Power Speaking

The Art of the Exceptional Public Speaker

Achim Nowak

• Publisher: Allworth
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781621533764
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Meetings & Presentations
• Index: Business

Integrating key concepts and ideas about public speaking into a clear, step-by-step, transformational method, Power Speaking teaches emerging speakers how to grow the necessary skills and unleash their inner power. Divided into proficiency levels-mastering the basics, making the connection, and polishing the core-this guide allows speakers to conquer public speaking systematically. Readers start with the use of voice and body movements, then move on to learn the use of personal stories, intent listening, and positioning or reframing a topic.Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

One afternoon in the fall of 1989, I happened to pass my friend Mitch on the street. He pulled a cassette tape out of his knap-sack. “Go and listen to this woman,” he said with enthusiasm. “She’s really good.” That evening I slid the tape into my cassette player. The woman—as far as I could tell—was a metaphysical speaker. The tape was simple, homemade, with a scratchy background sound that was unpleasant to the ear. What really annoyed me, however, was the sound of the speaker’s voice: she spoke in a high, shrill pitch. She raced through her sentences as if she couldn’t wait to get to the end. When she finally paused she produced sharp, heavy breaths as if she were gulping for air. Then her fast, high-pitched delivery resumed without variation.

After barely thirty seconds I turned off the tape, irritated by this unsavory voice, and more than a little peeved with my friend for suggesting I listen to it in the first place.

Almost exactly one year after this chance meeting, Mitch took me to a small social gathering in an apartment on West 15th Street in Manhattan. There was a featured speaker at the soiree who sat perched on an ottoman and addressed the group of twenty or so guests. She was vivacious, with a rapid-fire delivery style that was accentuated by lively and effusive gestures. It wasn’t long before I realized that—yes—this was the woman whose audiotape I had found so irritating a year earlier. I marveled with a mixture of awe and disbelief at her seemingly endless reservoir of energy. Seeing her in person, I recognized the appeal of this energy. Her voice, however, still had the shrill edge I found unpleasing. And the gestures and sentences moved too fast, as if she were unleashing a flood of kines- thetic impulses that she could not contain.

Sometime in May of 1991 I went to an event at Town Hall, a large concert hall in the heart of Manhattan’s Broadway theater district. The featured speaker—yes, you guessed it—was this very same woman. When she walked onto the stage, in front of an audience of fifteen hundred people, I witnessed what fell nothing short of a public speaking transformation. Her voice had settled into a lower, more pleasing range. Her delivery style had slowed. Her infectious natural energy was steady and focused. I was entranced. Instead of observing this speaker’s communication blockers, I was able to focus on her message. Instead of getting in the way of this message, her basic communication tools—her voice, body movement, gestures, eye contact, and personal energy—acted in beautiful synergy to support her message.

The speaker was Marianne Williamson, a highly successful moti-vational speaker and the author of numerous New York Times best- selling books. I heard her at a time when she was just beginning to make her mark in public, and like many beginning speakers, she was clearly grappling with how to effectively communicate with her audience. By the time Marianne spoke at Town Hall, she had begun to master the basics that we will explore in the first part of this book.

As I listened to Marianne that evening, I had one of my personal lightbulb moments: Marianne Williamson was saying the very things she had said on that rushed audiotape and at the private gathering I had attended. Marianne had always had her message. Her content had not changed—she had simply fine-tuned her basic communication instruments and had become a true channel for her message.

She had learned to get out of her own way.

In part I, we will have the opportunity to look at what you can do to get out of your own way. Chances are Marianne Williamson did not do this on her own. Someone worked with her on the use of eye contact, body movement, gestures, energy, and the quality of her voice. Most public speakers—newscasters, politicians, and high-level business leaders—have been coached on all of these skills. Many have been coached so aggressively that it is difficult to detect a spark of sincerity or spontaneity in their speaking style. Their every statement and movement looks phony and calculated. I call it the Dan Rather School of Public Speaking: stiff, stagy, and entirely studied. Each gesture and each glance draws attention to itself. Each phrase and each pause looks like the tidy execution of a coaching tip that has not been assimilated.

This is most certainly not what we want. Everything we explore in this section is intended to move us away from such a meticulously studied approach. As we become fluid with the use of our basic vocabulary (our voice, gestures, body movement, eye contact, and personal energy) it will cease to draw attention to itself. It will become submerged in how we express the essence of who we are. It will be placed in the invisible service of the message we seek to con-vey to our audience. Fully integrated, this vocabulary has the poten-tial to transform us into truly brilliant speakers.

For many of us, the first time we hear our voice (on a voicemail recording or a videotape) produces an almost seismic jolt: This surely can’t be me, we think. Is this what I really sound like? Chances are what we hear on such a recording is precisely what everyone else who listens to us hears. I continue to be baffled by how many of us do not like the way we sound. We will do anything possible to make sure we do not have to listen to a recording of our voice. This very visceral feeling is caused by a palpable disconnect between how our voice sounds to us, as we speak, and the way it sounds to those who listen to us. Many of us, quite simply, have never heard ourselves.

