CHAPTER 8
CREATING GREAT
SPEECHES AND WORKSHOPS
,
THE RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR FORMULATING GREAT CONTENT
MOST PEOPLE who are making serious money in the speaking profession are delivering workshops and seminars. Let’s be real about this. That is noble work, and it’s tough work. Very few of us noncelebrity speakers can support ourselves any more (in a decent lifestyle) solely by doing keynotes, and even when that’s possible, the travel and the wear and tear are ridiculous.
My partner in the annual The Odd Couple® Workshop on marketing for speakers, Patricia Fripp, has been one of the great keynote speakers in the world. But she has stated frequently and candidly that if she had to make her living solely from that source today, she’d be starving. Instead, she has diversified into coaching, consulting, and product sales.1
In any case, you need to find, cultivate, and protect your sources of material.
USING ORIGINAL SOURCES WITH YOUR OWN ORIGINAL MATERIAL
Some people never write a speech. They inherited, stole, purchased, cobbled together, or winged something quite some time ago, and they are still using it. When this is accompanied by poor platform skills, these people are invariably unsuccessful. When it is accompanied by superb platform skills, these people are inevitably not as good (or as successful) as they could be. They’re getting by on sizzle without steak.
There are six simple rules for excellent speaking preparation:
Rule 1: The Originality/Validity Rule. The speech should be yours.
Rule 2: The Relevance Rule. Stories and anecdotes should be germane.
Rule 3: The Perspective Rule. People learn best when they are comfortable.
Rule 4: The Outcome Rule. The buyer’s condition should be improved.
Rule 5: The Adult Rule. People learn in different ways.
Rule 6: The Timeliness Rule. Changing conditions must be accommodated.
Rule 1: The Originality/Validity Rule
I once traveled a long way to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, to keynote a senior executive conference for corporate giant Unisys. About 70 of the top-level executives were present, and the senior vice president of marketing rose to introduce me. He quickly moved into a story that became alarmingly familiar. It was one of my real-life experiences, one that I had planned to include that morning!
At first, I thought he was using the story to introduce me, but it quickly became apparent that he was using it to get some laughs. He merely substituted himself for me and told it verbatim. He had stolen it from one of my CDs and had forgotten the source, creating the Kafkaesque situation of relating it prior to introducing the person he had stolen it from!
This happens all the time, and too often among speakers. I’ve heard enough variations on a single theme from scores of different speakers to make the various parts of Bolero seem like Ravel had an independent thought for each movement.
There are two reasons not to steal from others:
1. Personal stories are just that, and it’s unethical to use them unless they’re your own.
2. A lot of what you steal simply isn’t true.
The first reason shouldn’t require a whole lot of explaining. I’ve occasionally heard my own “stuff” regurgitated by another speaker who had been in one of my audiences previously. Borrowed stories are never as powerful, questions from the audience can’t be handled well, and sooner or later, word always gets back to the originator. If we can’t act like ethical professionals, then we have no right to call this a profession. If a journalist or writer uses someone else’s materials, it’s called plagiarism. If a company uses another organization’s proprietary creation, it’s called patent infringement. If an employee who moves to a competing company uses confidential, classified information from the former employer, it’s called theft.
When a speaker takes someone else’s materials, it’s no less a crime and no less dishonest. Corporate audiences can often spot it, since they’re exposed to so many speakers, and they will always react negatively. Buyers will not invite you back and may not even pay you the balance of your fee.
Speaking Up: If you have to steal to get material, go into computer hacking or hold up convenience stores. The rewards are more immediate, and at least your comrades will readily admit to what they’re doing.
The second reason not to steal is more subtle, and it’s the primary reason for the Originality Rule. A great deal of what you hear from the platform is simply not true. For example, I’ve heard at least 300 speakers claim during a variety of different presentations that “less than 4 percent of the impact on an audience is based upon what you say.” They claim that more than 90 percent of the audience impact is based upon how you say it, and they quote the work of Dr. Albert Mehrabian, who did some sociological studies, as the source of the statistics. The speakers then proceed to make their point, which is that how you present something is more important than what you present.
There are only a couple of things wrong with this. The first is that Mehrabian did his work more than 40 years ago, far too long to still have credence in a society as turbulent as ours. The second and even more important, however, is that his work (if anyone bothers to actually read it) is based upon social situations and people standing in line, waiting to be served, and so on.2 About 10 years ago, a speaker at a national convention cited this work incorrectly, and hundreds of others simply incorporated the nonsense into their “act.” Anyone who knows psychology realizes that it’s false, and anyone with a decent brain realizes that great, captivating speakers such as Franklin Roosevelt, William F. Buckley, Jr., Peter Drucker, and Henry Kissinger have relied almost exclusively on the beauty of their words, not their platform skills.
Let’s end the madness.
It’s important to be original for the sake of professional ethics, but also as the basis of your own competence. You can’t rely on random “facts” just because they’ve been spouted by someone holding a microphone. As Casey Stengel used to say, “You can look it up.”
