The ACTU President, Ged Kearney, opened their National
Congress this week with a speech that was well crafted and about the right
length. It should have gone well but the
manner of her delivery unfortunately meant that her speech failed a fundamental
test. From the parts of the speech that
were shown on Sky News, she expressed some core beliefs and the values and
vision of the Australian Union movement. Her delivery should have matched the power and
passion of her words. It didn’t!
Why? Because Ged’s
head was continually bobbing up and down as she read the speech word for word
from the written version on the lectern in front of her. Just
when a point needed to be made with strong conviction, Ged’s head would go down
again to read from her written speech.
 |
| If only Ged had kept looking up as she spoke! |
The audience members saw that Ged’s non-verbal behaviours
did not match the words she was speaking.
When it comes to a choice between believing what someone says and what
someone does, we always pay more attention and give more credence to what we
see people doing. It was Ged’s
non-verbal actions that would have distracted the audience from the actual
content of her words. If she couldn’t
speak with her head up, looking at the audience and speak the words clearly and
confidently, they could not play their part and listen with their heads and
hearts open.
On such a big occasion as opening a National Congress, we
can certainly sympathise with Ged. She
wants to remember exactly what is in the speech; she is anxious that she will
forget what she has to say. The
solutions are to rehearse the speech a few times over and to memorise some of
the really key points. A quick glance to
the written speech every so often to check the next major point should be
enough. Then you can keep looking ahead
and around at the audience members who are “the customers” of your message.
In the Confident Presentation Skills
workshop, we cover some practical techniques that are great enablers to
presenting calmly, clearly and confidently.
This workshop is available as an in-house program exclusively for your
staff members or we regularly hold public workshops throughout the year.
Our next Confident Presentation Skillsworkshop is being held in Toowoomba on Tuesday May 29th 2012. We are registering a maximum number of 10
participants and limited
places are still available.
Happy Presenting,
Lynne Lloyd
People Results
www.peopleresults.com.au
