Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has an IQ of about 88. What he lacks in academic prowess, he more than makes up for in wisdom. He is not a Jedi but has instincts stronger than Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes to picking out talent in a cocktail party. Read this and let the force be with you too. After an HBS event, they wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. After a BASES keynote where he did Q&A via text message, he revealed “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Public Speaking.” Now he has computer science undergrads writing for him…,
by Wesley Leung and Conrad Chan
Edited by Larry Chiang (sorta)
Originally here.
As two guys who love to code, we have noticed a not-too-exciting stereotype floating around our fields of study: CS majors are poor speakers who have traded their interpersonal relationship and communication skills for technical expertise. This label is unfortunate because on the whole, CS majors truly do indeed publicly speak worse than those in other fuzzier fields. To break out of this stereotype and reach our full potentials, we decided yesterday to participate in some Speaker Training 101 to improve our public speaking skills, because, to be blunt, CS Majors who speak well do better than CS majors who don’t speak well.
Here are some useful tips we took away from the training:
1. Silence is powerful.
It might sound ironic, but the most powerful speakers are those who can employ pauses in their words. During short bouts of mental hiccups, everyone will want to fill gaps in their speech with the two most spoken words in the English language. Yeah, that’s right: “Umm…” or “err…” Avoid these. Be conscious of your umms and errs. See if you can catch yourself in the act and replace them with some thoughtful, contemplative silence. You’ll be surprised.
2. Use your hands.
Using your hands to emphasize key points or to articulate what you need to say is extremely effective. Don’t let them hang limp at your sides, hiding uselessly in your pockets, or tucked away behind the podium. You have them for a reason. Be lively and energetic!
3. Don’t touch the podium!
People may not think about this at all, but their natural instinct is to grab whatever is in front of them while they are speaking. On-stage, people will psychologically want to seek some sort of security. Remember that stand-up comedian who kept fiddling with their microphone? Or maybe that nervous speaker who appeared to be humping the podium. Neither took tip #5 into account. Be confident, poised, and keep your hands off the podium!
4. Listen to your introducer.
Don’t just start speaking and talk over your introducer. As the main event, everyone will naturally have their attention on you. Show some courtesy and give your introducer your undivided attention. The audience will naturally follow you. When the introducer gives you the stage, don’t just start speaking and talk over him. Ease your way into your speech and set the pace for your audience. It can be as simple as “Thank you [name] for introducing me tonight…”
5. Interact with the audience.
Reality check: who are you speaking to? The audience. They are here to learn from you, so its best to know your audience and involve them in your speech. For example, this can be accomplished by doing simple tasks such as asking questions “raise your hand if…” Follow tip#6, and you’ll keep the audience refreshed and engaged.
6. Pull yourself out of a tailspin.
During the speaker training, I choked up during my improv and forgot the name of an organization I was supposed to describe. After around 5 seconds of misery, the name came back to me and I made my recovery by graciously and humorously accepting the fact I made my mistake. Surprisingly, the audience felt that this contributed to the power of the speech. Apparently some speakers even plan out things to fail during their speech so they could similarly pull themselves out of a tailspin. This tactic is supposed to connect the audience to the speaker and create this bond because the speaker becomes more human, down-to-earth, on the same plane as the audience.
7. Don’t hold back your energy.
For some unknown reason, some people equate speaking with less energy to increased technical expertise. That actually doesn’t make you look more sophisticated, that just makes you look like a poor speaker. Release that energy and don’t hold back! Capture your audience’s attention with all the power you have to make your speech more effective
8. Critique yourself and have others critique you.
This may seem self-explanatory, but when you are practicing your speech, take turns with others to point out positives and negatives in your speech. When addressing your own negatives, see if your audience agrees with you. Surprisingly, audiences may not notice a lot of your mistakes. What feels like hours of mistakes on your part are actually unnoticeable seconds for your audience. Keep running drills immediately afterward to incorporate the constructive criticism.
 Photo Credit: Conrad Chang |
Our public speaking is nowhere near perfect, but we recognize it as a valuable skill to have and hope to improve in it quickly. Try out these small tips, and you’ll be surprised at the difference it’ll make. Most of the world fears public speaking more than death. Master these tips and you will absolutely amaze. It’s the first step to being able to throw an event that will make a 2nd year Stanford GSB student jealous. Ambitious? No problem.
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