Rule 2: The Relevance Rule
Pictures Are Worth, Literally, 1,546 Words
Try opening a conversation with two different sallies:
• How was your vacation?
• Would you like to hear about my vacation?
Now, which do you think will elicit the warmer, more attentive response? If you think it’s the second one, then you’re Donald Trump.
It’s vital that you make your speech as relevant and comfortable for the audience’s frame of reference as possible. If that means your discomfort, so be it. It’s far better for you to be uncomfortable in alien territory than for your audience to feel that way. The absolutely best way I know to accomplish this is to talk to some of the potential audience members well ahead of time.
Ask the buyer if it would be permissible for you to call a random selection of the audience. So as not to take too much of either their time or your own, tell them that you simply want to ask them three quick questions to help you prepare your remarks, and be sure to offer the options of a voice mail, e-mail, or faxed response so that you don’t have to play telephone tag with busy people and you can shorten the process.
Ask anything you like to gain relevant input for your speech, but here are my usual three questions, with my permission to steal them:
1. What’s the biggest challenge you are facing on the job?
2. If you could change just one thing tomorrow, what would it be?
3. What advice would you give to a new person in your position?
I modify these questions as needed, but they basically stand up well in a wide variety of environments. I use the results at various junctures in my speech, so that perhaps three times during an hour’s keynote, I’ll refer to “what you’ve told me.” Doing this in advance gives you the luxury of incorporating the feedback into your visual aids if desired. Never mention how many people you spoke to, even though small random samples are generally quite accurate, but merely cite “those of you with whom I’ve spoken over the past several weeks.”
My experience is that virtually no one refuses a request to help a speaker tailor remarks for an individual company if the request is polite and personal, provides choices in the means of response, and is brief.
Speaking Up: Don’t tell them everything you know. Tell them everything they need to know, and then try not to tell them this too blatantly.
A “verbal picture” is a story, anecdote, experience, or metaphor that captures a point for the audience prior to beating them to death with it. One of the classics is the college admissions officer who tells new freshmen some variation of, “Look to your left, look to your right, and then consider that two of the three of you will not be here in four years.”
A verbal picture is worth 1,546 actual words. So if your keynote is an hour, and that involves about 10,000 words, you can knock that off with just 6.468 stories or anecdotes. How did I come up with these figures? Someone told me that Albert Mehrabian did this study.
Rule 3: The Perspective Rule
There’s Nothing Funny about Humor
There is nothing like self-effacing humor to help an audience become comfortable. Comfort is a key aspect of adult learning. If I’m uncomfortable, I’m resisting, not focused, diverted, and looking inward. If I’m comfortable, I’m receptive, open, outward-focused, and “present.” The trouble is that most speakers consider comfort to be external, and therefore focus on the room temperature, the seating, refreshment breaks, and a host of other tangential environmental factors. There are actually some self-appointed “coaches” who specialize in external surroundings. I’ve spoken in rooms with power out-ages, with failed sound systems, adjacent to gospel meetings, next to street construction, with panoramic views of the Rocky Mountains, with simultaneous translators in the back, with wait staff constantly busing dishes, and with participants hustling in from other late-running events. Such is life, and I’ve managed to engage almost every one of those audiences (although the bomb scare was difficult).
In fact, comfort is internal, and that needs to be our primary focus, not how much water is in the water glasses. People are relaxed by humor, but since most humor is based upon someone’s discomfort, it’s best to ensure that the humor is self-effacing and directed solely at the speaker. People will tend to commiserate and sympathize (“I’ve been there!”) and identify not merely with your situation, but with the ensuing message.
There are two basic types of humor: generic and specific. Here’s a rule of thumb: don’t use the former.
Generic humor is embodied in these classic puffballs, one of which I actually used myself early in my career (it didn’t occur to me that others had already stumbled on it, even though I read it in a national magazine). I’m presenting both here in the hopes that such exposure will ruin their utility forever.
The Naval Ship Story
The huge naval ship pounded down the coast during a dark and stormy night. Conditions were horrible, with visibility severely limited. Suddenly, there was a light through the haze. Another ship, collision course!
A message was sent: “We’re on a collision course. Change your heading 20° north.” The reply: “Collision course acknowledged. Change your heading 20° south.”
A second message from the massive ship: “This is Rear Admiral Harvey Johnston. Change your heading 20° north.” The second reply: “This is Seaman Fourth Class Arnold Jones. Change your heading 20° south.”
A third message: “I am standing on the bridge of the largest capital ship in the navy. Every gun and missile is pointed directly at you. Change your heading 20° north.”
The final reply: “I am standing in a lighthouse . . .”
The Sand Dollar Story
A little boy was moving down the beach, stopping frequently to toss sand dollars, washed ashore by the tide, back into the ocean. A person approached and asked what the boy was doing.
“I’m saving the sand dollars,” said the boy.
“But look at the thousands on the shore,” said the adult. “You can’t possibly make a difference.”
