I still remember the first time I had to make a speech. It was in school, 8th standard to be precise, just after our team comprising of two had stood first in a G.K. competition.
I had to go up on behalf of the team, accept a little gift and speak in front of all the 8th grade students and faculty about how I felt after winning and how I had prepared for the quiz.
I don’t exactly now remember what I had said, but what I remember was waiting just behind the screen in the auditorium, wondering about what I could possibly say so that no one would laugh at me. Those of you who have had a chance/unfortunate obligation(take your pick) to make a speech would be familiar with sinking sensation you experience when the time of making your speech is less than 5 min away.
Breaking out into a cold sweat in an AC room, wiping away from your forehead the drops of perspiration, having your heart in your mouth, wondering if you would forget your lines, wondering if you would faint while standing on the dias; these are just some of the symptoms of what you might experience .
After my little experience in 8th standard, I got more chances to be up on the stage in front of people, some acquaintances, and some strangers. Some instances of me having to talk publicly were in the course of social needs, some professional orders and some just for timepass. But now, at this point of time, I feel like I have the gift of gab.
After I finished school, during college I took part in debate competitons and personality contests, and by winning most of the competitions, I had to make even more speeches. Doing CA, while on audit assignments, i needed to make presentations to the higher echelons about say, the prospects of a merger or takeover, the necessity and ways to reduce overhead, the obligation of complying with SEBI guidelines and the rules and regulations made by The Companies Act, 1956. Slowly, but surely, I got the knack of public speaking
In my opinion, you don’t need to be an ace at words or language to be a good public speaker, but you just need to be……you. When you’re yourself, your points and ideas of what you’re trying to get across will be taken across completely and ultimately that’s the aim of public speaking.
Think about it, at your age, say for example 25 years, you have been communicating with your parents, friends, professional acquaintances and a lot of other people. By now, you have your own tack, vocabulary, actions, and practical experience by which you make the other person understand what you want to say. The only difference in a public speech is that, the intended audience is not a single person or your usual known group of persons, but many people and that too strangers.
However that is still not a reason to change your way of speech, vocabulary or your usual way of trying to make the other person understand what you want to say. Because this is how you’ve been speaking and getting your ideas across for 25 years and you’re used to this. If you change for something else, say pick up the tips from some hot-shot public speaker and try to implement them, or use big complicated words with an idea of impressing your audience, you’ll only be confusing them….and yourself.
Next I would like to dwell on speeches made at social functions. I read a joke somewhere about people being so afraid of public speaking that they’d rather be dead than speak in front of people. So basically, at a funeral, they would prefer being in the coffin than being the one making the eulogy.
I feel, that to speak at any social function, it is much better if you don’t have a speech prepared and perfected upon. Because it sounds like, the way McDonald burgers taste.* It *has the EXACT same taste EVERYTIME. I like machines, but I’d prefer a little bit of a human touch to my food. A little more salt, two slices of tomato instead of one, a small potato cutlet, No onion rings. I like my food made to order. McDonald assumes that the likes of all the people are the exact same and thus its machines assemble a burger automatically with the pre-defined inputs.
That’s what also happens with a prepared and perfected upon speech. It tends to get boring with the person making the speech looking down at the paper, searching for the “right(decided upon)” words, while the audience knows that the speech has been prepared in a way which is going to be politically correct without any mistakes of etiquette or without having any instantaneous humour. That doesn’t work. A speech at a Social function has to be made from the heart. Mistakes, “err-ahh-umm’s”, loss of words, everything is fine, but it has to be from the heart. If you win the hearts of the audience, they wont remember any goof-ups you might have made while speaking.*
For making a speech in front of a professional audience, one of the most important attributes I feel you should have is that you should be well-read. If you’re well-read, you have a weapon which can be of use to you to “spin off” any potential problematic confrontation which might arise.
Knowledge is a bank of wealth. And you can use its currency to jump to another relevant topic, or create your own joke if you’re well-aquainted with the nuances of the topic you’re speaking about. One of the easiest ways of impressing an audience is to show them that you’re intelligent and you know what you’re talking about. They may not be fully convinced everytime, but they’ll never call your bluff.
Because a person who thinks you’re not correct will be in the same position as you are in, that is … in the centre of attraction if he decides to stand up in the audience and raise an objection. And he will never be willing to take the chance of being wrong and looking like a fool even though he knows that he is correct.
If with this gift of being well-read and having a good IQ, you are fluent, then you’ll be almost invincible. A smooth talker can pass on many more bluffs than a person who is just well-read or has a good IQ. Because by the time, the bluff or mis-information has registered in the minds of the audience, and they cross-reference.
It with the information they already have stored in their brain and decide that the speaker is wrong, you would have already passed that topic a long time ago and people would have forgotten about a little sentence here and there in the big grand scheme of things.
But still, it is best that you don’t put too much emphasis on your bluff and try to pass the bluff in only one sentence or two. Don’t keep on coming back to your bluff or trying to make your topic revolve around the bluff, because if you do, then you might get caught. A smooth talker can still “spin off” an audience member who objects, by either making fun of him, or ridiculing him or being overly patronizing, to make him look like a fool, but its not advisable to try it till you get some experience.
Whatever you do, Be calm and try to collect your thoughts and organize them before speaking. And try to look into the eyes of as many people as possible who are sitting in the audience, because eye to eye contact gives people a lot more faith and the feel that they’re considered important enough by you, the speaker, so even if they don’t listen to your speech, they’ll definitely applaud you and clap at the end, and finally that’s what matters