I know charismatic, confident people who avoid even making a toast at a family holiday. They they are afraid to say something stupid, look ridiculous or forget the words.

Because of the fear of speaking in public, we lose a lot: we are embarrassed to ask a question at a conference, we keep silent about the workers meetings, we do not conduct useful master classes for colleagues. It seems that speaking in front of an audience is a talent, which is not given to everyone. But in fact, this is a skill available to everyone. If you master it, public speaking will become a new tool for professional development and will help to win the respect of others.

Public speaking is a form of mass communication: when you speak, communicate with a large number of people. Most of the public speeches I see are boring and formal. They do not benefit the listeners and Speaker. People in the audience scroll through Facebook, and the speaker tries to finish the speech as soon as possible.

To prevent this from happening to your performance, start your preparation with a goal. The goal is what you want from the audience. It seems obvious to put it, but most speakers do not. Speech without a goal It turns out to be sluggish.

Without a goal, the performance turns out to be sluggish

A good goal is half the battle. If you set the goal of "informing the audience", you just inform them and nothing You won't. But you are capable of more: after your performance, the audience must become better, want to change yourself or change the world around you. Make it a goal:

Let's say you have developed an employee motivation system and are going to present its leadership.

If it were a formal report for show, the goal is to "talk about a new motivation system" It would suit you. But if you want managers to want to implement a new system after the presentation, take it to her more seriously. A possible formulation for you: "Inspire managers to implement a new motivation system."

The speaker will not set a good goal if he thinks only about his own benefit. When you go to offer to a customer services of the company, the purpose of "selling" will harm the presentation. And the goal of "being useful" is likely to work.

A good goal combines the interests of the speaker and the audience:

If the speaker does not want anything from the audience, he hides his eyes, speaks under his breath, does not look up from the slides. The audience quickly loses interest in such a performance. And when you want something from the audience, you look into the eyes, Watch your reaction and speak emotionally.

To set a good goal, answer the questions: "What changes should occur in the beliefs and behavior of my audience after the presentation? What do I want people to start thinking and doing?"

A good goal subordinates all the material and the preparation process: you cut out the unnecessary, find convincing examples, Give facts. Preparation turns into a harmonious process and gives a predictable result.

Scenario

A script is the next thing an experienced speaker works on after the goal. In boring speeches, the scenario is uniform and monotonous. The audience with it quickly disconnects.

To prevent this from happening, turn the speech into a story. A good story is divided into four parts:

Introduction. The speaker establishes contact with the audience and makes sure that Each viewer understands the topic of the speech.

Motivation. At this stage, the speaker shares the problem with the audience. From It depends on whether the audience will believe you and follow you after the presentation.

Proposal. In this part, he proposed a solution to the problem of which he tells in motivation.

Conclusion. He summarized what had been said and suggested concrete steps.

The introduction is the shortest part of the presentation. Try not to drag it out: in a few words, introduce yourself, Say what you have to do with the topic of the speech, ask the audience what they know about this topic. After Go straight to motivation.

A good speech "sells" the speaker's offer. This is not necessarily a paid product or service. Sometimes the speaker wants, so that the audience takes care of their health, attends a master class or learns English. This will be the offer. That The audience has accepted it, first tell us about the problem it solves.

A well-formulated problem takes you out of your comfort zone: the viewer feels that a catastrophe is approaching and wants to to do something to save him as soon as possible.

You have set a goal and offer the management a new motivation system. A problem that you Low productivity of unmotivated employees will help convince of the need for its implementation. Let Executives will understand how serious this is.

Aggravate the problem: employees who quit leave bad reviews about the company, customers leave them They read and stop trusting, their reputation falls, and it is more and more difficult to look for new employees. Create a climax with The strongest thought for the audience: in two years due to the cost of training new employees and low productivity old, the company's annual expenses will exceed its income, and it will go bankrupt.

Tell only the truth. Otherwise, the audience will understand that you are deceiving them and will not want to decide Problem.

Say that the problem is serious, but you know how to solve it. Just don't be arrogant, remember the Colombo principle.

Explain how your proposal will work, what result it will bring, and what resources it will require. Don't tell me Too Detailed: You'll have time to discuss the details after your performance.

After the proposal, move on to the conclusion: summarize the speech, draw conclusions, and voice a call to action. People should come out with a clear understanding of what to do next.

Speech

Good performances require careful preparation. All my good performances are those for which I have carefully prepared. Bad ones – which I came to without preparation and tried to improvise.

Therefore, after working on the script, you have two more stages: creating slides and rehearsal.

Most of the speeches are supported by slides. And most of the problems arise with them. Presentation — This is a large separate topic, so I will only talk about the main thing.

The biggest disaster with slides is that they are redundant. The purpose of slides is to reinforce the speech, not to duplicate it. If the presentation repeats your words, the viewer doesn't know whether to listen or read. You lose the audience's attention.

If the presentation repeats your words, the viewer does not know whether to listen to or read

An audience of 10-15 people is too large for slides packed with text. Reduce it to a minimum so as not to kill it the dynamics of the speech.

Then start rehearsals. During the rehearsal, you will probably feel silly: talking to yourself In our country, it is considered a sign of schizophrenia. But without a rehearsal, the performance will be weak. So run the slides and say the speech out loud. Rehearsal is a creative activity, during which good ideas come. The more You will rehearse, the better the result will be.

Sometimes people are afraid that rehearsing will make the performance boring: you will remember the speech and look unnatural. But this fear is wrong. The better you know the material, the better you will convey it to the audience. With good With a rehearsed speech, you will not be confused by a sudden phone call in the hall or a question from an audience. Your speech will be confident and natural.

Just don't use formal, bureaucratic, written, or abstract language. Speak from the stage like In life:

Avoid terms. The terms are convincing, but not interesting. They create a false feeling that several words fit in one term at once. In fact, the audience, even if they understand term, first unpack their meaning in your head and connect them with the context. The terms include the mind well, but poorly — emotions, so the audience is bored.

Be specific. Specifics are better and more convincing than abstract ones Concepts. Abstraction is wonderful, it is the highest form of mental activity, it makes us human and creates Ideas. If you have no ideas, you have nothing to say.

The problem is that we perceive abstract concepts worse than concrete ones, we understand with our minds, but we do not feel. And the performance should also work on an emotional level. Therefore, develop sensitivity to abstractions in speech. If you say abstraction, illustrate it with an example. If in the first sentence You have an abstract word "crisis", the second should have a specific "buckwheat".

Simplify complex sentences. Formulate and understand Complex sentences are difficult. They absorb the energy of the speaker and the audience. Try to keep it short, simple sentences. Your students are already overwhelmed with information at work, don't force them to dig up an idea in a ton of words.

Dialogue with the audience

The main problem during the speech is not that the speaker speaks uncertainly, gesticulates incorrectly or poorly aims with a laser pointer. The main problem is the loss of contact.

Many people think that a speech is a monologue. But when the speech turns into a monologue, the audience feels like Superfluous. The monologue is self-sufficient and does not require the presence of the audience. If you switch to a monologue, you don't notice, that no one listens to your speech.

To prevent this from happening, look at the audience and try to unravel the reaction. If you have rehearsed in good faith text and have a good command of the material, you can do it: watching the audience will not distract you.

Usually, even an inexperienced speaker can recognize the reaction of the audience by the expression of the faces. But if you don't read emotions well, Use a simple indicator: rare slight nods of the head say that everything is fine. But if the audience They don't nod at all - it's rubbish.

To keep your audience engaged, ask questions. Closed-ended questions are the easiest to work with:

Do you agree?

How many thinks the same way, raise your hand?

Do you think so too?

These questions require a response, but do not require a detailed answer. This is good for a speech. With open questions, you run the risk of turning into a discussion. If you have little experience in speaking, I do not advise asking open questions. Discussion is great, but you need experience to manage it. Soberly assess your strengths.

Questions keep viewers on their toes and let them know that they are not superfluous. The questions should be interesting for Viewers: