In the June 2013 issue of HBR, TED curator Chris Anderson shared an outstanding set of public speaking tips in his article entitled: How to Give a Killer Presentation.  Though I strongly encourage you to read the entire article to pick up the colorful narrative commentary, here are the tips he provided in paraphrased, condensed, and actionable form:

 

Content Tips

1. Start with a novel idea worth spreading that is deeply insightful yet narrow in scope.
2. Frame your talk as a journey of discovery or a detective story.  Start by stating a problem your audience knows or should reasonably know and then build to your unique solution.
3. Make sure your audience can quickly grasp what your talk is about.
4. Don’t over-explain; instead let your audience reach their own epiphany.
5. Share stories about people not organizations.
6. Sell your ideas from the stage, not yourself, your books, or your business.

 

Delivery Tips

1. Strive to deliver your talk without notes or a teleprompter.  It typically takes dozens of rehearsals in front of a live audience to  internalize a talk.  Internalization is the stage you will reach beyond memorization with enough practice.
2.  Use bullet points on note cards if you struggle with memorization.
3. Speak in your natural conversational tone of voice (and not like a dramatic orator).
4. Use simple language rather than jargon.
5. Keep your lower body motionless and move to new locations if that comes naturally. However, do not sway from side to side or shift your weight from leg to leg.
6. Make eye contact with 5 or 6 people randomly distributed throughout the audience.

 

Design Tips

1. Keep your multimedia simple, or better yet, use none at all
2. Design slides for your audience (not for your use as notes).  This means favoring vivid images over text bullet points.
3. Build silence into your talk if you have stunning imagery depicting your work.
4. Keep video clips to less than 60 seconds.
5. Avoid including soundtracks in video clips.

 

Mindset Tips

1. Start the cycle of devising, revising, and rehearsing six to nine months before you deliver your TED Talk.
2. Embrace your nervousness as natural and healthy.  It gives you energy and makes you more authentically engaging to your audience.
3. Calm your nervous by listening to the speakers before you, assuming powerful body language (see Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk), and breathing deeply.
4. Seek feedback only from highly experienced presenters.

(The following is a guest post by inspirational speaker and magician Nana Danso.  He is performing live at the Omni Hotel in New Haven, CT at 7pm on Thursday May 2, 2013.  Click here for tickets and information.)

 

Tip #1: Share an idea worth spreading

Marco Tempest’s idea worth spreading is: “To willingly suspend your disbelief so that you can live a more optimistic life.”

 

Tip #2: Encapsulate your message in a catchphrase of 10 or fewer words

If you cannot describe your message in ten or fewer words, then your message is not clear. A simple example of a catchphrase is “It’s never too late to make a difference.” Marco’s catchphrase could be something like, “There is no magic without willful suspension of disbelief.” In addition to being brief, a good catchphrase is also one that can easily be remembered. Rhyming and alliteration are very useful in catchphrases. Here is an example from Craig Valentine, the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking for Toastmasters International. “What gets recorded gets rewarded.” Craig is encouraging his public speaking students to record their speeches in order to improve.

 

Tip #3: Have a call to action, even if you do not state it explicitly

The call to action refers to what you want your audience to do after your speech. You do not necessarily have to say, “When you leave here today…” However, it must be clear that you want your audience to do something. Marco wants us to believe in magic just like we do when we cheer for heroes at a football game or cry for friends we never had at the movie theater. Marco’s use of the screen is a perfect illustration of how magic works. If you were sitting in the audience and you found yourself watching Marco more than the screen, then you may need to work on your ability to see magic. However, if you watched the screen the entire time, you suspended your disbelief and enjoyed the entire experience.

 

Final Thoughts

Speech craft is similar to magic. When magicians perform, their spectators pay little attention the actual techniques being employed to create the illusions. In a speech, the audience may not have been aware that the speaker intentionally used certain tactics to provide a meaningful experience. However, they do know that they received an idea worth spreading.

Charlie Todd currently holds the record for the largest number of views on TED.com for a speech by a comedian.  In this post, I deconstruct the factors that make his talk so popular.

 

Tip #1: Share an idea worth spreading

Charlie Todd’s idea worth spreading is: ‘To accept that there is no right or wrong way to play so that you can have more joy in your life.’

 

Tip #2: Be purposeful about when to reveal your ‘ah-hah’ moment

I help out a number of TED and TEDx speakers and one of them asked me yesterday: “Should I share my ah-hah insight at the beginning or at the end of my talk?”  The short answer is that it depends.  If you are delivering a story-driven narrative, then I recommend holding the big ‘ah-hah’ to the end to preserve the natural drama inherent in your story.  Audiences are delighted by the journey of discovery and willingly defer the gratification that the moral provides.