Throwing another back into the ocean, the boy replied, “I certainly made a difference for that one.”
After the second story, I’m prompted to say that the sand dollars are being eaten by barracuda stationed just off the beach, which is why the sand dollars had deliberately flung themselves onto the safety of the beach, where they can live quite comfortably and someday build condos, but that’s still another story.
Use humor that is specifically yours. Not all of us are comedians or humorists, but that’s not what I’m suggesting. Every day we laugh and experience irony. Write it down, make a note, record the occurrence. Then rework it into your material. Here’s an example that I use to reinforce my point that there is too much of a “that’s not my job” attitude in organizational America. It really happened, and almost exactly as I describe it.
The Hyatt Hot Line
I’m staying at a Hyatt Regency Hotel, and on the end table is a card that says in bold letters Hyatt Regency Hot Line. “No problem too big or too small, available 24 hours a day. Call the Hyatt Hot Line with any request.”
I had no room service menu. I said, “This is a job for the Hyatt Hot Line.”
I dialed, and a woman answered, “Hyatt Hot Line! How can I help you?”
“This is Alan Weiss, room 734, and I have no room service menu.”
She replied, “I’m sorry, we don’t handle that.”
I go on to relate that I asked if they handled nuclear war, since I needed to know what the criteria were to qualify for Hyatt Hot Line assistance.
All humor is based upon discomfort. In this case, it’s my frustration at not being able to get the help I expected.
Here’s another tip for adding relevant humor and stories to your work: Always have two in reserve for every one you intend to use. This is because
1. Participants will sometimes ask for additional examples if they didn’t get the point. (People learn in varying ways—see Rule 5: The Adult Rule.)
2. You sometimes unexpectedly find past participants sitting in the room who have heard your primary stories.
3. Even a proven story might not work. You can be interrupted by an equipment problem or other distraction. Or a story involving an airplane may be inappropriate if there was a recent air disaster.
4. A story can be inappropriate for a particular audience. I’m not going to tell that Hyatt story to a hotel convention because it would embarrass Hyatt in front of its peers (although I’d readily tell it to a Hyatt in-house meeting).
Three Kinds of Humor
1. Jokes. These are the scripted stories that proverbially begin with “Two guys walk into a bar,” or “Do you know the difference between . . .?” These are virtually never effective in speeches because
• Some members of the audience will invariably have heard some of the jokes.
• They usually have little to do with your actual topic.
• Most jokes have the potential to offend, since they deal with someone else’s foibles or discomfort.
• Not everyone “gets” a joke or feels that it’s funny.
Save jokes for some fun over drinks or at family gatherings, and then only if you’re not that crazy about your family.
2. Stories. If stories are original and based on reality, they can be highly effective. Not all stories, of course, are humorous. But those that are should use self-effacing humor. Since a story is yours, it’s unlikely to have been heard before (or told as well). Stories are great sources of humor because
• They are personal and told conversationally.
• Unless someone has stolen them, they are fresh and new.
• The audience will usually relate—“I’ve been there, too!”
• They can be selected and molded to complement your topic.
Adjust your stories for cadence and timing, and always be on the alert for additions to your collection.
3. Ad lib. Ad lib humor is the riskiest and also the outright funniest. It’s based on your reaction to a spontaneous event, and the lack of preparation and use of humor will thrill an audience if it works out. (Ad libitum means “freely.”) This type of humor works because
• It’s “in the moment” and succinct.
• It demonstrates great wit and intelligence.
• It galvanizes people around the incident.
Never use ad lib humor to degrade anyone else individually. Use it to mock a situation so that you’re never seen as picking on anyone.
When I keynoted for Toyota Financial one year, I heard a great deal of good-natured banter during the introduction about the discomfort of being in Phoenix in July, where it must have been 114° in the shade. When I walked on stage, I deadpanned: “I know why you’re here, it’s not surprising. The surface of the sun was already booked.” After that, whatever I said was golden.
Build humor into every speech you give. I’m not of the school that says, “Don’t try to be funny unless you’re a comedian.” Adult learning relies on comfort, and properly directed humor creates instant comfort. By using actual occurrences, striving for self-effacing humor, and telling true stories in a practiced, articulate manner, anyone can insert humor into almost any speech (I’ve seen it excellently done in eulogies and courtrooms).
Rule 4: The Outcome Rule
Now that You’ve Been There and Gone, So What?
Every valuable speech, training session, workshop, seminar, facilitated meeting, and emceed affair should have an outcome. A humorous after-dinner speech, for example, should leave participants in a positive frame of mind and feeling good about their circumstances at the moment. A training program on time management should leave the audience with tangible organizational skills. A workshop on diversity should leave attendees with an appreciation of cultural distinctions and the harmful effects of inappropriate language.
If you want to be rehired by the current buyer—or at least acquire a golden reference for future buyers—you must provide results appropriate to the topic and environment that remain with the client. There’s nothing wrong with getting people fired up briefly if that’s the buyer’s aim, but there’s even more power in providing skills, techniques, and approaches that people will be demonstrating to the buyer every day long after you’ve spoken.
