How The Dale Carnegie Presentations Course Started
We can communicate easily with each other. We chat over coffee breaks, over lunch, over dinner. We can contribute during internal business meetings and we can explain our solutions to our clients, as we seek to make a sale. However, when it comes to making public speeches and giving presentations in front of audiences, something changes. We become hot, sweaty, our throat goes dry and our pulse is racing. It has been like this forever and so for many people, giving a talk in front of others is something to avoid. Trying to go beyond just giving the talk and bridging into being persuasive has eluded and continues to elude many people in business.
Dale Carnegie started his company in 1912 focusing on public speaking. This is still a universal problem area for many people, so there has always been a strong commercial need. There weren’t many business texts on public speaking for businesspeople at that time. Most public speaking training was focused more on rhetoric and oratory, rather than what was needed in the daily rough and tumble of the business environment.
To overcome the lack of resources, between 1912 and 1920 Dale Carnegie formalized the course he was teaching at the New York YMCA into a program titled “The Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking”. In 1915 he wrote “The Art of Public Speaking” with J. Berg Esenwein. As his business expanded and as he got more experience with what businesspeople needed, Dale Carnegie began to develop his teaching content further and to make it more comprehensive.
Around 1922, Dale Carnegie’s four-volume Public Speaking was published and used as the text for his formalized course. In 1926, Dale Carnegie released “Public Speaking, A Practical Course for Businessmen” as his textbook, which was revised again in 1931 to be called “Public Speaking And Influencing Men In Business”.
What was unique about Dale Carnegie’s method was he wasn’t focused on posturing or using dramatic effect, as was a common theme then heavily influenced by acting training. He realized that acting on the stage and giving a business talk were fundamentally different disciplines and he looked for ways which would help the business speaker to really connect with his audience. He noticed that when his students were authentic, spoke from the heart with energy, passion and enthusiasm, all of the periphery elements about stance, posture, gestures etc., melted away in importance and the audience were drawn into the talk.
He also noticed that nervous people, who had been inwardly directed and consumed by their own lack of confidence, forgot all about themselves and really focused on their audience. The changes were so profound, he kept producing more content in order to help more people. He realized that many were avoiding presenting and thereby hindering their careers and the growth of their businesses.
“The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking” book was published, based on updates by Dale Carnegie to his original textbooks, before he passed away in 1955. Dorothy Carnegie gathered his writings together after he died and published this new work in 1962.
Business and technology constantly change, so there was a need to broaden the scope of the presentation training and update the content. The Executive Presentations Workshop was created by the Executive Team at Dale Carnegie and Associates 1981 and in 1985 that programme was replaced with the Dale Carnegie Strategic Presentations Workshop. This was a public speaking program and over a number of years, new material and ideas were gathered from this workshop and contributed to the launch of High Impact Presentations in 1992. In 2001, Successful Public Speaking was released as a one day programme.
The technology today allows immediate video review of the presentation by the instructors. This is a case of “seeing is believing” for the participants. They can hear the soundtrack of the coaching they were just receiving during their presentation in the main room and before their eyes in the review room, they can see the impact of the changes on their presentation. This combination of in the moment coaching and immediate review is powerful. Being able to switch gears mid-presentation means the improvements are immediate for the participants. This is why having two specialised instructors is so important. In this way, there is no loss of time and it keeps the programme moving.
Over two days of the main High Impact Presentation modules, participants give six presentations in a psychologically safe environment, where the feed back is only good/better. That means the instructors focus on what the participants are doing that is working for them and then suggest things they could try to make it even better.
Around mid-afternoon on the first day there is a major pivot. Up until that point everyone is focused on themselves. They are worried about how nervous they are feeling, what they want to say, how they will say it, etc. At a magical point, the focus switches from the presenter’s self-focus to a focus on the audience. The nervousness disappears, the presenter is now fully engaging with their audience and the first elements of persuasion power are starting to be evident.
This process just keeps growing through to the end of the programme. When the final presentation has been completed and reviewed, the participants get a chance to go back and look at their very first presentation on Day One. The instructors on Day One were challenging the participants to give them their best ever, most powerful, most amazing presentation during that first morning. When they see the contrast between their last and their first video, they are shocked at how much they have grown in such a short time.
