Simple Ways to be a More Engaging Speaker
With sincere thanks to Fast Company and Author, Art Markman for this great article.
You don’t have to be naturally hilarious or extroverted to give a memorable presentation or speech.
Hearing a really great talk by an energetic and dynamic speaker can be an enthralling and motivating experience. But the very same topic explored in a bad talk can suck the energy out of a room.
When you hear a great speaker, it can also inspire you to improve your own skills. After all, you probably want to leave audiences with the same feeling you have when leaving a fantastic presentation. Luckily, being an engaging speaker is a skill. It requires practice, but there is a lot you can learn. Here are three things engaging speakers do well.
LESS IS MORE
Engaging speakers limit their focus to a small number of key points. Ideally, the talk focuses on three core issues. Once you go beyond three issues, the talk gets muddled, and it gets difficult for the audience to remember all of the key points.
In order to stay focused on the three central points of the talk, it is also crucial to follow the age-old advice about any presentation to tell people what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. That is, introduce the key points, focus on them, and then review.
As you introduce each point, find a way to relate it to something that the audience already knows. The ability to store and retrieve information from memory is enhanced by forming connections between new information and things they have already learned or experienced. Drawing the connection between the new topics and people’s experience makes it easier for people to recall the information later.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
Imagine you get up to give a talk and the projector won’t work. Does that frighten you? It shouldn’t.
After you prepare a talk, you should be able to give it without looking at your notes or staring at the slides you prepared. When you have to consult your notes frequently or look at the slides to know what is coming next, you break up the fluency of what you’re talking about. You make it harder to look out at the audience and track how they are following the talk. Instead, you’re absorbed in trying to remember what to say next.
In order to know your talk fluently enough to give it well, you need to go through it several times. Start by giving it to the wall of an empty office or conference room. That is, deliver the talk at normal volume while standing in front of an imaginary audience. You want to ensure you have all of the words you need to describe things carefully. You want to stand and practice, so that you also have some sense of what you’re going to do with your hands and whether you will stand behind a podium or walk on a stage.
After you have practiced the talk well enough to be able to get through it cleanly, find a knowledgeable colleague or two who can listen to the presentation and give you feedback. Just because the talk makes complete sense to you doesn’t mean that someone who doesn’t know what you’re going to say will be able to follow it.
While you are giving the talk to your practice audience, watch the way they react. Great speakers can read the room to determine whether the audience is following along and is enjoying the talk. If you are not sure you can read the cues from the audience well, use what you see in your practice audience and match it up to the feedback they give you later.
USE VISUAL AIDS SPARINGLY
One reason why you should be able to give your talk without any presentation slides is because you should try to minimize (or eliminate) slides from your talk. Your audience does not need a running outline of what you’re going to say. And if you know your presentation well, you don’t need the outline either.
You should use slides to present data if that is needed in your talk. If you have a graph or summary of survey data, that can be valuable for the audience to see. If you are introducing some new vocabulary that you hope people will be able to remember (and spell) later, then you might want to put that up on a slide as well.
Beyond that, there isn’t really much need to show slides. If you don’t use slides, then the focus of the audience is on you, the speaker. That gives you an opportunity to keep people focused on what you’re saying rather than looking elsewhere and getting lost.
BONUS: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE FUNNY
Often, when we think of engaging speakers, we think of people who are good at telling jokes or quick with a quip. If you happen to be funny, you can certainly use that to your advantage in giving talks.
If you are not that funny or witty, don’t despair. You can still give a great talk. Just stay focused on what you know and what you know how to do. If you follow the guidelines here, you’ll give a great talk—even if you can’t get anyone in the audience to crack a smile.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Art Markman is the Chief Academic Officer of Minerva Project. where he is focused on using his scientific and administrative expertise to transform the teaching mission of higher education institutions More