Outcomes originate with the economic buyer. Ask him or her what’s to be achieved. If the buyer says, “Well, I’m not certain,” or “We just want to have a good time,” always ask “Why?” The responses will be revelations such as, “The conference was dull last year, and we thought an energetic speaker could liven things up,” or “Our people have had a very rough year, but they performed admirably and they deserve to be told how good they are,” or “We see our mission as educating the people who come to these meetings, in terms of both their professional and their personal lives.” You are then in a position to ask, “If they leave with this (skill, technique, attitude, awareness, or something else), will that contribute toward your goals?” Simply keep this up until the buyer says, “That’s exactly what I’d like to see happen.”
Even if you’re not introduced at the buyer level, find your way to that person. Refer back to Chapter 4 for help in getting there.
I know a great many speakers who don’t bother to find the real buyer (they’re hired by a meeting planner or placed by a bureau) and/or don’t bother to understand what the desired outcomes are. They see their job as delivering a keynote or presenting a workshop. They collect their check and leave. This is equivalent to a salesperson making sales calls and considering the job well done. Salespeople should bring in new business, and speakers should meet the buyer’s objectives by achieving agreed-upon outcomes.
How much repeat business do you receive unsolicited? How many times does the buyer call you and say, “We’ve got something coming up that you would be just perfect for”? (Or how often does a new client call and say, “I was referred to you by a colleague who told me I couldn’t afford not to hire you for our meeting”?) Most speakers struggle because they labor to make new sales to new buyers under new conditions for far too great a percentage of their available time. They have references, but they don’t have referrals. They have client lists, but they don’t have relationships.
Begin your speech preparation with the outcomes to be achieved. If you don’t know them, go find the buyer and develop them.
Rule 5: The Adult Rule
People Learn in Different Ways: Not Everyone Is as Smart as You Think You Are
People learn in different ways. Not better or worse ways, just different ways. I’m not talking about esoteric (and highly dubious) right-brain/left-brain codifications, or about labels like “driver” or “INTJ,” or any other such nonsense. I’m talking about observable behavior.
Some of us prefer visuals. Some of us like sequences. There are those who rejoice in group learning, but others who prefer solitary absorption. There are as many people who shun volunteering for role-plays and demonstrations as there are people who rush to the stage to take part in them.
Adults make their own decisions. It’s always permissible to present options and even to challenge assumptions, but it’s never a good idea to assume that your alternative is the best for everyone. Quite a few speakers who really ought to know better demand that audience members touch the people next to them, often in the form of a neck rub or a hug. For many people, this is an intimacy that is completely inappropriate. Some speakers become apoplectic when they ask the audience to sing or dance or otherwise engage in physical activity and then find some holdouts. They see this as a personal affront. It isn’t. It’s merely a personal choice.
The best speech preparation embraces the philosophy that people are diverse and learn in varying manners. This means at least three things for the speaker and his or her preparation and attitude:
1. Provide varied sources of input. For example, use visuals as well as text; have workbooks as well as slides; provide a summary sheet as well as detailed text; use interaction voluntarily, but also use lecture to summarize key points.
2. Never demand participation in any activity that even one person would find demeaning. If you want to role-play, explain the situation and ask for a volunteer; don’t nail someone in the back row (that person, unless he or she is a latecomer, is sitting way back there for a reason). Don’t ask people to touch or to reveal an intimacy: “Tell your partner something you’ve never told anyone else before.” (I’ve actually been present when this directive was given. My partner said, “It’s only 10 minutes into the workshop and I already hate this speaker, and I’ve never had to say that before this morning.”) Never demand that people touch each other, as in rubbing backs or other nonsense.
3. Always give the benefit of the doubt, and never take anything personally. I’ve had people leave my talks within 90 seconds of my saying, “Good morning.” I assume that they had a good reason, such as a sudden call of nature, the realization that they were in the wrong session, or the body odor of the person who sat next to them. I embrace every question as honest and sincere, unless I have incontrovertible proof to the contrary. “I don’t agree with you. Can you give me a better example?” is a legitimate and valuable question. “I don’t think a woman has any right to address us on a management topic. What do you think you’re doing here?” is not.
Speakers are vested with tremendous credibility and support when they ascend the platform. The audience wants to be part of a success. Fewer than 5 percent of your attendees (that’s 10 people out of 200, or 1 person in 20) suffer from the kind of personality disorder that impels them to crave someone else’s failure. People may slow down to see a traffic wreck, but virtually no one would want to contribute to one.
Give your audience the same respect when you prepare your speech or workshop. Don’t insert stories or exercises that merely make you look good and lack any kind of learning point or relevance for the audience. Build in backups and alternatives in case a given segment seems not to work or an example falls flat. Allow time for questions. You can always fill in with support material if there are none, but it’s death to cut the audience short because you have too much mandatory material to cram in.
