Masterclass: how to speak well and move people (try the exercise at the end)
I'm always looking for great examples of public speaking that I can share with clients, and readers of this newsletter, of course.
I recently came across this short but remarkably powerful speech from the naturalist, campaigner and tv presenter Chris Packham, on why Alan Turing should be voted the Greatest Person of the 20th Century, in a BBC poll from 2019.
Now, ok - Chris Packham is a professional communicator with decades of experience of speaking on and off camera. The bar is high.
But I'm especially fascinated by the speech as an example of all the things I encourage speakers to do, when I talk about 'doing the listeners' work'.
Vocal emphasis and vocal variety
Chris uses different pitches of his voice when he constrasts different points. He starts quite low:
“‘For me, science is the art of understanding truth and beauty.’”
But then when he contrasts his view with Alan Turing's, he raises his pitch:
“‘BUT FOR TURING, MATHEMATICS ALONE encapsulated the search for…’”
He does it again, in the next sentence, when he lists three different things Turing did in relation to computers. He finds three DIFFERENT pitches, one for each thing:
'he DEFINED the computer' (high pitch)
'he DESIGNED a computer (lower pitch)
'… he BUILT a computer' (lowest pitch)
This is masterclass in using vocal emphasis to support meaning. This thing is different from THAT thing; so the speaker makes 'this thing' sound different from 'THAT thing'.
Sure, the listener's intellect, their brain, can understand that those things are different from each other. Their senses - their ears - are helping their brain to make sense of this information.
You the speaker are helping them to make sense of it, with the way you use your body, your voice. Not just your carefully chosen words.
Pausing and pace
When we pause, it's in order to support meaning - to do the listeners' work.
We pause in order to give the listener time to really grasp the idea or information we've just shared with them.
When Chris delivers the emotional heart of his speech - Alan Turing's sad death from suicide - he puts in plenty of pauses to allow us to really consider what he's saying. I'll mark each pause with a /:
A genius / a saviour / but he was also autistic and gay./ So we betrayed him / and drove him / to suicide./ Shame / writ large. / His death / an unforgiving tattoo / on humanity's conscience./
These are weighty matters, that deserve to be heard. The pauses give us time to take in each of these thoughts.
Pausing 'for dramatic effect'?
Then Chris leaves a long pause. 'For dramatic effect'?
I don't think so. Because when he does continue speaking, it's on a very different topic:
“‘But what of his legacy?’”
He give us plenty of time to consider Turing's ignoble death. And then he moves on.
The length of the pause helps us to understand that he has no more to say on that topic, and we're on to the next point.
Pausing 'for dramatic effect' is showmanship. It's manipulative.
It's like when the awards-ceremony envelope is opened: 'and the winner is…'
The award presenter is making us wait, as a way of building tension. We know what 'winner' means! And they know who the winner is. (Well, almost always: remember this looong pause from 2017?)
I mean, go ahead and pause for effect, if it feel right! Nothing inherently wrong with a bit of 'theatre' now and then.
But It's really important not to think of pausing as something we do to manipulate the listener. We are actually helping her, by making her work less hard.
These are the sort of simple but incredibly effective speaking behaviours we look at in detail, and practise regularly, in my sessions.
SPOILER ALERT: if you work with me, you will not end up sounding like Chris Packham.
Or anyone but yourself.
You won’t even end up sounding like you’ve had loads of voice coaching.
All great speakers are doing things that you already do - when you're having a good day.
Maybe they do them more consistently, or will more impact, than you do. So we really just have to draw your attention to what you're doing and not doing, and practise one or two of the things you don't often do.
Do watch the whole thing - it's only two and a half minutes, but I bet it'll linger in your memory for some time to come. (Actually, the fact that it's short is what will HELP it linger. When I work with people on this, they often find they can get away with saying much less, when what they do say comes across with more impact.)
Book a taster session - it's an hour long, and it's completely free - and we'll try out some of these things and see what you need to work on.
PS. If you're a past client - hello again! - between now and Christmas I have a special offer. Refer a friend to me, and if they book a course, I'll give them a 20% discount. And to show my appreciation I'll give YOU a 20% discount on any packages of five or ten sessions, or single sessions, that you'd like to have with me to refresh the work we've done before. Send your friend a link to my .contact me' page. Thanks!
EXERCISE: Putting emphasis and pausing together
Try this little exercise:
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First, get out your phone and find the Voice Recorder app. Start recording. Put the phone down and don't look at it.
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Imagine I'm sitting there in front of you and you're giving me directions from your home to the nearest supermarket.
DO IT OUT LOUD. No-one is listening but me. But remember: I've never been to your house. I don't know my way around. I need really clear instructions or I'll get lost.
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Now imagine that route is not an option; the road is closed, that supermarket has closed, whatever - I need a plan B. Give me directions a DIFFERENT supermarket. OUT LOUD - not in your head!
When you're finished, stop recording. -
Play back the recording. What do you notice about the pitch and quality of your voice in the first set of directions, compared to the ALTERNATIVE directions? Could you have paused more frequently?
Could you have made your alternative directions sound more different, and therefore easier for me to avoid getting confused?
Try again and see if you can use different parts of your voice, different pitches, to make the alternative directions stand out from the standard route.