of behaving in certain ways and the opportunities inherent in certain situations.  Companies can use stories in the same ways to show employees how to behave or even to educate customers. 

Stories work well because they respect the way our minds deal with reality.  We've learned from an early age that there are actors, actions, and results.  If you push the glass over, the milk spills on the floor, and the parent rushes around to clean it up.  That's a very simple story, and it's where we begin to make sense of the world.  We get more sophisticated as time goes on, but it's the same thought process. 

We are all storytellers; it's how we make sense of the world.  Effective communication means taking advantage of the power of storytelling to make connections with people, with audiences, and with the public. 

Marketing and Communications for Consultants

I’m going to do a series of blogs inspired by recent books on communications.  The first is Levinson and McLaughlin’s book, Guerilla Marketing for Consultants.  What’s great about this book, especially for mid-sized and small consulting firms, is that the authors put the focus squarely on practical, straightforward communications that will be readily achievable by their target audience.  This is news you can use, if you’re trying to build up a business that isn’t already Fortune 1000 size.

Three insights in particular inspired by the book seem worthwhile in the communications realm.  The interesting thing about each of them is that they are timeless truths that have stayed true in the 24/7, always-on era. 

First of all, keep your attention where it belongs:  the clients.  That means that your main job is to communicate with them before everything else.  The best advertising is word-of-mouth, and that has only gotten more important in the Internet age. Referrals are your best source of new clients. 

Second, public speaking is still a great way to reach potential clients and create buzz about you and your ideas.  The competition is tough and it’s harder to get to the right audiences, but if you can, you’ll find it worth all the aggravation. 

To speak in public, you need a great message and some practice in delivery.  Don’t try to get away with something less than strong in either area – you won’t be advancing your brand if you do.  Even if you think the venue and the crowd are small beer, do your best.  Someone in that audience will be related to someone else who really, really matters to your business. 

Third, think about writing a book.  It will help enormously with number two on the list, as well as with your brand.  Just don’t expect the process to be like it is in the movies.  Publishers are in the wholesale business; they don’t do retail.  They want to move 1000 or more books at a time.  A marketing budget?  Author’s tours?  Appearances on the Today Show?  Forget it. It’s a do-it-yourself era for authors, and you might as well know that going in.  If you don’t expect anything at all from your publisher, you won’t be disappointed.  Everyone else is. 

I work with a number of second-time authors, helping them with agents, publishers, PR, and the rest of it, precisely because they’ve been badly burned the first time around and watched their baby disappear without a trace into the 100,000 book pile published every year. 

Why do they do it that way?  God knows.  Publishers have no idea what will sell, so they throw a lot of product at the marketplace, in the hopes that every now and then one will sell more than 5 or 10 thousand copies, which is the average.  It’s a crazy business, but the mantle of authority that it confers upon a published author is still worth fighting for, since it turns you from a person with an opinion into an expert.

Next up:  What’s Your Story?  By Mathews and Wacker

Body Language -- 9

For my last post in this series on body language, I'm going to try to turn your thinking on its head.  If you're like most of us, you think about body language as follows.  I'm pretty much in charge of my body.  I direct it, from the control tower in my head.  I tell it what to do.  'Make coffee' I say, and it goes through the motions. "Now drink it' I say, and it obliges.  Sure, there are activities like breathing that I let it handle on its own, but that's mostly low-level stuff I don't think much about.  In short, I live in my body, my brain rules it, and that's the deal. 

But actually it's much more complicated than that.  In certain realms, like the realm of emotion, and relationship, and personal safety, just to pick three, your body literally thinks faster than your conscious mind, and rules the roost accordingly. 

In other words, the older, lower part of your brain, the one beneath the cerebral cortex, 'thinks' non-verbally.  And it thinks faster than your conscious cerebral cortex.  So many of those things that you do, like hugging your spouse when you see her at the end of a long day, you do because you've had an emotional/physical thought first, and a conscious 'Nice to see you, honey' thought only afterward.  The body is in charge, in some significant areas of human expression. 

Why should public speakers care about this?  Because what I've found in working with a thousand speakers over the years is that what your body does under adrenaline, your mind begins to think.  So, for example (and this is important), if you're one of those people who tends to freeze under stress, the kind of speaker that stands in one place, speaks in a monotone, and gestures minimally if at all, then gradually your conscious thought will become more and more restricted as well.  You will experience the phenomenon I've seen again and again where the speaker becomes verbally limited, getting tied up in word knots and using the same few words over and over again.  Or, you'll miss an obvious answer to a question, or forget to give an important part of your speech. 

