Humor is an incredibly powerful tool. The moment the audience laughs with you, they connect with you. When you use humor, you demonstrate that you’re confident enough to laugh and that you don’t take yourself too seriously. It can lighten up a difficult subject or situation, calm your nerves, and capture your audience’s attention.9
When people think of humor, they usually think of telling jokes. They think, “I’m not very good at telling jokes, so I’m not very good at humor.” Actually, I don’t recommend you tell a joke. There’s a particular skill to telling jokes, such as rhythm and pausing. Comedians can work for years on crafting a single joke. Luckily, there are many other ways of using humor in a speech.
Ways of Using Humor in a Speech
Stories. A story with a funny or unexpected outcome is a great use of humor. Maybe it’s “the craziest thing to ever happen in our store.”
Quote. A humorous quote is a great way to start your speech. I love this quote by George Jessel: “The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.”10
Comic image. In the American business world, Dilbert comics are a constant source of dry humor. I love the “demotivator” posters sold by www.Despair.com. Just make sure that you have permission to use a particular image.
Situational. Commenting on a shared experience, like the office kitchen or the conference-room air-conditioning, can be a great way to make everyone laugh and remind them that they are all in this together.
I once attended a fabulous (and funny) workshop with humorist and speaker Judy Carter, who spoke for a National Speakers Association DC chapter meeting. Ever since, I have recommended her books and resources on how to use humor in a speech. Her book The Message of You has powerful tips and techniques for using humor, as well as being an excellent guide for someone looking to develop their skills as a professional speaker.
Where to Use Humor
A great place to use humor is in the beginning of the speech—remember Tim the Dairy Farmer telling us to make the audience laugh within the first eight seconds? When introducing myself, I like to say, “My name is Allison Shapira and I’m a recovering opera singer.” It captures people’s attention because it’s unexpected, making them laugh. If no one laughs, then I prepare for a tough audience.
You can use humor right after a difficult subject to lighten up the mood and transition to a new subject. An incredibly effective place to use humor is right after you make a mistake. I once saw a speaker onstage try unsuccessfully to make his slides work. He looked at the audience sheepishly and said, “Live by PowerPoint, die by PowerPoint.”
I was once leading a workshop for a US government agency that was simultaneously being broadcast to hundreds of remote workers. I was wearing a lavalier microphone to transmit the audio to those watching remotely. Halfway through my presentation, the microphone stopped working. The audiovisual technician walked up to me while I was in mid-sentence, gave me a handheld microphone, walked behind me, and started fiddling with the microphone receiver clipped to the back of my belt.
How did I respond? I took a minute to pause and breathe, then said to the audience: “I’m going to continue talking and pretend that there isn’t somebody standing behind me right now playing with my belt.” Everybody laughed, eventually the mic issue was resolved, and we kept going. If the audience sees you laugh, then they can relax.
Having talked about the power of using humor, we should also mention the danger of using humor. When speaking to people of different nationalities, remember that humor is very cultural. What works in one country may not work in another. My normal opening, “I’m a recovering opera singer,” doesn’t quite work outside the US, because international audiences don’t understand the “recovering” reference. Even in the US, the reference could confuse people. The one time I met one of my musical idols in person, I walked up to her after a concert in Central Park in Manhattan and gushed, “I’m a recovering opera singer, and you have been a huge inspiration!” She took a big step back, looked at me with a worried frown, and asked, “What did you say you were recovering from?”
When using humor, ask yourself if you are making fun of someone. It’s okay to laugh at yourself, but not at other people. Think very carefully about whether your humor will come across as prejudicial. Perhaps many years ago it was okay to joke about women worrying about their makeup or clothing. Now, in a professional setting, it demeans the professional value that women bring.
Is it okay to use political humor? By now you’re far enough into this book to answer that question: it depends on your audience. Just remember that a closed-door speech is never really closed-door. If your speech is posted online, will the humor still be funny?
If you’re uncomfortable using humor, don’t force yourself to use it. Find something that you are comfortable with. We’ve all been in situations where we say something that’s supposed to be funny and we hear a wall of silence from our audience. Or, worse yet, a gasp of shock. Try out your humor on someone else to make sure it’s funny to others. Practice it, smooth it out, and make sure you don’t rush it. It has to feel comfortable to you before you go onstage.
Humor is an incredible tool to make your audience relax and connect with you. Take the time to find humorous styles that work for you, and test them out on others before using them in public.
Think about the audience and venue of your speech. What situational humor can you bring in? Which humorous and relevant stories can you tell that audiences will relate to? Practice them with a friend or colleague to make sure they are funny and appropriate.
