You’ve perhaps been asked to “say a few words” and deliver a short speech at very short notice, and with only a limited amount of time to prepare. This will be especially the case if you are in a position of responsibility or a leadership position. In my leadership journey, this happened so many times … Read more
I spent a couple of hours during the Christmas break to watch the recording of my recent speeches. It is an exercise that I had somewhat neglected in the past as I discovered that I hadn’t done a self-evaluation of many speeches, some even stretching back to 2018! It was time well spent and reminded … Read more
As I sat listening to some speeches recently, I realised that most speakers fail to impact an impact when they speak. Their speeches might be fairly interesting and their central idea may even be unusual enough to garner interest. However, the impact on the audience, either entertainment, persuasion of information ends-up being quite limited. So, limited that … Read more
How does your speech title impact how others perceive your speech? Your speech title matters more than you think and can impact how your audience perceives your speech, even before you’ve said a single word. The broken promise I sat through a public speaking competition a few days ago and one of the speech titles … Read more
This post is part of a series of posts aimed at PMO professionals ahead of my keynote Public Speaking Demystified at the Future PMO Conference on October 17th in Hammersmith. In earlier blog posts in this series, we covered the importance of basing your presentation around a single idea and additionally why you should be clear on what … Read more
This post is part of a series of posts aimed at PMO professionals ahead of my keynote Public Speaking Demystified at the Future PMO Conference on October 17th in Hammersmith. In an earlier post in this series, I mentioned the importance of having a foundational idea behind every speech or presentation. While having a clear and well-structured idea … Read more
Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones fame isn’t a fictional character that one would associate with public speaking. Nevertheless, I previously looked at Tyrion Lannister’s speech from the Battle of the Blackwater. A speech that is a quintessential example of a strong motivational speech. Tyrion did another speech later on in the series and this … Read more
A topic that often comes up when I work with clients. Or with anybody doing speeches and presentations. Is how to memorise one’s speeches and presentations. Forgetting one’s content is one of the most common fears that people have with public speaking. Do you need to memorise your speeches in advance? Does it matter if … Read more
Speech preparation takes three stages: writing, editing and practicing its delivery. Writing is manly about what you say, but more effort goes in how you say it. In this blog, I will highlight important points of speech delivery or how you say it. When you practice it, one of the first things you need to … Read more
JFK’s speech delivered in 1962 at Rice University in favour of the Apollo programme. Is in my opinion one of the best political speeches of the 20th century. There is a lot that can be learnt from this speech. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this speech is a very good example of … Read more