Becoming an outstanding speaker: to speak well, listen

So you’ve researched your audience, and you’ve carefully prepared your argument. You know your topic, and you think you’ve anticipated all the questions. You’re off to a good start, but you are still just getting started. You’ve got to really connect with your audience to be sure your message is getting to them. But how do you learn to connect to your audience?

A large part of resonating with your audience is sharing your information with them in a format that they expect, not only with respect to content, but also with respect to style, format, and presentation. To learn to speak well, you’ve got to start paying attention to what other people say, and how they say it.

Just as with written documents, noticing and observing the standards of presentation in your organization will set up an instant communications bridge between you and your audience. As language and accent identify you as a local or an outsider, your presentation’s format and rhythm can put your audience at ease as with a family member, or alert them to the presence of an outsider.

Attend other presentations

Attend presentations given by your coworkers and other members of your organization. Many companies sponsor brown-bag lunch sessions where individuals prepare short presentations on technical topics, hobbies, shared interests, and so on.

Even if you aren’t particularly interested in the topics being discussed, these presentations can provide you with an important window into how presentations are done where you work. You’ll see the standard templates that people use and how they are used. You’ll also begin to take notice of the similarities in rhythm, form, and organization among the various presentations. Do people refer to notes? Do speakers always stand or sometimes sit? Are coats and ties the order of the day, or will khakis and a golf shirt carry you through?

Pay attention in one-on-one interactions, too

Likewise, pay attention to the structured one-on-one and small group interactions you have with coworkers and supervisors in your company. Does your boss stay behind his desk during these talks, or does he come around and sit in a chair beside you? Does this vary as the news is good or bad? In meetings, do your teammates seem to be referring to notes as they provide status reports on their assignments, or do they wing it, frequently interrupting one another to add to this or that point? Do people refer to each other by first name or last name, and how does this vary with rank?

(When I was at Walt Disney World as an engineering co-op student everyone was called by first name, even then Chairman Michael Eisner—until you called him Mike, not Michael. Then he was Mr. Eisner to you.)

Adopt the style

Many organizations—especially large or geographically dispersed organizations—have style guides and standard presentation templates and guidelines. They are probably available on your intranet in the same place as the style guides for written documents. Get them, and read them.

Once you’ve immersed yourself in the style of your organization, create a few presentations to give in informal settings such as brown-bag lunches or to school groups and community tours that come through your office. Practice adopting the nuances of small-group communications that others around you have adopted. If it is common to prepare before the more important meetings, then start preparing. If your boss turns away from his computer when you walk into his cubicle to focus solely on you, then you should do the same when your coworkers come calling at your cubicle.

In other words, make your organization’s style of oral communications your own. Doing this will allow you to take advantage of the instant communication bridge to reach past your audience’s defenses and make your message their own.