And despite what you’ll hear from meeting planners, who seem to feel that they’re evaluated by the quantity of time filled, no audience or buyer ever complained because a terrific speech ran 10 minutes short or an intriguing seminar ended 40 minutes early. But once you go even 5 minutes overtime, you’ll begin to lose large segments of audience attention, not to mention the damage done to the rest of the agenda.3
Rule 6: The Timeliness Rule
That Was This Morning. What about Now?
Finally, keep your stuff current. Everyone is weary of hearing about the Disney Electric Parade and the garbage collectors (“We’re part of the show”), the response of J&J to Tylenol tampering, and the fact that shampoo sales were doubled by putting the admonition “rinse and repeat” on the label.
Look for current examples even with traditional processes. Scan the morning paper; chat with client attendees prior to the program; watch the news on TV or the Internet.
I want to know what will work for me tomorrow, not what worked for someone else yesterday. Update your collateral material, your examples, your Web site, and your conversation. Stay in the moment. You’d want the same respect and consideration.
Audiences are no different from you, except that you’ll usually be speaking and they’ll usually be listening, if you let them.
PEOPLE LEARN IN DIFFERING WAYS: NOT EVERYONE IS AS SMART AS WE THINK WE ARE
This section is for those of you who must have a formula or template for creating a speech from scratch. Fair enough. The previously discussed conceptual part is the tough stuff. The next few pages are easy, but only if you’ve embraced what preceded them.
There are eight primary steps to building a successful new speech:
Step 1: Outcomes
Step 2: Time Frame and Sequence
Step 3: The Key Learning Points
Step 4: Rough Draft Assembly
Step 5: Supporting Stories, Examples, and Transitions
Step 6: Visual Aids and Handouts
Step 7: Build the Opening and Closing
Step 8: Practice the Speech and Adjust the Cadence and Timing
Let’s say that a client has asked you to speak to a management team of 50 people. It is a successful high-tech (or health-care or automotive—it really doesn’t matter) organization in a competitive marketplace. The vice president of operations wants to instill formalized techniques that people can use to constantly raise their own standards and outpace the competition. Your speech is the kickoff for the daylong conference. All of the other speakers and activities involve internal people.
Step 1: Outcomes
You ask the vice president to specify the results (the Outcome Rule) he’d like to see in the aftermath of your speech. He says that there are two short-term and one long-term result. The short-term results are
• Prepare participants to “open up” their thinking so that the rest of the day can take advantage of innovative and “out of the box” ideas.
• Provide a few simple techniques that participants can use to keep them focused on new and creative ways to get the job done.
The long-term objective is
• Instill a sense of pride that they, in fact, have been very creative, which is why the company is so successful, and that they shouldn’t become conservative or defensive just because the company has grown so dramatically.
Step 2: Time Frame and Sequence
You will have 90 minutes, including any question and answer time. You will kick off the session after the vice president’s brief welcome and introduction. There will be a 15-minute break after your talk, followed by breakout sessions to discuss the impact of what you provided on several key issues that the company is currently facing. These will be facilitated by mid-level managers.
You believe this timing is adequate and appropriate for the objectives.
Step 3: The Key Learning Points
Ninety minutes is a relatively brief period. At best, you’ll want to stress only a few learning points around the three outcomes specified. You might choose different ones, but, for the purposes of my example, I’ll choose four:
1. Problem solving is the enemy of innovation and usurps its time and focus unless innovation is formalized as a process.
2. Organizations reward what they truly value, and people’s actions are a consequence of those rewards. Since managers are exemplars, they must continue to reward in the future the creativity and innovation that has marked the company’s past and current success.
3. We mercilessly examine the reasons for failure, but we seldom examine the causes of our success. This is a successful group. We need to articulate the reasons for our own successes to date so that we can replicate, communicate, and improve upon them.
4. There are generic sources of innovation that exist in most companies. Let’s take a look at them and determine how to spot and exploit them in this company.
Note that the learning points combine the short- and long-term outcomes and also combine prescriptive (here are 10 sources) and diagnostic (why have we been so successful?) processes. This is simply another illustration of varied learning—the Adult Rule.
Step 4: Rough Draft Assembly
I’d now place the learning points in the order that makes most sense from a flow and interest standpoint. My choice is to start with point 1 as a source of controversy and then go to point 2 to demonstrate that the managers control their own environment through rewards and examples. Points 3 and 4 will be virtually concurrent and will allow me to end on a “high” with praise for their successes to date.
Step 5: Supporting Stories, Examples, and Transitions
Support your points with stories (remember the Originality/Validity and Relevance Rules), examples, and transitions from one major point to the next. For my point about problem solving, I’ll support it with
• Definitions of problem solving and of innovation
• An audience exercise to test whether its members tend to be problem solvers or innovators (they’ll be more innovative than they think, and they’ll be pleasantly surprised)
• An assessment of how much time the organization is spending on each pursuit
• Examples of organizations that have problem-solved themselves right out of existence (they fixed old things really well and created new things really poorly)
• A transition to conclude this section that will determine which organizational rewards have supported problem solving and which have supported innovation, and determine whether they should be fine-tuned to further accent the latter
Choose appropriate stories from your personal “catalog.” Note that you don’t begin with the stories and examples that you always use. Some of them might fit well, but if you begin with them and build the speech around them, you’ve merely duplicated someone else’s presentation for a client who needs his or her own.