CHAPTER 5
Polish the Speech
The Final Steps Most People Neglect
POLISHING THE SPEECH
It’s the night before your speech. You’re writing late into the night, trying unsuccessfully to create a coherent message while fighting the fear of failure in your mind. You frantically wish you had started writing the speech a week ago instead of waiting until the last minute.
This is the point where you do not have time to polish your speech. Yet polishing the speech is one of the most important steps in the speechwriting process. Polishing is what happens when you step back from the text, look at it with a fresh eye, and strategically start to improve the speech. Polishing is best done when you are in a relaxed, creative state—that perfect time of day you have set aside for writing. Here are some things to look for when you polish the speech.
Do you give equal weight to every section? If you have three main points and the first point takes up two-thirds of your speech, make the first point more concise so you spend equal time on all three.
Do you have transitions from one section to the next? When I’m practicing a speech and can’t remember what comes next, it’s usually because I didn’t logically transition. For a great example of transitions in a speech, listen to the annual State of the Union address by any US president. In the span of about one hour, the president has to weave together dozens of topics into one cohesive speech.
Where can you add echo or repetition? Is there one particular phrase in your speech that you can repeat throughout? You can see it in President Obama’s campaign chant, “Yes we can,” or Congressman Bob Inglis’s TEDx talk with the echo “You are a conservative member of Congress.” You can watch those videos at www.speakwithimpactbook.com. An echo should reinforce the main message of your speech.
Where can you add personal examples? A powerful way to make a concept come alive is to tell a story or use a brief anecdote that illustrates your point. Chapter 4 showed you how to do that effectively.
Where can you add data or statistics? In addition to your personal story, you can demonstrate how that story is part of a larger issue by bringing in a statistic.
Where can you build up the audience? Where can you validate their experience? If I’m speaking to employees of one particular company, I will often quote their leadership team to reinforce the points I’m making. Note: This only
works when the employees have faith in their leadership team!
Where are the potential pitfalls? Sometimes an argument, quote, or fact sounds reasonable to us, but someone in the audience (or online) could misinterpret it. Read through the speech or presentation, keeping an eye out for those troublemakers. If in doubt, talk it through with someone who understands your audience. Look for places where the language doesn’t feel natural, and change it so you feel more comfortable. If you go over the speech numerous times and keep pausing in the same place, that’s a good sign that you should change the language or the concept.
Exercises You Can Use with Your Audience
As a general rule, I want to capture the audience’s attention immediately (within the first eight seconds), and I plan some sort of engagement activity every ten to fifteen minutes. As a trainer, that activity could be a table discussion or a speaking exercise. Even if you’re not a trainer, you can still pose a question that your audience members can discuss in groups of two or at their tables.
Trainers know that the more participants are talking, the more they are learning. You can include interactivity in a few different places:
At the beginning of a presentation. Help the audience members get to know each other and introduce the topic. For instance, if you are speaking to a group of experts, you could ask them to speak to the person next to them about how they’ve handled a particular issue, then ask people to volunteer what they discussed.
After making a recommendation. If you are recommending a course of action, you can ask the audience to discuss, in small groups, how they would implement that recommendation and what resistance they would encounter. This helps the audience start to take ownership of the recommendation.
To break up a presentation. If you are about to move to a new point, stopping for discussion is a helpful way to make sure people are following the presentation.
These types of exercises are particularly effective if you work with introverts, where speaking up and commenting in public may not feel comfortable. Regardless of whether they are introverts or extroverts, anyone who experiences speech anxiety might not feel comfortable raising their ideas in public. Small group discussions during your presentation can be an effective way to bring in new ideas that you couldn’t otherwise solicit.
Read through your speech with a critical eye for polish, looking for balance and transitions. Look for ways to even out your content; add repetition, stories, or data; and look for potential pitfalls. Consider ways to add audience interaction, if appropriate.
MAKING YOUR SPEECH MORE CONCISE
One of the most frequently requested topics among our clients and students is how to be concise. In the American business world, conciseness is a valued leadership skill. In other countries, speaking may require winding up to your main points over time; but in the United States, people want you to get to the point.
I once had a boss who chaired our weekly staff meetings and was tasked with giving an update on the organization. She had five minutes at the end of the agenda but would often ramble for up to forty minutes. We were all ready to get back to work, but this presentation had the effect of reducing our motivation and tiring us out. It did not instill confidence in her leadership!
Among many of my clients, their leadership ability is partly measured by how concise they are when they speak. Our time is valuable and there is important information we need to discuss. No one wants to sit in an endless meeting listening to six lengthy presentations.
