REVIVAL Episode #100: The Power Of Passion When Speaking

Listen to our most popular episode in presentations for The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show!

Formulistic presentations may tick the boxes, but definitely don’t ignite much enthusiasm in the audience. Yes, the key points were covered, the time was consumed, people heard the presentation matching the topic previously promulgated, but so what? When we attend a mediocre or even bad presentation, we are reminded that a great opportunity has gone begging. When it is our turn and we stand in front of an audience, we are representing our personal brand and our firm’s brand. People will evaluate our company on how we perform. So our job is to perform well and really build fans for our business and ourselves.

Yes, a written speech is grammatically perfect, but it is often boring because of the flat way in which it is delivered. The reading cadence doesn’t suit the live speaking situation. Have you ever noticed that a flat, deadly boring speech can be followed by a very engaging Q&A session led by the speaker? This is because the speaker is now freed from their self-imposed limitations of reading the speech. They start telling us stories of people to illustrate their points. They pepper us with useful information and data that gives us insights. We see some passion in what they are telling us. We all need to be like this in the main body of the speaking time.

Observing a lot of speakers, I have noticed that the things that often go missing most are their passion and commitment for the topic. Additionally, it may be that an already low energy, flat delivery is further hindered by a poor structure. We enter a room full of pre-occupied people, with microscopic attention spans, basically entirely distracted before we even start. We need to grab their attention away from whatever it was they were thinking about before we get up to the podium.

An excellent opening needs considerable planning. It must be a battering ram to break through the wall of audience disinterest and skepticism. It must have a powerful hook in there to keep our attention. Remember, this is how we in the audience are trained. Headlines, the opening stanzas of newspaper and magazine articles, book titles, talk shows, the nightly news programming, television dramas, movies, etc., are all carefully designed and scripted to grab and keep our attention. This is what we, as speakers, are competing with – a professional class of smart, well paid, attention monopolizing experts.

So our opening has to instantly grab attention. Next we need to lead our flock through the intricacies of our topic, so that they can keep up and understand where we are going. If we have key points, then give them numbers, because we more easily follow number sequences. Just don’t make it too many numbers. Keeping up with the thirty three key points of any topic, delivered in a thirty minute speech, is a nightmare the audience doesn’t need.

Wrapping it all up at the end is a critical component too, because this is the speaker’s final impression with the audience. Have you noticed how often the final words of the talk just fade out. The speaker’s voice strength just drops away altogether at the end. What we really want is passion backing up the conclusion. The voice tone should rise to a crescendo. The talk completes with a powerful hypnotic, all embracing call to action. We want everyone, metaphorically, to join us and storm the barricades.

Instead we get that limping, low energy fade out, as the ineffective speaker just bumbles their way into Q&A. Typically, they don’t have any strategy to control the flow of Q&A either. Because of this, they lose control of the proceedings. They have committed a fatal mistake and allowed the final question to completely determine the final impression of the talk with the audience. How many times have you heard a question raised which was completely off topic? Unfortunately this happens quite often, so the danger here is that the questioner highjacks our speech. Their topic is the last item ringing in the ears of the audience rather than what we were there to talk about. Do not let that happen! We need two powerful, passionate closes – one for the end of our speech and one for the end of Q&A.

Passion for the topic and the audience are requirements. These are not optional extras, useful additions, that we can include or not at our leisure. If we don’t feel passion for our topic and our audience, then we come across as flat, perfunctory, formulistic. In these cases, when the audience leaves the venue, the speaker, topic and their organisation are immediately forgotten. With that type of result, we have to ask, “well just what was the point?”. The residual impression is negative. The listeners feel that their time was wasted and no great value was imparted. They leave determined that if that same speaker ever pops up again in the future, they won’t bother to attend.