Step 6: Visual Aids and Handouts
Given your time frame, environment, major points, and supporting material, what is appropriate for visuals (computer-generated slides, easel sheets, video, and other such material), demonstrations, presession handouts, and postsession leave-behinds? Does the material have its best impact if it is distributed in advance or provided as reinforcement? Vary your audio, visual, and textual material given the Adult Rule.4
Note that you do not start by taking handouts or visuals that you happen to have around—even if you’ve spent a fortune on them—and determining how they fit. Many of them might, but if you start with them, you’re starting with someone else’s outcomes.
In this example, I’ll use slides with 50 people if I can ensure that the room will be lighted comfortably but still provide visibility for the screen. I’m going to use a summary handout at the end of my session, but nothing during it, because I don’t like having people’s attention divided between my message and interaction and their attempts to follow the text in front of them. I’ll recommend that people take notes if they so choose, because many people learn better by writing down key points.
If you opt for a separate question and answer session, build it into the latter part of the body of the speech; do not save it for the closing.
Step 7: Build the Opening and Closing
What you’ve worked on up to this point is the body of the speech or workshop. Step 7 is absolutely the most important—and the briefer the presentation, the more important it usually is—but it can’t be created effectively until this point. Since the opening and closing are directly related, I find it best to create them at the same time, bearing in mind the Perspective Rule.
Counter intuitively, the opening is created after the body of the speech.
Look at your outcomes and key learning points and ask yourself how you can open your presentation and create this result: the audience is motivated to listen intently. This involves the following criteria:
1. There is a “hook” (the Relevance Rule) to gain their enthusiastic commitment (not merely compliance). A story, humor, a challenging fact about the company, citing your interviews with participants, a contradiction, or a provocation can all be used to set the hook. Use what’s comfortable for you and most appropriate for the topic.
2. Apprise the audience members of what’s to come. Prepare them for the points you’ll be making by briefly summarizing your route. This allows people to anticipate and begin to plan their own learning. (If you’re using handouts in advance, this is a good time to refer to them.) Now’s the time to “tell them what you’re going to tell them,” albeit with some flair and variety.
3. Make a smooth transition to your first point, and before the members of your audience know it, they’re committed to listening, and the process has begun.
For a keynote speech, a good introduction is usually no longer than two or three minutes. For longer presentations, introductions often include people introducing themselves to neighbors or even briefly explaining why they’ve come to the session. This is “icebreaker” involvement, but it’s really about mechanics and comfort, not about learning objectives and motivation. Even with daylong seminars, you’ll need an effective opening to the topic, or people may have become comfortable in the environment but still not know why they’re in it.
My opening will begin with a funny story about bureaucracy that I encountered with a client who wound up being unable to contact his own office because of the intricacies of his voice-mail system! I’ll then talk about how this company’s organization has managed to avoid such indignities and some of the reasons for this that I’ve seen and heard in the phone interviews (which will focus on the outcomes). I’ll also plan to refer to one of the vice president’s remarks from his brief opening to create a continuity of theme.
Speaking Up: The opening and closing are the most important parts of any presentation because they inform the audience members why they are there, gain their commitment to learn, and then provide the outcomes in terms of key departure points and calls to action.
The closing (tell them what you’ve told them) should result from a review of the outcomes and points that have been raised in the body of the speech and should contain two elements:
1. Key learning points (KLPs). The KLPs are those points that you want the participants to retain. They are centered on the outcomes. You should formally summarize them at the end, and any supporting handout material or follow-up material should focus on them. There should be relatively few, since people’s focus is limited. In my speech, the learning points might include
• With every new challenge, first try to innovate (not problem-solve).
• Choose the three sources of innovation that are most relevant to your job.
• Reinforce and reward those behaviors that are already being done so well.
2. Call to action. This step usually isn’t necessary in speeches that are meant to entertain or merely inform, but it’s too often neglected in all others. What does the buyer want people to do when they leave the session? This is the most immediate of all the outcomes. In my speech, I’ll choose only one call to action:
• In the breakout sessions that follow, take an innovative approach to each challenge that your facilitator presents and immediately try to raise the standard, not repair the damage. (Thus, my opening has carried forward a remark from my introducer, and my closing has made the transition into the following agenda item.)
Never end a session with questions and answers. If you don’t take questions spontaneously during your talk, then pause just before your conclusion to make the offer. Don’t feel obligated to end with a funny story, although humor often works quite well in the closing. Finally, don’t let your ego allow you to believe that the closing is about you, standing ovations, and ratings on “smile sheets.” The closing is about implementing the key learning points that will lead to the buyer’s desired outcomes. If you do that, you’ll be rehired and referred to others. If you don’t do that, your ovation and your 10 rating will get you only a fleeting memory.