Once they are inoculated with this level of confidence, knowledge and technique they are ready for any presentation, anytime, anywhere, any audience, any subject. Naturally, these new found skill gets noticed inside their organizations and they soon become the types of people senior leadership are looking to promote into leadership positions or the types of suppliers, that client companies want to engage with. As persuasion power becomes increasingly vital in business today, these skills are acknowledged as a necessity and more and more people are seeking to gain new skills as presenters.
Dale Carnegie started his company in 1912 focusing on public speaking. This is still a universal problem area for many people, so there has always been a strong commercial need. There weren’t many business texts on public speaking for businesspeople at that time. Most public speaking training was focused more on rhetoric and oratory, rather than what was needed in the daily rough and tumble of the business environment.
To overcome the lack of resources, between 1912 and 1920 Dale Carnegie formalized the course he was teaching at the New York YMCA into a program titled “The Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking”. In 1915 he wrote “The Art of Public Speaking” with J. Berg Esenwein. As his business expanded and as he got more experience with what businesspeople needed, Dale Carnegie began to develop his teaching content further and to make it more comprehensive.
Around 1922, Dale Carnegie’s four-volume Public Speaking was published and used as the text for his formalized course. In 1926, Dale Carnegie released “Public Speaking, A Practical Course for Businessmen” as his textbook, which was revised again in 1931 to be called “Public Speaking And Influencing Men In Business”.
What was unique about Dale Carnegie’s method was he wasn’t focused on posturing or using dramatic effect, as was a common theme then heavily influenced by acting training. He realized that acting on the stage and giving a business talk were fundamentally different disciplines and he looked for ways which would help the business speaker to really connect with his audience. He noticed that when his students were authentic, spoke from the heart with energy, passion and enthusiasm, all of the periphery elements about stance, posture, gestures etc., melted away in importance and the audience were drawn into the talk.
He also noticed that nervous people, who had been inwardly directed and consumed by their own lack of confidence, forgot all about themselves and really focused on their audience. The changes were so profound, he kept producing more content in order to help more people. He realized that many were avoiding presenting and thereby hindering their careers and the growth of their businesses.
“The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking” book was published, based on updates by Dale Carnegie to his original textbooks, before he passed away in 1955. Dorothy Carnegie gathered his writings together after he died and published this new work in 1962.
Business and technology constantly change, so there was a need to broaden the scope of the presentation training and update the content. The Executive Presentations Workshop was created by the Executive Team at Dale Carnegie and Associates 1981 and in 1985 that programme was replaced with the Dale Carnegie Strategic Presentations Workshop. This was a public speaking program and over a number of years, new material and ideas were gathered from this workshop and contributed to the launch of High Impact Presentations in 1992. In 2001, Successful Public Speaking was released as a one day programme.
The technology today allows immediate video review of the presentation by the instructors. This is a case of “seeing is believing” for the participants. They can hear the soundtrack of the coaching they were just receiving during their presentation in the main room and before their eyes in the review room, they can see the impact of the changes on their presentation. This combination of in the moment coaching and immediate review is powerful. Being able to switch gears mid-presentation means the improvements are immediate for the participants. This is why having two specialised instructors is so important. In this way, there is no loss of time and it keeps the programme moving.
Over two days of the main High Impact Presentation modules, participants give six presentations in a psychologically safe environment, where the feed back is only good/better. That means the instructors focus on what the participants are doing that is working for them and then suggest things they could try to make it even better.
Around mid-afternoon on the first day there is a major pivot. Up until that point everyone is focused on themselves. They are worried about how nervous they are feeling, what they want to say, how they will say it, etc. At a magical point, the focus switches from the presenter’s self-focus to a focus on the audience. The nervousness disappears, the presenter is now fully engaging with their audience and the first elements of persuasion power are starting to be evident.
This process just keeps growing through to the end of the programme. When the final presentation has been completed and reviewed, the participants get a chance to go back and look at their very first presentation on Day One. The instructors on Day One were challenging the participants to give them their best ever, most powerful, most amazing presentation during that first morning. When they see the contrast between their last and their first video, they are shocked at how much they have grown in such a short time.
Once they are inoculated with this level of confidence, knowledge and technique they are ready for any presentation, anytime, anywhere, any audience, any subject. Naturally, these new found skill gets noticed inside their organizations and they soon become the types of people senior leadership are looking to promote into leadership positions or the types of suppliers, that client companies want to engage with. As persuasion power becomes increasingly vital in business today, these skills are acknowledged as a necessity and more and more people are seeking to gain new skills as presenters.
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