The location of the ah-hah moment in a logic driven narrative depends on the type of argument you are making.  Most TED Talks are built using inductive logic groups.  In a nutshell, this means the speaker has one fundamental premise and then shares  a collection of justifications that answer the audience’s most pressing question.  This collection must be described by one plural noun.  For example, if the question raised is ‘how?’, then the justifications are steps or methods. If the question is ‘why?’, then the justifications are reasons.  With inductive logic groups, I recommend putting the big reveal at the beginning and then repeating it again at the end albeit with  more emotional resonance.

In a  deductive logic chain, the speaker states a law or accepted principle and then goes progressively deeper until reaching a big ‘ah-hah’ at the end.  An example of this type of argument is the ‘chain of whys’ – think of a conversation that alternates between a parent making a statement and a child asking ‘why?’.  (Also, see how Simon Sinek’s delivered his TED Talk).  With this type of argument, the ‘ah-hah’ is automatically at the end.

Charlie Todd’s narrative was an inductive logic group in which his idea worth spreading was supported by five methods that answered ‘how?’.  However, he did not reveal his big insight until the end.  The benefit of this approach is that it builds dramatic tension.  The downside is that the audience is left to ponder what the point is until the end.  Most of the time, the drama is not worth the confusion.  In Mr. Todd’s case, it worked for two special reasons. One is that his talk was more entertaining then it was educational. When you are being entertained, there does not have to be a point.  Second, at 11.7 minutes, his talk was shorter than the typical 18 minute TED Talk.

 

Tip #3: Alternate between logic and proof

Charlie’s talk, like most great TED Talks, alternates between logic and proof.  First he shared a story vignette (the proof), then he shared the so-what (the logic).  He repeated this process five times for his five ‘hows.’  Here is how his talk was structured: (the numbers indicate the order of his talk)

[table ]
Element,Logic,Proof
Introduction,(none),(1) Started Improv Everywhere 10 years ago when he moved to NYC and did not have a stage for acting & comedy
Part 1,(3) By causing a scene in a public place that is a positive experience for others that gives them a great story to tell, (2)”No Pants Subway Ride” video
Part 2,(5) By choosing locations that naturally attract an audience,(4) “Look Up More” video
Part 3,(6) By taking advantage of assets already in the environment,(5) “Best Buy Prank” video
Part 4,(8) By making the project site specific,(7) “53rd Street Escalator” video
Part 5,(10) By occasionally choosing to use leisure time in an unusual way,(9) 6 examples supported by slides
Conclusion,(12) As adults there is no right or wrong way to play,(11) As children we don’t question play
[/table]

 

Tip #4: Do not cram too much into your talk

The greatest risk that speakers face in building TED talks is not having too little content, it is having too much.  When you edit your talk, the first question to ask is whether a given part of your speech either adds to your logic or to your proof.  In the case of Charlie Todd’s TED Talk, all five parts of the body of his speech pass this screen.  The next question to ask is whether you absolutely positively need each part, especially when the number of parts exceeds the magical number of three.

Each of the first four part of Charlie Todd’s speech was nicely parallel in structure.  In general, it is good idea to keep the type of proof that you are using consistent.  Each part had a “how” supported by a video example that Mr. Todd narrated.  However, his fifth part contained a blur of six examples supported by slides rather than videos.  Since the treatment was so different, this part of the speech felt tacked on and rushed.   It was as if Mr. Todd was cramming in the portfolio of his life’s work.  The work is brilliant, but his Part 5 took away from the power of his talk.  He could have dropped the extra examples and moved the leisure time logic either up into his  introduction or down into his conclusion.

Tip #5: Add non-verbal humor to your collection of speaking skills

As you would expect from a comedian, Charlie Todd’s talk drew a stunning number of laughs – 42 in under 12 minutes.  At 3.6 laughs-per-minute, this is just below the range 4 to 6 laughs-per-minute range of professional stand-up comedy.  It is also well above the typical 1 to 2 laughs-per-minute that most TED talks elicit.   How did he do it?

Most speakers riff to crank up the laugh count.  Riffing is the practice of getting one laugh and then elaborating several more times on the same theme with escalating absurdity.  This is a mostly verbal skill though skilled comedians can get the same effect with physical comedy.

Using video examples, Charlie Todd employed situation comedy.  Take his first video.  He only had to say the words “no pants subway ride” to draw his first laugh.  From that point on, he mostly played straight-man narrator as absurd events unfolding on screen drew the laughs – a woman trying to read a book on a subway car as seven men wearing coats and boxer shorts entered the train at seven consecutive stops.

 

Tip #6: Set up multimedia clips as stories

Since they take attention away from the speaker, visuals of any kind should only be used if they document an experience in a way that words cannot explain.  Charlie Todd made the right choice in showing video clips of his work since it was the best way for the audience to relive his experience.  More impressively, he treated each of his four video clips as a mini-story.  For example, here is the “No Pants Subway Ride” story:

• Act I (ordinary world to inciting incident):  A woman is reading a book on a subway car. There are two men sitting across from her having a conversation.  As the subway pulls into its first stop, the woman picks her head up and notices a man who just boarded wearing a coat and scarf, but wearing only yellow polka-dot boxer shorts from the  waist down.
• Act II (inciting incident to climax): Six more men at six additional subway stops enter the train the same way without communicating with each other.  Ultimately, a second woman boards the train holding a Duffel bag and offers pants for sale for $1.
• Act III (climax to new ordinary world): The men put on their pants, leave the train, and go off in different directions.

Though there was background noise, Mr. Todd’s videos were a pure visual experience.  With shorter clips, perhaps 30 seconds or less, it is best for the speaker to simply watch silently as the audience watches. For longer clips, it is wise to narrate – preferably without starting and stopping the video – as Charlie did.

 

Tip #7: Show videos of decreasing duration

Using even one video in a presentation can be distracting for an audience.  Having four can be ten times more distracting so it should be done with extreme caution.  Charlie Todd handled this nicely by showing videos with (mostly) decreasing duration starting with his longest at 180 seconds, followed by 65 seconds, then 77 seconds, and finally 50 seconds.  Using progressively shorter videos provides the audience with a satisfying feeling that the talk is accelerating.

 

Final Thoughts

Embedding videos in a presentation imposes a large degree of technical risk.  If you choose to do so, then make sure there is no other way for your audience to relive your story.  Additionally, make sure to fully test the video and the audio on the actual system prior to the performance since you will get different results on different computers with different A/V systems.

Business guru Simon Sinek became a TED super-star by combining a simple yet compelling message – “start with why” – with an artful narrative.  In this post, I deconstruct the factors that make his TED Talk so powerful and viral.

 

Tip #1: Share an idea worth spreading

Simon’s idea worth spreading is: ‘To encourage leaders to start with why (then share how and finally reveal what), so that they can inspire others.”

 

Tip #2: Hook your audience immediately

Simon hooked his audience immediately in two ways.  The first is that he started with a series of compelling questions that left the audience hungry for an answer:

How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? … Then why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is it that Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights Movement? … Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled, powered man flight when there were certainly other teams who were better qualified, better funded … and they didn’t achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers beat them to it?

As I discussed in a previous post (3 Best Ways To Start Your Speech), Simon opened with not one, but an entire series of thought-provoking questions.  Importantly, he made sure that all of these questions had the exact same answer.  And, moreover, the answer to these questions was his central idea.

Simon also hooked his audience by teasing them with the delights of secret knowledge:

About three and a half years ago I made a discovery. And this discovery profoundly changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it. As it turns out, there’s a pattern. As it turns out, all the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world — whether it’s Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers — they all think, act and communicate the exact same way. And it’s the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it, and it’s probably the world’s simplest idea.

It is important to note that in addition to hooking his audience, Simon’s introduction established the 3-part architecture of his speech.  They audience knew they would hear about Apple Computer, the Wright Brothers, and Martin Luther King Jr. and then they would be done.

Many speakers use the heavy handed approach of ‘telling them what you are going to tell them.’  Had Simon fallen into this trap, he would have said “Today, I am going to tell you about Apple, the Wright Brothers, and Martin Luther King.  First, let’s talk about Apple…”  Boring!  By hiding his plan inside his questions, Simon took a far more graceful approach that other speakers would be wise to learn from.

 

Tip #3: Weave a compelling narrative

Above all else, the aspect that makes Mr. Sinek’s speech so powerful is the way he built his logic-driven narrative.  Mr. Sinek used a ‘chain of whys’ (credit to Andrew Chiu for sharing this insight with me.)  Here is his narrative broken down:

• Introduction: All great leaders and great organizations communicate from the inside out; they start with why, then share how, and finally reveal what.
• Part 1: (Why is it important to communicate that way?) Because people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Therefore, you should strive to do business with people who believe what you believe.
• Part 2: (Why should you do business with those kinds of people?) Because some of the people who believe what you believe will work for you with their blood, sweat, and tears.
• Part 3: (Why do you need those kinds of people working for you?)  Because people who believe what you believe will attract enough like-minded people to get you to the tipping point of the diffusion of innovation that leads to mass market acceptance.
• Conclusion: (What does that matter?)  Because it is not about the leader, it is about the people.  Leaders who start with why have the ability to inspire because the people who follow do so on their own behalf.