So, here is where I ask you to begin: Get to know your voice. Record yourself. Listen to your recordings often. Listen to it without judgment. Get used to your voice as it likely sounds to others. Listen to it over and over until you start to accept that this truly is your voice. Through repeated listening, you will quickly reach the point when the sound of your voice no longer feels like an out-of-body visitation from the devil in The Exorcist.

This simple act of listening and acceptance can be a truly liber-ating start. Once we are able to hear our voice as it sounds today— its basic tone, timbre, resonance, and pitch—then we can begin to play with the dimensions of our voice. We will be able to listen for volume, clarity, pace, variety, and speech fillers. We will have the wondrous opportunity to experiment with the range of this voice. We will experiment not because we seek to invent a new, or false, voice. On the contrary, we will discover those qualities of our voice that we have never put to use. We will become the archaeologist who ventures on an exciting new dig—unearthing the truly dynamic voice we have always had.

Here is the good news: Almost any aspect of our voice can be readily shaped, adapted, developed, and modified. And here’s even better news: It is very rare that I meet a presenter who needs pro-fessional voice correction (and in the event this is necessary, there are numerous experts who can do just that). I intentionally use the verb “play” to describe this process of voice exploration. I want to make sure that discovering our vocal range becomes a light and joyful experience. The starting point is our awareness of the vocal dimensions—they are the many balls we toss in the air, every time we speak. We usually toss them entirely by automatic reflex, with little conscious focus or intent.

In this chapter, we will take a peek at a few of these core vocal dimensions. I have a hunch that as you begin to play with these dimensions, you will also discover new joy in the act of public speaking. And since for many of us “finding our voice” is part of a lifelong quest, we might as well begin with the instrument itself. It is, indeed, a powerful tool.

VOLUME

A few years back, I was applying to be a seminar leader for a con-sulting firm that coaches executive speakers. The interviewing process consisted of giving several presentations in front of an audi-ence. Now, ever since Joy McLean Bosfield had me breathing from my penis, I have had a voice that resonates. Volume is something I tend to not worry about when I speak. By my second presentation, however, the lead interviewer kindly reminded me that she could not understand what I was saying. This fact was seconded by all the other individuals present in the room.

It happens that quickly. I was under pressure, and I was clearly constricting the flow of breath I needed to support my voice. Moreover, I was startled—I was unaware that I was doing this.

I have coached speaker after speaker who is convinced that he is shouting as he speaks, while the audience is straining to understand the words that fall from his mouth. Of all the disconnects in public speaking, the volume disconnect is the most jarring.

When we speak, we want to project our voice—i.e., send it out to the most faraway members of our audience. Actors spend years in acting school learning to support their voices from their diaphragms. That’s what Joy taught me when she was coaching me to breathe down to my groin. The deeper into our bodies we inhale, the more strongly we support our voices, and the more they will res-onate. If you have never paid attention to your diaphragm, place your hands over the lower part of your stomach. When you inhale, press that lower part of your stomach visibly forward. When you exhale, push it in as far as you can. You will soon find that the motion resembles the motion of a pump—expanding with an inhale, contracting with an exhale. As you feel this expansion and contraction, know that you have located your diaphragm. If you have a hard time finding your diaphragm, speak with a friend, a colleague, or an acquaintance who sings or has been trained as a singer. Anyone who has ever taken a singing lesson will locate it for you in a flash!

Voices that don’t carry well, or voices that produce a consistently high pitch, are usually voices that are not supported from this lower part of the body. If you have been told that you need to speak louder, chances are you have a chest voice. Your inhale tends to stop in the chest area and doesn’t reach all the way down to the diaphragm, and you thus miss the vocal power that comes with full diaphragmatic support. In addition, many of us tend to strain in our throat area. If this is a part of your body that tightens under pressure, your voice will be further constrained and not project with maximum volume and resonance.

How do we move our vocal support down to the groin? Well, we are currently blessed with the ever-growing popularity of yoga in this country. Many fitness centers now offer free yoga classes to their members. Yoga is the simplest and most powerful way I know of initiating the practice of deep breathing. Regardless of how deeply you breathe at present, the practice of yoga will help send breath into parts of your body that have for years held only stress and strain. It will gently pry open the channels that support the upward stream of breath throughout your body. Yoga will single-handedly help you to produce a more rounded, full-bodied voice. More importantly, it will help your voice to settle and mature without strain.

Overprojection is a rare occurrence, but once in awhile I actually stumble upon a speaker who shouts at the audience when he speaks. It is frequently a matter of enthusiasm—which is a marvelous quality—pushed over the brink, and suddenly every sentence starts to sound like a decibel assault. Instead of motivating the audience with his enthusiasm, the speaker forces the audience to recoil. The dilemma of the shouter is identical to that of the whisperer—the speaker simply does not hear himself and is unaware of the vocal impact he has on his listeners.