Step 8: Practice the Speech and Adjust the Cadence and Timing
Only after you’re sure that you have the proper elements and outcomes supported should you adjust the timing. Practice the speech just as you would deliver it at the event, allowing for the introduction, a few questions and brief responses, and a few seconds of laughs where you might expect them. (If you get laughs where you don’t expect them, you’ve got more problems than just poor timing.)
Always provide your own introduction. Never send material and suggest that the introducer select what’s appropriate, and never rely on the introducer’s having (1) received it or (2) practiced it. Call your introducer ahead of time. Bring an extra copy of the introduction to the event, because the one you sent will have been misplaced. Keep it brief, have it double-spaced in bold type on large paper, and then tell the introducer to be sure to read it as it appears. Sometimes a large-caliber pistol helps.
If your speech is too short, then add examples around each supporting point for the outcomes. A good example takes about two minutes and solidifies learning, so these are your best bet. If you’re using visual aids, consider a couple of additional supporting ones. For longer presentations, consider more audience involvement in the form of role-plays, application, small-group work, and/or facilitated discussion.
If your speech is too long, then try to remove any superfluous stories or visuals that you’ve included for comfort or cosmetic reasons that aren’t really essential to the outcomes. If you’ve included a predetermined question and answer period, shorten it or eliminate it and offer to answer what questions there are as they come up as time permits. Consider shortening your opening if it contains icebreakers and logistics. (Most icebreakers are for the speaker’s comfort, anyway, not the participants’.5
Remember, it’s better to be slightly short than slightly long. If you find that you can’t reduce the speech to the allotted time without gutting essential elements, then you’ve probably taken on too much topic for too short a time frame, and it’s best to go back to the buyer and suggest either a longer time frame or fewer outcomes.
The practice and timing should also allow you to change stories, sequences, transitions, and other aspects of the presentation for maximum logic and flow. Record your practice and listen to it a day or so later. Ask others to comment. You’ll find that you’ll have a fine speech if you adhere to the simple criteria from the perspective of buyer outcomes and audience learning.
The Six Rules and Eight Steps for Creating a Speech
The Six Rules
Rule 1: The Originality/Validity Rule—The speech should be yours.
Rule 2: The Relevance Rule—Stories and anecdotes should be germane.
Rule 3: The Perspective Rule—People learn best when they are comfortable.
Rule 4: The Outcome Rule—The buyer’s condition should be improved.
Rule 5: The Adult Rule—People learn in different ways.
Rule 6: The Timeliness Rule—Changing conditions must be accommodated.
Step 1: Outcomes
Step 2: Time Frame and Sequence
Step 3: The Key Learning Points
Step 4: Rough Draft Assembly
Step 5: Supporting Stories, Examples, and Transitions
Step 6: Visual Aids and Handouts
Step 7: Build the Opening and Closing
Step 8: Practice the Speech and Adjust the Cadence and Timing
THE 90-MINUTE RULE
For longer workshops, I’m going to share the secret of creation and efficacy. I’ve worked with people who simply struggle to either fill up a workshop with high-level content or, more commonly and counter intuitively, agonize over the culling process to reduce the seminar to merely half a lifetime.
First, abide by my rules:
Alan’s Rules for Great Workshop Creation
1. Determine the learning objectives. Ask the client what people are supposed to do better as a result of the time they have invested.6
2. Evaluate the participants in terms of their experience, sophistication, responsibilities, education, and expectations.
3. Create a tentative design of the elements required, keeping in mind point 1. Tell them what they need to know, not everything you know. Include the exercises, visuals, and handouts that you think would be most applicable and effective.
4. Obtain feedback from your buyer.
5. Finalize your design, including the time requirements.
Most people start with point 5 rather than point 1. That is, they accede to a request for a “two-day leadership workshop,” or a “half day on strategy” without regard for the learning needs. I realize that there are times when an arbitrary time frame is forced on you, but it’s far less often than you think because speakers and trainers seldom, if ever, question the time frames, which are notoriously arbitrary.
Thus, set your time frame last unless there are strong reasons not to. When you don’t, you’ll often find that you’re either struggling to fill a period of time that is simply too long or desperately trying to remove “essential” elements to fit a reduced time frame. (And this is why you should never charge by the day or by the participant. Your value is not based on how long you’re there, or you’d be best served by trying to make every workshop last four weeks, meaning that you’d have zero free time, as well!)
Once you’ve committed to the five rules, apply the 90-minute rule for your design.
A workshop typically runs from 9 to 5 with breaks and lunch. I’m going to suggest that yours run from 9 to 4, because there is serious fatigue in the final hour. (Again, a low-level meeting planner or coordinator who is concerned about “using” the final hour is focused on payment per hour, not value, since learning is maximized before fatigue sets in and seriously undermined thereafter.)
