Ovation

2014-03-05T10:55:00.001-08:00

Public Speaking: More "Art" Than Function

2013-10-16T07:59:00.001-07:00

Why is it that there are people who are experts or knowledgeable in their professions but still have apprehension when it come to speaking in public about that subject matter? Or, master "Closers" in sales who cannot present to a group, or are average at best. Imagine a carpenter being asked to build a bookshelf as a demonstration to a group of people, and they are provided with no tools and no hardware; only material, only wood. No amount of practice or preparation will avoid the nervousness that is surely present; and when it’s all said and done the group and the carpenter would not have maximized the intention and the desired result of their interaction. Maybe the carpenter could try and show how the book shelve would look, or try to explain. but it would not be the same.

When you consider it, the fear of public speaking is well founded. That fear, is your inner-self telling you that you don’t have the tools to perform this task. Many people assume that because we know how to speak, that we should know how to public speak. Something inside you knows that that is wrong. It may not be the only cause of anxiety, but it’s a big one.

I find too often public speaking training focuses on the "function" of the process and not the "Art" of it. One needs to be given the tools of expression to create the next masterpiece. The slight movement of the head, at just the right time, the placing a hand on the podium for the right effect or cleverly, effectively, interweaving your statistical citation into the fabric of you speech so it seems to have no less or more weight than the rhetorical devices that are hidden in the speech.

If you want to speak well; acquire the tools of the the artist rather than the equipment of the engineer.

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1 Most Important Attribute To Have As a Public Speaker

2013-10-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Ovation where we view public speaking as an art. You need to know that the skills required to be even an average speaker are very soft and subtle. People often ask, “What is the single most important attribute to posses as a public speaker”? To most, the somewhat obvious answer is believability. On the face of it seems to make sense.

There are only three reasons that an individual would get up in front of a group of people to talk. Either to influence them in some way, to inform them about something or to entertain them somehow and In each instance the believability of the deliverer is pivotal. But there is something that underpins believability and that is virtue. Consider the following:

FOR, consider first, Whether any thing be more essential to persuasion, than the opinion which we entertain of the probity, disinterestedness, candour, and other good moral qualities of the person who endeavours to persuade? These give weight and force to every thing which he utters; nay, they add a beauty to it; they dispose us to listen with attention and pleasure; and create a secret partiality in favour of that side which he espouses. Whereas, if we entertain a suspicion of craft and disingenuity, of a corrupt, or a base mind, in the Speaker, his Eloquence loses all its real effect. It may entertain and amuse; but it is viewed as artifice, as trick, as the play only of speech; and, viewed in this light, Whom can it persuade?

EXCERPT FROM

Lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres: By Hugh Blair,

Category: Fiction & Literature

Difficult when training adults paramount when teaching youth to speak publicly.