The body rules.  Especially under adrenaline.  It's just trying to keep you alive.  So pay attention to it.  What can you do about this phenomenon?  If you find yourself getting stuck in some way, climb out of the rut!  Force yourself to move, to change the subject.  Announce a short break, or walk to the back of the room, or ask the audience to stretch with you.  Anything that's not illegal, immoral, or fattening and that gets you doing something different.  You'll find that your conscious mind and your verbal facility will come to life once again when you do.

Body Language -- 8

The voice is an oft-neglected part of body language.  I mean the tone of voice, its pitch, and everything else you do with it. 

Let's look at the basics.  Voices need both resonance and presence.  Resonance is the quality of the voice that makes it pleasant to listen to, and it's created by good breathing and support of the air in the lungs.  In an earlier blog I talked about good 'belly breathing'; both singers and yoga practitioners know how to breathe this way.  Basically, you take air into your belly, by expanding it, not into your shoulders by lifting them up, which is the way most people breathe.  That actually makes your lung capacity smaller and gives you less resonance.  Instead, take the air in (your belly should expand out) and then tense the diaphragmatic muscles below your rib cage to hold the air.  Let it trickle out as you speak, and you'll have good resonance.  A good choir director or yoga instructor can give you a more thorough course in proper breathing than is possible in a blog.  If you breathe properly, your voice should stay strong and clear throughout a day of speaking.  If you're one of those whose voice gets tired, or hoarse, or weak, then you're not breathing and supporting properly.   

Presence is the opposite quality -- it's the timbre of the voice that allows it to be heard.  Basically, you need to have a little bit of your voice coming from the nasal area.  That creates presence.  Put your fingers on either side of your nose and relax your mouth.  Now, make a noise like a cow.  If you can feel vibration in the nasal passages, that's presence.  Too much presence and you sound like a dentist's drill and no one wants to listen to you.  Just the right amount and you will be heard. 

After that, voices need what I call the authoritative arc.  Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr speaking.  His voice rises up in the middle of the sentence, and then comes down toward the end, almost as if he were singing.  That's authoritative.  Too many people today say everything as if it were a question?  They let their voices rise in pitch at the end of the sentence?  That confuses people?  Because we lose the semantic difference between a question and a statement?  Don't do it!

After that, you need variety.  Loud and soft, fast and slow, rising and falling in pitch, dramatic pauses -- the voice is an amazing instrument for meaning, persuasion, and emotion.  Don't neglect it.

Body Language -- 7

'Make eye contact' is the simplest piece of advice that coaches in this field can give.  It's so simple -- why would you imagine you could get away with not looking at your audience? -- that it's hard to believe people both need and give this advice, for money.

But is there anything more to it?  I was watching a U-Tube clip of Tom Cruise in a dull moment the other day and I realized that there are some important subtleties to making eye contact.  Tom was talking to Oprah about jumping on couches, Katie, Suri, and scientology, and other such weird issues, and he was making eye contact with Oprah, across his own couch. 

But his eyes were narrowed to (nearly) slits, and the effect was that he radiated distrust.  And so, we don't trust him. 

The first sophisticated rule of eye contact, then, is that if you're going to make eye contact, you have to do it with your eyes wide open.  Not shut, or almost shut.  If the lights are bright, or you're near-sighted, tough.  Learn to compensate.  It's so basic to our reading of you, that you'd be better off wearing dark glasses if you're going to squint. 

The second sophisticated rule of eye contact is that you actually have to make eye contact.  With individuals.  For up to 30 seconds.  You can't look over the heads of the crowd (a lot of speakers do this when they're too nervous to look at the audience), and you can't dart your eyes around nervously like a lizard's tongue.  Imagine you're having a conversation with people -- better yet have a conversation with individuals in the audience -- and look at them fixedly-but-not-too-fixedly, just like you would in a real conversation. 

The third sophisticated rule of eye contact is that you should be monitoring the extent to which your audience is making eye contact with you.  It's a simple way to guage interest in the talk.  If 80 percent of them are focused on you, you're OK.  If 80 percent (or even 40 percent) are focused elsewhere, you're in trouble.