The secret to a concise speech is no secret at all: you simply have to be deliberate about it. There is a beautiful quote attributed to the artist Michelangelo. He said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”1 Your unfinished speech is like a block of marble with a statue waiting to be set free. Once you decide what does belong, remove what doesn’t belong. At every single sentence, ask yourself: “Does this reinforce the main message of the speech? Does it need to be included?” If the answer is no, then get rid of it. The more you say, the less people hear—so make sure that every single word, every single phrase, adds meaning to your speech.
A friend of mine once sent me an anxious text the night before a big speech. He said, “Help! I’m supposed to give the closing remarks at a conference. They asked me to speak for twenty minutes, but I only have fifteen minutes’ worth of content. Should I just add some buffer material?” I responded, “In the history of conferences, no audience member has ever complained that the closing remarks were too short. Fifteen minutes is fine.” Unless you’re a professional speaker getting paid for a ninety-minute keynote, it’s okay to end early. If you can say what you need to say in a concise, compelling way, then do it.
Knowing that you should be concise and being more concise are two separate things.
Here are some questions to ask that will help you be more concise:
•What are my three main points? Do I need to explain them in detail?
•Do I need every single story or anecdote? Could I take out one of the examples?
•Where do I say “and”? Could I remove the second half of that sentence or phrase?
•What if I only had half the time to present? What’s essential and what can I discard?
Here are a few more tips for being concise:
•Hand your written speech to a colleague and ask him or her to cut it. It’s much easier for someone else to cut your content.
•Ask your colleague to read your speech back to you. When you hear your own language out loud, it’s easier for you to see where to cut.
•Create a five-minute version of your speech. If you had to present a simplified version of your presentation, what essential points would you keep? This helps you identify those key points. If your speech was already five minutes, then create a one-minute version.
The more you focus on conciseness, the easier it becomes to be more concise. You’ll start to read through material and think, “This isn’t relevant,” and you’ll take it out. This process takes time, discipline, and creativity, as well as respect for your audience. It’s not something you can do the night before the speech in a frenzied state; it’s something you do with a clear and present mind. Polishing the speech makes the difference between a truly impactful speech and a rambling rant.
Use some of the methods described above to cut out 20 to 50 percent of the content of your speech. Imagine you only had five minutes to present: What key information would you need to keep, and what could you cut out?
ENGAGING YOUR AUDIENCE
How can you engage your audience?
That is one of the biggest questions my clients ask, and it often shows a misunderstanding of the concept. You don’t add “audience engagement” to a speech as you would add a story or rhetorical question. Engaging the audience is about capturing their attention, making them want to listen to you, and eliciting a positive response—laughter, head-nodding, understanding, agreement, or action. If a speech is a conversation between you and your audience, then everything you do throughout the speech should engage your audience. Specifically, you engage people through:
Content: A clear, concise speech with signposts along the way to keep your audience’s attention
Delivery: Meaningful eye contact with members of the audience and hand gestures that underscore your words
Energy: A clear voice that demonstrates your passion and conviction and creates energy in the room
Visuals: Painting a picture in your audience’s minds, telling a story that lets them feel as if they were in that scenario
Dialogue: Asking a question of the audience, or having them discuss topics with one another
We engage the audience throughout our speech, not at one predetermined time. Everything we do is intended to engage the audience so that we move them to understanding and action. Everything you learn in this book will help you do that.
PRACTICING YOUR SPEECH
Let’s say you’re a musician or athlete
with a big event coming up, where all eyes would be on you and where the future of your career was at stake. Would you make time to practice? I’m betting you would. Practice is essential when playing a musical instrument or a sport, and a speech is no different. A powerful speech can elevate your reputation and career prospects within an organization, or your visibility within your community. So why wouldn’t you practice?
Oftentimes, we don’t know how to practice and we don’t think we have enough time. Some people don’t like to practice because they think they’ll sound too artificial. But it’s not about memorizing a script: it’s about smoothing out the rough patches. You can be authentic and polished at the same time.
I’m going to give you seven different ways you can practice, and I’ll describe what parts of your speech they will help. It’s like using a machine at the gym: each exercise works a different muscle group.
Method 1: Practice Out Loud
Areas of Focus: Language, timing, authenticity
As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, practicing the speech out loud helps you ensure that the language sounds authentic to you and the words feel comfortable to pronounce. You also make sure you keep to your time limit. I use this method as soon as I’m done writing the speech and then again after polishing it.
Method 2: Practice in Front of a Mirror
Areas of Focus: Nonverbal communication
This is the practice method I use the most. I’ll stand in front of a mirror and identify three areas behind me to focus my eye contact on (which we’ll discuss in Chapter 6). I’ll try out different hand gestures and movements to make sure that my movements match my words. I’ll practice pausing and making eye contact at the same time to ensure that my main points sink in. And I’ll check my posture to make sure I’m standing tall. I do this two or three times before a speech.
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