The solution? Practice in front of friends who will help you adjust your volume level. Practice in front of strangers who have no reason not to tell you the truth. Lower your voice for impact. Raise it for emphasis. Lift it a notch or two to draw the audience’s atten- tion—at the beginning of a speech, or in response to an external interference. Practice speaking with a lot of distractions around you—this will challenge you to judiciously adjust your volume level and accommodate the distractions. I spent several years facilitating seminars in a hotel in midtown Manhattan. Each seminar unfurled against the soundtrack of the New York City streets—the honking of cars, the whistling of the bellhops, the verbal altercation of pedestrians on the sidewalk. As annoying as these sounds were to seminar participants seeking to deliver the perfect presentation, they actually helped all speakers to modulate their volume. It required constant volume adjustments as it got loud outside. Every speaker was forced to stay conscious of both his volume level and the volume level in the room.

So, much like my clients in this Manhattan hotel, I invite you to toy with your volume levels. Find out first what a comfortable volume level feels like to you. Play with it in different venues. Adjust to the size of the room, the size of your audience, the acoustics of the space, and the level of noise around you and in your audience. Ask your audience members to tell you if they can comfortably hear you. In spite of what many speakers think—the audience is your friend. They want to hear what you have to say, and they will let you know.

CLARITY

Many of us are afflicted with the lazy-mouth disease: Mouths that don’t open wide enough to fully articulate the sounds that are imbedded in the words we speak. This can be endearing in a casual social context—hanging out with friends in a cafe, having a drink in our favorite pub after work. The moment we speak in public, this laissez-faire attitude toward the sound of language forces our audience to work harder than it should. As we surrender our burden of clear communication, we place a larger burden on the shoulders of our audience. Our listeners have to work to fill in the gaps created by the words we don’t fully enunciate.

It happens most often at the beginnings and endings of words. We slide into a word and start articulating it halfway through. We leave a word without acknowledging the closing letters. We also do it at the beginning of sentences—we don’t start fully articulating until we stumble into the second or third word, and we trail off before a sentence is over. An audience is invariably trying to make sense of what we say. If we consistently forget to enunciate parts of words or entire parts of a sentence, we force the audience to play the role of sleuth. And yes, we are the criminals who are aggressively killing the language!

Audience sleuthing is exacerbated by the regional dialects we speak, and the colloquial uses of language that accompany such dialects. Dialects are a rich and delightful part of our language, and I encourage speakers to fully embrace their dialects rather than try to correct or hide them. As an audience member, I enjoy this reminder of the many varied textures of American English. A speaker with a regional dialect that differs from the predominant dialect of her audience, however, needs to pay vigilant attention to the clear articulation of every word. While audiences will often remind her that they find the dialect “charming,” truth is they are working a tad harder to understand this “funny accent.”

As a non-native speaker for whom English is a second language, I get a special joy out of working with other immigrants who are also presenting in a foreign language. In a global economy, where English has become the world’s predominant business language, I encounter more and more business leaders who regularly have to present in a non-native tongue. I am always struck by the deep insecurity many foreigners feel about presenting in English. This insecurity is a double-whammy: non-native speakers have to put more effort into constructing sentences and thoughts in a foreign language, especially if their thinking occurs in their native language. This effort is fre-quently compounded by a deep-seated fear that their English is not “good enough” and that people will not understand it.

A recent client, Harry Wang, embodied these fears in a rather typical way. He had come to New York from Shanghai, where he worked as the sales manager for Anheuser-Busch in China. He reminded our group of the many different dialects that exist in his country, and told us that, back home, he presented in Mandarin. Every presentation in English began with an apology for his poor command of the English language. This of course was not the case. Harry did, however, have a notable accent that demanded a strong listening effort from his American audience. It was also clear that it was difficult for Harry’s tongue to create some of the English sounds, and the construction of certain words presented a very concrete physiological challenge for him. Harry does not need any professional diction correction. But he, like many non-native speak-ers, needs to assist his audience by keeping his volume raised, by focusing on the clear and complete articulation of all words in a sentence, and by maintaining a pace that is a tad slower than his Mandarin speaking pace.

We reap delicious dividends the moment we start to pay attention to our diction. So often we speak “on automatic” and don’t even begin to connect with the words we speak. It is as if the words we utter were the leftovers from a fast-food meal, waiting to be tossed out. Our conscious attention to language and diction chal-lenges us to stay alert. Suddenly, we have the opportunity to actually relish the words we speak. We are able to find nuance and meaning in what we sa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: The Art of the Craft
• Part II: The Art of the Connection
• Part III: The Art of the Flow
• Final Thoughts
• Appendix: The Seven Golden Rules of Visual Presenting
• Sources
• About the Author