This means that you have two 90-minute segments, less a break, between 9 and noon, and the same arrangement between 1 and 4. Four 90-minute segments less 30 minutes (two 15-minute breaks). That’s 5.5 hours of programming per day. And that’s about four major points per day, one per 90 minutes. If you have eight major points, that’s a two-day program; if you have six, that’s 1.5 days. You get the drill.
What’s a “major point”? It’s a key learning point that can’t be omitted if you are to achieve the buyer’s desired behavioral change. It may have subordinate points.
Speaking Up: Workshops are boring or successful because of only two components: enthusiasm and pragmatic content. Fortunately, you are eminently capable of providing both.
The typical adult learning sequence in a classroom setting looks like this:
• Discussion. The instructor discusses the ideas and approaches that are relevant to that segment.
• Practice. The participants try to apply these approaches on case studies or exercises, individually or in small groups.
• Feedback. The results of the practice are discussed with self-critique, group critique, and/or instructor critique.
• Application. Ideally, the techniques are applied to real job concerns, either in the class or back on the job,
with feedback from colleagues, management, and/or the instructor. 7
So, back to our design. The early morning will feature a few minutes of greeting and administration, plus the objectives for the day. That should take five minutes. Don’t be diverted by dumb “icebreakers” and opening exercises. These are adults whose time is valuable, not children who have been parked by their parents to waste time.
Then, explain your agenda and charge ahead.
Here’s an example of the 90-minute rule applied to a day’s program.
TOPIC: LEADERSHIP FOR VIRTUAL TEAMS
OBJECTIVES
Participants will be able to
• Interact with and provide personal support for people that they are seldom with physically.
• Ensure that the group acts as a team, supporting one another’s work and maximizing group talent.
• Effectively evaluate each person for developmental needs, succession planning, compensation, and promotion.
I’ve determined, and the buyer has approved, that this can be done in a single day with the following design.
• Use of Technology, 9:10 to 10:30
• Running “virtual meetings”
• Time-shifting communications
• Practicing with virtual meeting technology
• Chairing a remote meeting
• Preparing for remote meetings
• Template for creating agendas using group input
• Creating a sample agenda
• Exercise: circulate the sample agenda and call a meeting to order
• Feedback and debriefing
• Break, 10:30 to 10:45
• Individual Relationships, 10:45 to 12:00
• Scheduling personal time by phone
• Uses of phone, e-mail, Skype, hard copy
• Remote counseling techniques
• Remote motivation techniques
• Conducting performance evaluations
• Determining when personal meetings are required
• Role-play individual sessions with peers, instructor
• Use counseling checklist
• Feedback and debriefing
• Lunch, 12:00 to 1:00
• Dealing with Cultural Distinctions, 1:00 to 2:30
• The cultures that you may encounter
• Local legal, ethical, and customs distinctions
• Helping others understand colleagues’ cultures
• Corporate requirements vs. local requirements
• Thinking globally and acting locally
• Case study of cultural distinctions in customer requests
• Feedback and debriefing
• Break, 2:30 to 2:45
• Action Planning, 2:45 to 4:00
• Participants identify their specific actions toward subordinates
• List is created for their superiors for accountability
• Calendars are adjusted to account for evaluation time, feedback, and so on
• One subordinate is called from a meeting as a test
• Accountability partners are created
• Instructor facilitates report to the class from each individual
• Group and instructor provide feedback on plan
• Adjourn, 4:00
Note that there isn’t a lot of time wasted on evaluations (participants are the worst people to evaluate a learning experience upon completion—ideally, their superiors should do it based on results a month later). Questions are handled “just in time” as they arise, not in segregated periods.
The enthusiasm aspect, of course, is up to you. But read on, and I’ll help.
SUMMARY
It’s easier than you think to create outstanding workshops, speeches, and presentations. But there are some rules that need to be observed.
Use only your own original material (intellectual capital) except when you are clearly attributing brief passages or models from others, with their permission, or from their published and public work. Someone will always find out that you’re using others’ material if you do so without such attribution, and doing so is the worst sin for a professional speaker. The Internet makes it worse than ever.
Although ad lib humor is the most effective, it’s also the riskiest. Make your humor either self-effacing or based on stories that don’t denigrate others. Never tell “jokes,” no matter how much they break you up. Remember that humor is meant to aid and abet the impact of your points, not the other way around.
People learn in differing ways, so try to provide varying paces of speech and diverse inflection and intonation, and complement this with text, audio, video, demonstrations, metaphor, and so on. Make yourself listener-friendly. That does not mean “dumbing down” your approaches, but merely varying them for greatest effect.
Process visuals can help you do that, and can turbocharge understanding and agreement. If you think in 90-minute segments, you can begin to create seminars of any length and also understand how long a given requested workshop should be. Fill each segment with discussion, practice, feedback, and application.
Presentations needn’t be perfect (and they seldom are). Just make them very good, and they’ll be better than most of what else the participants have experienced!