Public speaking is still the primary means of influencing people. But today’s world has placed before a speaker three major challenges. In this talk let me try to address the challenge of attention, the challenge of motivation, and the challenge of making audience’s think.
The Challenge of Attention
First, let me talk about attention. We live in a world full of distractions. Therefore, it is not easy for any audience to focus fully on the words of the speaker. A speaker’s main challenge therefore is to capture attention and maintain it throughout.
Beginning one’s speech with a simple story or a thought-provoking question can gain you attention. If you begin a speech by saying: it was raining cats and dogs yesterday evening when I left home in a hurry with my multicoloured umbrella, then you have the audience already involved in your speech. You have gained their attention.
But is that enough? The answer is no. Why is it so?
Some speakers begin well. But then they fail to tell audiences early in the speech what they will gain by listening. Here is where the promise of the speech comes in. When the audience knows that the speaker is going to say something that is going to give them hope, a solution to a problem, or a thought to think about, they will listen to it till the end.
This promise has to be given early in the speech. Ideally, just after the introduction. That gives them a reason to stay tuned to what the speaker is saying.
This need to provide the promise compels the speaker to organize his thoughts and have crystal clear clarity in communication.
Another element that makes the speaker’s task doubly difficult is a visually stimulated audience. Today’s audiences are feeding on social media all the time sometimes even while listening to a speech. So, listening to words alone is a huge task for them. The speaker’s energy and enthusiasm and animated gestures can provide a backdrop which can enable sustained attention.
Talking in a picturesque language is yet another way to sustain attention. When a commentator in a world cup match excitedly describes a centre-forward slicing the football into the corner of a net as “like a knife through butter,” it delights your mind. When Jesus said, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” it burns into your mind and leaves the audience shocked at the high degree of improbability it represents. A speaker therefore has to use imaginative language to maintain attention.
The Challenge of Motivation
Now the second challenge of a speaker is regarding motivation. Before we look into it, we have to ask ourselves why is motivation needed? The simple answer is inertia. And according to Newton’s first law of motion an unbalanced force has to act on a body at rest to move it. Likewise, a speaker has to motivate through inspiring words to move people to change their thinking and action.
But let me ask again, why are people in need of motivation? In spite of technological advancement, academic excellence, and success in chosen careers people struggle with many deep-seated troubles.
The primary one among them is the question. “Am I good enough? No one speaks this out loud. But this nags them constantly.
A speaker therefore becomes a motivator when he instils hope in people of better days ahead. He imparts courage when he inspires people to put in yet another effort in spite of all their mistakes and failures. It is in this context that sound bites like, “I have a dream, ” and “Yes we can,” and ” “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat, ” have roused the imagination and enthusiasm of huge masses of people.
Yet another reason why people need motivation is stress they face at the workplace. Even though a lot of talk goes on about work-life balance, many fail to achieve that. A speaker becomes a motivator when he can shine a light when minds are clouded with despair.
If we take the case of a leader, he, as Napoleon said has to be a dealer in hope especially when he communicates his vision to his team. It is a challenge when there is unsurfaced negative thinking among members of the team. It can torpedo every good initiative if left unaddressed. A leader has to talk with clarity and conviction about problems and tough situations. He has to keep afloat the confidence of his team mates while steering ahead.
Motivation also involves communicating the vision of a better tomorrow so that followers believe, buy in, and jump in to do the task at hand. When a speaker tries to communicate this, it is often met with disbelief and making giants out of current problems members of audience are facing.
A speaker’s task is not to falter by the barriers that the audience erect before him. Instead, he has to keep repeating his vision multiple times and at the same time never letting go of his conviction.
These are small steps leading to that giant leap when faith in the vision takes firm hold and root. When that happens, his team mates will finally come to understand what he as the leader tried to communicate.
The Challenge of Making Audience’s Think
The third challenge of a speaker is striking a balance between logic and emotion, the head and the heart, between substance and style. A speech presenting solid information can come across cold and lifeless to an audience. Why? It is because good content alone does not inspire. It needs an emotional backdrop.
If you look at good TV commercials, they do not simply present facts. They appeal to our emotions either by addressing a real need or making us feel that it is desirable to go for that product. How do they do it? They hook us emotionally through colourful, animated, and attractive visuals plus the jingles, memorable sound bites, and the like. But at the end of the day their purpose succeeds when they supply logic to our buying decisions.
Likewise, a good speaker touches emotions first and then at the end leave audiences thinking. Let me illustrate it with two classic instances from the world’s great speeches.
The first is the conclusion of William Jennings Bryan’s speech, considered to be one of the most powerful political addresses in American history. He ended his speech on a thundering note saying: we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” His gestures too dramatized the moment. The reaction in the audience was nothing short of sensational. And according to his biographer, Michael Kazin, he, through these lines stepped “into the headlines of American history”.
The second example is the famous conclusion of General Douglas MacAruthur’s farewell speech to the Joint Session of the American Congress. He said, “I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye.
This conclusion ranks as one of the best of MacArthur, a rare military genius and speaker combined.
The day after the speech, MacArthur traveled to New York City, and had the largest ticker-tape parade in its history. Life magazine reported that more than seven million people tossed an estimated 2,852 tons of paper during the parade.
These two examples illustrate how imaginative use of language and emotions; persuasion and logic; unforgettable images and allusions are all combined to make an idea leave a permanent mark in the minds of the audience.
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Featured image courtesy: Image by spoiu23 from Pixabay and Photo by Daniela Aguilar on Pexels
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