Hello again, readers! Welcome to week seven of Leadership Communications on the Educated Leadership blog.
We were asked to view a Ted™ Talk by Nancy Duarte (2011) about the structure of great speeches this week. This was not the first time I have viewed this particular lecture by Ms. Duarte. I had watched it last year while preparing to give a speech to the team I lead. I found the information presented to be very useful and fairly easy to apply.
Ms. Duarte presents a number of fundamental frameworks to assist speakers in relating ideas to an audience. One of her first points is that the speaker needs to act as a mentor to the audience. The audience is who needs to pick up on the idea and make it their own in order for the idea to grow and spread. The speaker helps them see and take ownership of the topic (4:52).
The next major point in the talk is in regard to diagramming how great speeches are framed or structured. Ms. Duarte labored for at least two years on the idea of great presentations before comparing them to a particular shape. The fundamental shape she developed looks much like a rudimentary snake drawn on an etch-a-sketch™.
Duarte (2011)
The structure, it turns out, can be overlaid on most speeches that have been noted as famous or historic in their nature. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”, and Steve Jobs’ 2007 I-phone Launch speech all fit this pattern. The lower horizontal lines represent parts of the speech that refer to the past or the current state of things. The upper horizontal lines represent the parts of the speech that propose a future state that is (hopefully) better than the status quo or the past. Maybe it’s what the company looks like with everyone pulling together, or what the country looks like with lower cost health care, or what the world looks like without racism.
The vertical lines illustrate the gap between what “is” and what “could be”. To really drive the excellence of the idea, the height of those lines should be as much as possible. The contrast should clearly illustrate why the change is needed. As Ms. Duarte stated, “You want to make the status quo unappealing” (2011, 7:42). The final horizontal line indicates the need to leave the audience with the final picture of what their future could look like, allowing them to let their imagination build upon that idea.
I have applied this technique to a presentation with good results. I had an opportunity to give a speech that would hopefully unite a group of relative strangers and focus them on the goal of making our group the epitome of a professional team of flight instructors. Upon review, I know I could have done a better job. However, given the fact that it was my first attempt at writing a speech in this style and my first attempt to write a stirring and uniting speech, I am pleased with the results. I received a loud round of applause at the end of the speech and had a number of employees ask me for a copy of the speech to take home.
I followed the diagram and reviewed the past and then moved to a future I envisioned, went back to historical stress points we had faced together and talked about the future we could create a number of times. I tied our history to the life-cycle of high-performance teams (Tuckman, 1965) to impress upon the group that they clearly fit the mold of that type of team.
I used two quotes in my speech that really helped, I believe. One was the orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander’s TedTalk™ on the transformative power of classical music (2008). He stated that every leader must believe that their followers have the capability to forge the future the leader sees. I wanted my team to know that I had that belief in their capabilities. I closed with Ms. Duarte’s closing line in the TedTalk™ we reviewed above, “The future isn’t a place we’re going to go, the future is a place that you are going to create” (2011, 18:00).
My supervisor and other senior managers have made it clear to me that I will be given future opportunities to lead larger groups. I find myself examining the opportunities and groups I could end up leading and mentally crafting speeches I would give those teams. Reviewing Ms. Duarte’s talk again was an excellent refresher. In fact, I picked up on other pieces of her talk, this time, I missed before. Specifically,
the had forgotten the point of Jobs conditioning his audience on how they
should feel about what he is saying. Genius.
I recommend any leader who desires to communicate better to review Ms. Duarte’s talk. I also recommend you take the time to write a speech in the form she has uncovered. Even if you do not get to utilize it, the practice will help other opportunities to communicate a better future more apparent.
Duarte, N. (2011). You Have the Power to Change the World - Nancy Duarte talks at TED, YouTube.
Tuckman, B. W. (1965). "Developmental sequence in small groups." Psychological Bulletin 63(6): 16.
Zander, B. (2008). The Transformative Power of Classical Music. TED Talks, YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment