Public Speaking
One of my recent posts on LinkedIn gained a lot of traction and impressions this year and I thought I would re-post here under my Blog section. The subject is public speaking:
Public speaking is something that most local government managers have to do, in some cases a lot, throughout the course of their career - yet many receive little to no training on this key element of work life for the CAO. This is not an antidote to that reality, but a list of Top 10 helpful hints to those that endeavor to do the people’s work.
1. Do not read from the slides Ever.
2. Relative to number one, always think of this - if you give out your presentation in advance and/or read from the slides, what value do you really bring to the presentation itself?
3. Practice any speech verbatim in the same type of environment (i.e. setting, sitting or standing, podium or not, etc) that you will find yourself in during the actual speech.
4. If there is a Q&A style format post-speech, anticipate some questions and rehearse those responses in advance. Do not go into overplanning this Q&A part, though, as you will never be able to anticipate everything.
5. Should there be time before a public speaking engagement to chat with the audience, do it. Maximize this pre-speech time to break the ice.
6. Humor is good and encouraged, pending the environment/setting - but do not go overboard and make sure to exercise tact and, shall we say, political correctness.
7. Engage the audience, even if there is not a Q&A. In other words, make significant and regular eye contact, move around if you can, do not look at the same people, etc.
8. Many of us have verbal fillers (e.g. - umm, ugh, so, you know what I mean, and so on and so forth, like, right, etc). It’s ok to have these, no one is perfect. Just work on them and recognize where and when they present themselves and work diligently to curb their regularity.
9. Unlike the NFL quarterback, I implore you - Do not go long. Ask in advance what the speech length is expected to be, or have in your head if there is not set time, some sort of rough estimate on the length. No one remembers if you end early, however, people will definitely remember those that go excruciatingly long.
10. Finally, remember your purpose. If this is introducing a public hearing, you go in one direction. If it’s a speech introducing careers in local government to an MPA program, you handle it a touch differently. If it’s the local rotary club and you’re the monthly program, there’s a preferred setup for that. Know the audience and length, and center yourself on the purpose and mission of the speech. Why are you there? And what does the audience here need to know? Then, deliver a knock-out speech!