Simon fleshed out this logic driven narrative with supporting proof that quite cleverly used negative/positive contrasting pairs.  Speaking expert Craig Valentine refers to this concept as ‘push-pull‘ using a stuck-in-the-mud metaphor (again, credit to Andrew Chiu for pointing this out and for the link). First, you push the audience out of their comfort zone by motivating them with the fear of the consequences that will result from failing to heed your advice.  Then, you pull them to act on your advice by motivating them with the benefits they will realize.  Here is Mr. Sinek’s supporting proof including his push-pull examples:

• Introduction: Series of questions introducing Apple Computer, the Wright Brothers, and Martin Luther King.  (No push-pull here).
• Part 1: The push-pull is ‘anti-Apple’ that starts with what versus Apple that starts with why.  Simon also argues that the inside out communication approach he calls the ‘Golden Circle’ is supported by brain biology and function.
• Part 2: The push-pull is Samuel Pierpont Langley versus the Wright Brothers.
• Part 3: The push-pull is Tivo versus Martin Luther King Jr.
• Conclusion:  The push is that today’s politicians have power and 12-point plans filled with ‘whats’, but they do not inspire.  The pull is his concluding logic – again that leaders who start with why have the ability to inspire because the people who follow do so on their own behalf.

Tip #4: Translate your message into viral catchphrases

Simon is a master at revealing and then repeating viral catchphrases. The best catch phrases are short (typically less then 10 words), action driven, and rhythmic   He uses two in particular: (1) “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” (2) “[sell to, hire, and attract] people who believe what you believe”.  He uses the first phrase seven times and the second phrase, with its various verbs, six times.

It is noteworthy that Simon shares his most powerful catchphrase, the one that has come to define him, “Start With Why” only once and in his very last sentence:

And it is those who start with why that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.

I have to imagine that if Simon had realized the phrase would become so viral, he would have used it six or seven times too.

 

Tip #5: Match your delivery to your message

Throughout his speech, Simon has an earnestness of both verbal and non-verbal delivery that matched his passion for transforming the way that leaders communicate.  His voice, a blend of British and South African accents, is crisp with clear annunciation.  He punctuates his sentences with dramatic pauses for one beat at commas and two beats at periods.  He extends those pauses a bit longer after conveying important points.

Mr. Sinek’s non-verbal delivery also reflected controlled passion for his subject. In particular he often leaned his head slightly sideways – a body language signal that tests for understanding.  Additionally, he leaned his torso forward on numerous occasions, often in concert with pauses, to underscore key points.

Simon’s serious delivery was also reflected in his limited use of humor – he elicited only 3 laughs in 18 minutes and his first laugh did not come until eleven minutes and eighteen seconds into his speech.  Though he delivered an amazing speech, I think it would have been more powerful if he had increased the laugh count to one per minute by riffing during opportune moments.

 

Tip #6: Stay ‘in the zone’ by letting distractions wash over you

Many lesser speakers get distracted by technical hiccups or by external disturbances.  In Simon’s case, he was holding a wireless microphone for a good portion of his speech. All of  sudden, an event organizer walked up to him and handed him a wired microphone.  Through this interruption he held his line of reasoning, never missing a beat.  (Though it does not appear to be the case, it is possible that the video was edited in post-production to make everything seem smooth.)

Besides the technical issues, Simon was facing a significant amount of background noise. In fact, if you listen closely enough, then you will hear a loud airplane passing by just has he starts talking about the Wright Brothers.  He certainly could have gotten a big laugh out of this by calling attention to this elephant in the room, but he made a good call to maintain his tone.  (However, speakers should call attention to very large distractions in order to release audience tension and then move on.)

 

Tip #7: Try drawing as a substitute for using slides

I have a strong opinion that slides are overused in TED Talks.  There are two good times to use slides. The first is when the slides are photographic documentation of people, places, or things that are challenging to visualize or that have more emotional power when shown than when imagined.  The slides in Bunker Roy’s TED Talk are a good example of this.  The second good time to use slides is for the visualization of complex concepts and data – and again, only in circumstances where imagination does not do justice (see Hans Rosling’s TED talk for an example of this).

Simon wisely did not use slides.  Instead, he drew out his ‘why->how->what’ concept that he calls The Golden Circle.  It probably would have been sufficient for him to stop with that, but he also drew out the diffusion of innovation curve (also known as the technology adoption curve).

If I could pick one minor nit, it is that Simon held is pen throughout the duration of his talk.  Like any prop left exposed for too long, the pen can become distracting.  It is a particular issue since audiences subconsciously expect a speaker holding a pen to be about to write or draw something even if the speaker is done with doodling.

 

Final Thoughts

In addition to his core idea, a large part of the power of Simon’s talk is grounded in how he constructed a deductive logic ‘chain of whys.’  For contrast, check out how Rory Sutherland delivered his TED talk using inductive logic groups.