8. PUBLIC SPEAKING
8.1 Finding Your Voice as a Public Speaker
Monika Smith and Suzan Last
“Even the greatest was once a beginner.”
Muhammad Ali
“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In a digitally-saturated world, and especially in a world “flattened” and homogenized by AI-generated content, the ability to communicate face-to-face in authentic, physically present ways is more important than ever. Audiences respond positively to presenters who can connect and engage with them in genuine and reciprocal ways. Presenters who invite an audience to become part of a conversation – and not just expect them to sit back and listen to a monologue – can forge positive, persuasive, and powerful relationships that can, in turn, impact the audience’s attitudes, decisions, and actions, inspiring them to move forward with a solution, accept a proposal, or act on a recommendation.
This is the power of public speaking. It is a skill that can shape every aspect of your life as a professional who must, above all, communicate – with clients, colleagues, managers, potential employers, and the public at large – in order to make things happen.
No matter how much of a novice or an expert you are at public speaking, there are always additional skills to learn and room to improve. Particularly if you feel anxious about speaking in front of others—and, admittedly, most people do—then the steps, information, and resources provided here will help build your confidence, give you some stage tools to work with (bearing in mind that public speaking always involves some element of performance), and direct you to resources to further solidify your learning.
The internet offers an enormous amount of information on public speaking, but some sources are better than others. This chapter therefore provides links to curated sources that “show” as well as “tell,” not only giving you credible and useful information about how to enhance public speaking skills but also demonstrating “in action” the very skills the presenters are talking about. These resources will help you develop a repertoire of skills and strategies for creating positive, professional, and above all persuasive presentations that your audience will appreciate and remember.
Addressing the Fear
If you’d like to become a more effective public speaker but feel anxious at the prospect of actually doing public speaking, rest assured that this isn’t a personal failing; it’s a common human response. In fact, the fear of public speaking even has an official term: Glossophobia. A famous 1973 study from polling firm, Bruskin-Goldring found that 45% of those surveyed feared public speaking the most — more than spiders, heights, flying, or even death.[1] For many, the mere thought of having to speak in public can evoke feelings of doom and gloom, furrowed brows, shaking hands, trembling voice, and palpitations.
Watch Danish Dhamani’s inspiring TED talk how “How I Overcame my Fear of Public Speaking,” and while you watch, take note of the techniques he uses.
As Dhamani effectively exemplifies, fear of public speaking can be overcome. Some of the most famous voices we know initially struggled with being tongue-tied: James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, faced tremendous personal and social anxieties before he was able to overcome his stutter as a young teen and eventually “find his voice.” [2] Getting to the point where he could confidently speak up and speak out didn’t come naturally: it took deliberate, focused effort and practice. As with any practical skill, you first need to learn about public speaking, then practice and apply what you’ve learned to hone your skills and keep getting better.
Here are three preliminary steps you can take to start building confidence and enhancing your public speaking skills
1. Acknowledge the Challenge: the first thing to acknowledge, front and centre is that, aside from extroverts (a minority of the population), most people feel some trepidation, if not outright dread, at the thought of speaking in front of a crowd. Understanding that this anxiety is normal can help you address it.
2. Recognize the costs and benefits: acknowledge the personal and professional costs of shying away from public speaking. Taking a fatalistic attitude (“I’ll never be good at public speaking”) can be damaging in ways large and small. Even if an employee has strong technical skills, an admirable work ethic, and intelligent, innovative ideas, if they struggle to speak confidently and coherently in a public or workplace setting, they may find it difficult to make a strong positive impact in their workplace. For example, people might see them as less competent than they really are; their ideas might not get the recognition they deserve or have the impact they could have had; and they might hit a “glass ceiling” career-wise.
3. Commit to Learning: Whether public speaking makes you anxious or whether you enjoy taking centre stage, everyone can take steps to become a better public speaker. Regardless of where you are on the public speaking spectrum, you can always grow your skills by learning about and practising the tips, techniques, and strategies that successful public speakers use to inform, persuade, and inspire their audiences.
The following section provides you with a range of resources, tips, and strategies for enhancing your public speaking skills.