Eye contact, like other aspects of human communication, can potentially convey many meanings.  Make eye contact, to be sure, but be careful that you're doing it right.   

Body Language -- 6

Let's talk about zones.  Not getting in the zone.  I'll blog on that at a later date.  No, this time I mean the distances between people.  We each have 4 zones of space that we maintain between us.  The first zone is the public zone, and it's 12 feet or more.  Stuff that happens in that zone we tend not to take personally and thus it's not very interesting to us.  Between 12 feet and 4 feet is the social zone.  That's more interesting, and it's the distance at which we make cocktail party chatter and check out potential dates and that sort of thing.  Warmer than public space, but still cool.

From 4 feet to 1.5 feet is personal space.  Here's where it gets interesting.  As soon as you're in my personal space, I'm paying close attention.  You might be dangerous, so I'll keep a close eye on you.  You might even be friendly, in which case I can be more or less open depending on how friendly I want to be in return. 

From 1.5 feet to 0 is intimate space.  In this zone, we're both committed.  If we're talking about public speaking -- any public occasion, really -- don't go here.  Both parties will feel very uncomfortable.  It's why Americans and English travelers feel so awkward in Asia and some parts of the Mediterranean.  Cultures there still have the 4 zones, but they're compressed.  So someone else's personal space feels like my intimate space. 

Back to public speaking.  Use the 4 zones wisely and you can greatly increase your zip as a presenter.  People today are information-overloaded and it's hard to get their attention.  So you need to get in their personal space if you're really going to grab them (intellectually).  Not their intimate space, their personal space.  Then, you and the other person will feel like you're having a conversation, which is the norm for paying attention in our casual modern culture. 

Use the 4 zones, but especially the personal one, for great public speaking. 

Body Language -- 5

What should you be thinking about during a speech in terms of your body language?  There's a lot to do -- you have to stand straight, act energetic, focus on the audience, remember your speech, keep your finger out of your ear, and so on.  What are the main points to pay attention to?

You need to know your speech cold, or you won't be able to do anything but struggle through.  The ability to do more than survive depends on knowing the speech so well that you have some extra RAM to devote to all the other things you and the audience are supposed to be doing.

If you do know your speech, then the first place to put your focus is on you.  Is your body language consistent with your message?  In other words, if you're asking the assembled multitudes to work harder, stay later, and bring in more customers in order to meet a stretch goal for the 3rd Q, then do you look like someone who is already doing that?  How is your posture?  Is it straight and heart-oriented?  If you're slouching, don't expect your audience to respond to your plea.  You don't look like you're ready to, so why should they?

Then think about your body language in relation to the audience.  Are you looking at them, more specifically, selected individuals within the audience in about 30-second bursts?  Is your face animated, energetic, and interested?  Once again, if you're not having a fabulous time and showing it, don't expect the audience to respond. 

Then get in that audience and give a brief bit of your speech to one audience member, in the front right part of the audience.  Once you've done that, go back left.  Then front left, and then back right.  Imagine you're having a conversation with each one in turn.  Audiences will take the invididual to be a proxy for the whole, and everyone will feel like (to a slightly lesser extent) they had an individual conversation with you.  They'll remember the speech as personal, engaging, real, authentic, and so on.

The way to give a memorable speech is to know it cold so that you can attend to the second conversation, the non-verbal one, that you're having with the audience.  That attention will bring your speech to life for the audience. 

Body Language -- 4

Yesterday I promised to talk about the second of the the two things you should be doing before you start a speech.  The first was breathing -- deeply -- and the second is getting what actors call the 'offstage beat'. 

What is the offstage beat and why do you need it as a public speaker?  Actors divide their scripts up into beats, basically short sections of the script when they're feeling one emotion or have one thing they're trying to accomplish -- an 'objective' in actor-speak.  So, in Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo has exchanged insults with Tybalt and starts duelling with him, the beat might be something like, 'I'm angry at Tybalt and want to kill him (despite my promise to Juliet not to duel with members of her family)'. 

The offstage beat is the emotion and objective you go on stage with.  The idea is that a character doesn't just spring into life when he or she starts uttering lines, but comes from somewhere, wanting something, doing something, and so on.  When an actor comes on stage with something already going on, she is much more interesting to watch than if she's just making an entrance in order to start speaking.  Look for it the next time you're in the theatre.  You'll be able to tell actors that come on with an offstage beat, and ones (if there are any) that don't.  The difference is absolute. 

