One of the purposes of public speaking is to teach.
Whether a speaker is talking about something new or an old topic, there’s always information that they impart to their listeners.
Sometimes, the practice of teaching is also for the benefit of speakers—whether for training them to be more confident speaking in front of an audience or learning how to adjust to an audience’s response.
… but did you know that Scott Berkun, the author of the book, “Confessions of a Public Speaker,” is skeptical about teaching even though he does it for a living?
Ironic, right?
How is that even possible?
For today’s article, we’ll dive deeper into that…
How to Make Teaching in Public Speaking Effective
According to Berkun, all successful teachers—or in this case, public speakers—must consider these four important questions whenever they speak to an audience:
- How many understand?
- How many will remember later?
- How many try to apply the lesson in the real world?
- How many will succeed?
He states if you set about trying to teach, whether through lectures, classes, or even writing, you will be doing one of the most difficult and frustrating things you can do with other people.
Why?
It’s because for Berkun, the odds of learning in any situation are slim.
Think about this: In any learning situation where there’s one person “teaching” and many people “learning” or “listening,” only a tiny percentage of people are truly paying attention.
That’s why for him, the most effective teaching-learning scenarios happen in a one-one-one setup.
In fact, when it comes to teaching and learning, small numbers win… and the success of this method is proven throughout history! Many so-called prodigies were mentored and tutored by a parent or family friend—Einstein, Picasso, Mozart, etc.
Sure, all these people had amazing, inherent talents, but they were still intentionally taught by people who were truly invested in their learning.
After all, teaching is the intimacy of the mind, and you simply can’t achieve that if you work in large numbers.
As Berkun states:
“You can inform a group of 5,000. You can entertain them. You can offer them new ways to think or ideas to consider, but you can’t teach them skills or give them a personalized experience.”
Here’s the thing: Public speaking is usually done in front of a large group of people. So, does this mean you should just quit being a public speaker and simply focus on mentoring one to three people for you to experience what Berkun is saying?
Not really.
The good news is that you can still experience the pros even as you continue a public speaking career!
How?
There are three tips Berkun highlighted in his book:
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Make your talk active and interesting.
According to Berkun, the best research on learning suggests that the necessary shift is to switch from a teacher-centric to an environment-centric model.
Think about public speaking in a classroom setting…
Most teachers focus on their lesson plans: What to include in their lectures, what textbooks or software to use, or where in the room they should stand.
Here, the teacher is the center of the universe.
By contrast, the best teachers focus on their students’ needs. They strive to create an environment where all the pieces students need—emotional confidence, physical comfort, and intellectual curiosity—are present at the same time.
Here, the teacher understands that a sense of self has to get out of the way; instead of being the star, he or she is the facilitator who helps students gain experience.
The teacher can achieve this through exercises, games, and challenges where he or she plays a supporting rather than a primary role.
Always remember: Good teachers or storytellers are masters at engaging or captivating their audience. If you can find great, relevant stories to tell or show in short movies, you can get people’s brains firing actively, even if they’re still just seated in the audience.
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Start with an insight that interests the audience.
Focusing on facts and knowledge makes it easy for a speaker to stay in control and at the center of the experience.
… but in reality, the ability to do something only has a limited relationship to the quantity of knowledge you have.
Just because you know all these things, that doesn’t mean it has any value to your audience or to the skill your audience is there to learn.
That’s why for Berkun, finding and simplifying insights requires humility—something rarely attributed to experts and public speakers.
You have to keep your hard-earned knowledge in mind, but simultaneously remember how it felt to be a complete novice. It’s rare to achieve this balance, but it’s what makes a speaker great.
After all, teaching ought to be a compassionate act. It should transform the confusing into the clear, the bad into the good.
When done well, insights aren’t just experienced by speakers but also by the audience. In that case, everybody wins!
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Adapt to how the audience responds.
Berkun states most of the time, people fall asleep in lectures or stare off into space, but speakers keep talking. They can get away with it because in such a scenario, lectures are a passive experience for the audience.
However, if you make the learning process active for your audience, they will respond to you in some way… and that’s when your real work begins.
If the supposedly brilliant insight you offered bores them or they don’t understand the exercise you planned, what then?
The challenge of teaching becomes observing your students, knowing how to respond, and making adjustments to suit their needs.
Take note of these tips for more effective public speaking engagements in the future!
If you follow this advice, you’ll learn it’s impossible to teach well without learning something along the way.
After all, good teachers listen as much as they talk. They improve their material based on what they hear and see if it had the positive effects they hoped.
The more you do this, the more you learn how to connect with your audience better… and the more you connect with your audience, the better you’ll also become in your craft.
See you again next week for more public speaking insights, tips, and tricks!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Thursdays: Speak on the Shoulders of Giants”
In a meeting with one person…
… a boardroom with five people…
… or a huge venue with hundreds of people…
—whatever the situation or setting, it’s very important to learn and eventually master the art of public speaking.
No matter what, you always need to effectively get your message across.
What good is a presentation with awesome content if you don’t deliver it properly?
Every Thursday, we publish different tips, insights, and secrets on how you can improve your presentation skills to captivate your audience and lead interesting discussions.
The need for great presentation skills applies EVERYWHERE.
(Small meetings with your team, big meetings with your boss, an important marketing pitch, speaking engagements for events with a big audience, etc.)
Learning these skills is not just for the corporate world. Being in other industries such as the Arts, Information Technology, Medicine, and Education while knowing how to communicate and present well will definitely give you an edge.
Have that advantage.
Hope you find this week’s public speaking tip interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Thursday’s “Speak on the Shoulders of Giants!”
Cheers,
Henry Desai
Managing Director
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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