The current shouting match going in Washington is bad public speaking.  Good public speaking begins– literally and figuratively– with civility. 

“May it please the court,” says the lawyer.

“Madam Speaker,  Vice President So-and-So, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans,” says the President at the State of the Union.

“It is indeed an honor and a privilege to be with you today,” say most commencement speakers.

“May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable to You,” says the preacher, beginning her sermon.

Speeches begin with an elaborate display of good manners because good manners flatter the audience and predispose them to find the speaker and his argument appealing.

So public speech begins—literally—with ritualistic words of respect designed to, at the least, get the audience to lend its collective ear to the speaker.

Later on in the body of the talk, if the speaker is advocating against an opposing point of view, she would be wise  to state that view in a fair and balanced way, and acknowledge the legitimacy of it.

Then, without demonizing the values and beliefs that support the opposing view, the speaker can demonstrate why that view is flawed, and hers is better.

In addition to treating the opposing view as reasonable, the speaker should be mindful of her own tone and word choice. 

We recognize that being uncivil earns the speaker notoriety, adulation from the partisan crowd, and maybe some emotional catharsis. 

But it tends to delay a considered decision made for the public good because it shuts down the other side’s ability and willingness to listen. 

In the end, civility gets things done better, cheaper, and faster.

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

The sensation of stage fright is bad enough, but what’s worse is the damage it can do to your career and your self-esteem.

If you let it stop you, your sense of self gets smaller and your stage fright gets bigger and more powerful.

However, when you step into your stage fright, you learn quickly that it’s a phantom–a fog—like most of our fears.  When you step into that fog, you soon realize that it is a figment of your imagination—and that your effort to cut through it can easily succeed.

Here is a pep talk, courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt, who knew something about courage and determination.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”                            

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

When does a polished speaker become slick? 

I ask this question because I occasionally see so-called “professional speakers” behaving in peculiar ways.  They have developed a presentation “style” that doesn’t seem natural, that smacks of late night infomercials and snake oil charlatans. 

What they do would get them fired in most corporations, not because of what they say, but because of what their style says about them.

First, let’s define the terms.  Polished means at ease, organized, and skilled at structuring and delivering a talk.

Slick means gimmicky, schticky, schmaltzy, overdone, histrionic, overly theatrical, manipulative, and insincere.

A polished speaker does not let his desire to impress overwhelm his obligation to provide something of value to the audience.

A slick speaker has a routine that he uses to dazzle his audience, and seems more interested in wowing than connecting.

I’m not saying that style is unimportant.  But the style of a speaker should suit the topic and the occasion.  A style that draws attention to itself, or is out of sync with the content, undermines the credibility of the speaker and creates a gap between speaker and audience.

Most of us live at a safe distance from the polished to slick border line.  But as we get more skilled and confident, let us beware of the danger. 

Audiences crave intimacy with a speaker.  Slickness turns them off.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.