So as a speaker, you'll be much more interesting for the audience if you start with an offstage beat.  While you're breathing, before the speech, then, get an objective and an emotion into your head.  It might  be something like, 'I can't wait to tell these people about my special soap and I'm thrilled to the max to see them.' 

The other advantage to this activity, besides making you a far more interesting speaker right out of the box is that you will spend less time making yourself nervous, which is otherwise the offstage beat you will have.  The difference is absolute.  A speaker with an offstage beat comes on focused, ready, energetic, and interesting.  A speaker without one comes on. . . nervous.  Not a pretty sight.

Body Language -- 3

What are you doing in those last few moments before you begin a speech?  Most people are just getting nervous.  Or more nervous.  They're thinking about all the things that can go wrong, and all the ways in which they might screw up.  They're worrying about being judged by the audience -- and found lacking.  In other words, they're sabatoging themselves. 

Is there a better way to spend those last few moments?  There is.  There are a couple of things you should be doing rather than picturing disaster. 

First, you should be taking a couple of big 'belly breaths'.  Deep breathing (as opposed to hyperventilating) will calm and ground you, and over a period of time, with practice, will become a physical act you do that will tell you 'this is going to be a success'. 

How do you breathe in this way?  Imagine your body is an eye dropper, with the bulb as your stomach.  Inflate your stomach (expand it) as you breathe IN.  Then, tense your diaphragmatic muscles (the ones over your stomach and under your rib cage -- the ones you'd tense if someone punched you in the stomach) and hold the air in for a few seconds.  Longer if you can.  Then, slowly let the air out, pushing your (tensed) stomach in as you do. 

Don't move your shoulders during this procedure; the shoulders should not be involved.  When you're full of adrenaline, and panicky, you'll tend to breathe from your upper chest, taking in shallow breaths, using your shoulders.  The result is to increase your feelings of panic.  You must breathe DEEP breaths, from the BELLY.

By the way.  Those Taoist sages who live to be 100?  They take 100 deep, belly breaths per day, religiously.   

I'll talk about the other thing you should be doing in tomorrow's blog.    

Body Language -- 2

You can win over or lose your audience in the first 30 seconds of your appearance in front of them with your body language.  Really. 

How do you accomplish this feat -- or avoid this disaster? 

You've seen speakers who bound on the stage with lots of energy, and no doubt seen speakers also who creep onto the stage with the opposite -- low energy and lots weighing them down.  Which did you look forward to more? 

So it's important to smile, move quickly (but not so quickly as to fall or injure yourself) and look as eager as you can.  But there's more to it than that.

The real secret lies in your posture.  There are 3 ways to stand (and a fourth that's a combination of 1 and 2) and only one of them is effective. 

Think of how you look from the side, as if a straight line were being drawn through your head down to your toes.  If you've got good posture, like your mother used to tell you to have, then the balls of your feet, your pelvis, and your shoulders and head all will line up on that vertical slice.

Some people, however, project their head forward.  In fact, most people who spend a lot of time at the computer do this; the computer work rounds their shoulders and pushes their head forward.  We call this the 'head posture', sensibly enough.  It signals subservience, humility, and deference to the audience.  Great for the Dalai Lama, who has a terrific head posture, but not so good for the rest of us who don't need (or want) to be as professionally humble. 

Others project their pelvis forward.  (Imagine yourself playing air guitar without the air guitar.)  This posture, which is highly sexualized, is typical of teenagers and pop stars.  Again, not so good for speakers.  You don't want the audience thinking of you primarily as a sex object.  Really.

The third possible posture is the straight up, lead-with-the-heart posture.  Imagine a soldier, seen from the side, but relaxed across the shoulders rather than rigid.  That's the heart posture, and it radiates trust, authority, and confidence -- all the attributes you as a speaker want. 

(The fourth is a combination of head and pelvis, a kind of question mark.  Most typical, again, of teenagers, who are both self-conscious and sexualized.  Or intellectual rockers.  Not good for speakers.) 

So bound on the stage, and look happy.  But more importantly, watch your posture.  It will signal to the audience who you are, whether you intend it to or not.