Communication Skills

The ideal advice about reading a speech is: Don’t! ……

…but then there is real life.  You may have a very formal speaking role where you have to get the wording exactly right.  In this situation, you will have to read the speech.

So really the advice is: Don’t look like you are reading the speech.

Last week I worked with a client on his introduction of a very important speaker at a very formal occasion. Aside from all the usual preparation elements, these were the three important steps so he would not look like he was reading the speech:

• Look up when you speak, look down to pick up the next sound bite.  This sounds very weird, but works really well.  You are creating a good pause when you look down and effective eye contact when you look up. This is sometimes called: ‘Scoop up then dump’. I don’t like that because it gives the wrong idea about the connection you need when you look up.

• When you are working on the speech, always read it aloud so you can get it close to how you would talk if you were just talking and not reading.  Try to recreate the natural rhythms of your speech.  You will need to use emphasis, stress and pace variation carefully to achieve this.  Read it out to someone who knows you well and get them to help you adjust it into your natural speaking patterns. This is the time to alter any wording that becomes difficult under pressure.

• Work out the meaning of the speech and the audience situation, then use your voice to create that meaning.  My client last week  was using contrasting pairs of ideas, from the very large to the very small. He could create that contrast by using a louder slower voice for the large and a quieter voice for the small. Really you are varying your voice to ‘act out’ the ideas.

Just one more thing: Use a large font for your lectern notes and keep the text to the top half of the page.  On the lectern this will enable you to easily see it without having to bend your head

There are some more tips in CommOn

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