Killing the 7 deadly habits of public speaking

I love speaking to a crowd. It often gives me my only chance to teach as part of my job, and I get to pretend I’m an graphic designer for a while. But a majority of Westerners list public speaking as their worst fear, beating out death, the dark, financial ruin, and spiders and snakes. For me it’s the dark, followed by David Hasselhof in a speedo.

But though I enjoy it now, I started out with serious fear of public speaking. As I started caring more about my own speaking performance—and getting feedback on my shortcomings—I started noticing how other speakers did things. Most of them, even the really effective speakers, shared some of bad habits.

Some societies believe that the knowing the name of an evil being that’s giving you a hard time will enable you to control and defeat it. Here are 7 names that can give you some power over your own bad speaking habits.

1. The “uh” and the “ummm”

“So, ummm, what I’d, uh, like to, uh, talk about today is, uh, the weekly finance figures and, ummm, and how they, ummm, how they impact the, uh, monthly projections.”

No, really. People do talk this way. If you don’t believe me, read it out loud and it won’t sound quite so outlandish.

It is human nature to sprinkle speech with these fillers when we get nervous. In a public speaking setting though these fillers can seriously detract from your listeners’ ability to care about what you are saying. Break this habit early.

2. The jingle

One of my favorite deadlies is the jingle, and I most often see it manifest with men who jingle what sounds like $80 in nickels stowed in their pants pockets.

If you are a jingler, and you know who you are, empty your pockets. Do not carry keys, change, or RAM chips in your pockets. No chapstick, no lipstick. Nothing. I mean it. Your audience will thank you, and your message will have one less thing to compete with for your audience’s attention.

3. Cup talking, face stroking, and the adjustment

If you aren’t a jingler, then you might fit into this category. Happily, I fit into both categories so I have a long pre-talk checklist.

When I speak in front of larger groups, for whatever reason, my throat goes dry pretty quickly and so I usually have a cup or bottle of something on the podium to drink. Early on, however, I formed a bad habit: cup talking. I would usually take a drink at a pause in the presentation, for example following an audience question. Then, intent upon answering the question and not paying attention to the cup, I’d start talking before the cup was away from my mouth, muffling the first part of the answer.

The same kind of problem happens when you are constantly stroking your chin/check/neck or adjusting your tie/jacket/microphone. Be aware of what your audience hears.

4. Appearing alive, but not too much so

While most of us fall in the middle of the expressiveness range in a public setting, we all need to be aware of the dangers that lie at the two extremes.

On the one end is the speaker who stands rooted to one spot, hands white-knuckle clenched on either side of a lectern, evidently battling each word out of his mouth through an expenditure of self control that would make Saint Francis look like a lush. On the other end is hopped-up-on-speed-guy. He doesn’t stand still for a second and is really Really REALLY excited about every single word he has to say.

Yikes. I’ve seen them both, and once or twice I’ve probably been both. As with most things in life, the key to deciding how animated you need to be is to search for moderation.

5. The block

The block happens when a speaker puts up a slide and then promptly stands in front of it. The block is most commonly spotted in the wild when an overhead projector is being used, but there is no technology that’s completely immune from the block. So your speaking skills are going to have to compensate. Know where your projector is, and where you can stand without blocking the information you are there to share.

6. The rush

You’re really nervous. You’ve rehearsed your talk a million times, and even taped some of the practice sessions. You’ve had good feedback, and worked on crushing a couple habits. Then it’s show time and you turn an hour’s worth of material into a 20-minute stream of information concentrate, thank the audience for their time, and bolt out the door.

You actually rehearsed so much that you memorized a script, and once the time came to recite that script, you went to town. Prepare; just don’t over prepare.

7. Communing with nature

When you are speaking to a group you are supposed to be having a conversation with that group. If you think back on your conversations today I’ll bet that most of them had one thing in common: you were talking to your conversational partner. As in facing him or her. Making eye contact. Not facing the opposite direction, not looking at notes, not staring out the window.

The rules don’t change when you are the only one standing, and everyone else is listening to you. Don’t talk to the screen. Don’t talk to your note cards. Don’t talk to your coffee. Look your audience in the eye and talk directly to them.