Download Public Speaking PowerPoint - Physicians for Social Responsibility

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[Use this joke to open if you like to tell jokes]
According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two
is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means that to the average
person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. Jerry Seinfeld
My goal is to help you walk out of here with the motivation to speak publicly and to
have a roadmap for crafting and delivering an effective, inspiring speech.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xyWLAgMN1Q (show the first minute)
If you can’t pull up the speech, then skip this slide and use the next one to outline
what the talk is about.
This is Severn Suzuki speaking at the Rio conference on Environment in 1992.
What is she conveying to you?
We want you to feel comfortable speaking passionately about issues you care about
and being effective to moving others to action!
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First I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you because its very important we
address climate change, then I’m going to tell you that it is important to address
climate change then I’m going to tell you that I told you that it’s important to address
climate change! That’s the synopsis of this talk! (Are you paying attention?) [Be
dramatic—use lots of body language to make it funny]
That’s the short version—but seriously we will go over techniques and speaking tips
to make you a better, more persuasive speaker, and provide an outline to better
convey your message. You’ll also have a chance to practice and look at samples to
critique.
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Unless you have to relay information to those who can’t read it, the major purpose of
speaking for advocacy is to move people to take action. This doesn’t mean that you
must make them ready to demonstrate before the president of the university, but it
might mean they support your group or buy a coffee mug.
The simpler the objective the easier the speech is to prepare and deliver.
Secondly, your speech will be infinitely better if you utilize emotion or create a mood.
You might wish to make people feel exhilarated or full of determination. I remember
that my surgery rotation preceptor stirred fear in our heart if you left the hospital too
early and didn’t get all your work done at the orientation. Think of a speech like a
song. You don’t sing to transmit data, but to create a mood.
You could ask people to buy a coffee mug to keep from throwing away many cups for
conservation. Or you could show them a beautiful forest and tell them that they are
saving a forest by not buying a new throwaway cup of coffee each morning. Better
yet, you can make them want to compete with the exceptional medical school across
town as they have done away with throw away coffee cups.
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At the beginning of my speech I used the joke from Jerry Seinfeld. There are many
great attention getting devices to open a speech or talk!
Hypothetical example—Well what if I told you that the change in global temp,
or what has been referred to as global warming, has resulted in a 1.4°F
average temp increase over the past 100 years. Doesn’t seem like much to
produce the kind of large scale effects we are seeing… Well, scientists are
predicting a 4-11°F temp shift over this century if we do nothing to curtail our
carbon pollution! Multiply our current effects by a factor or 5 or 6- seems a
little more imperative that we focus on greener, more energy efficient
solutions.
Startling statement—hello my name is xxx and I ran a marathon to get here. -not really but I’m really delighted to be here!
Unusual statistic—Did you know that if we do nothing to address climate
change the average summertime temperature globally will go up by 11-15
deg?
Rhetorical question—What will you do if it’s 100 degrees for weeks of the
summer in 2100 in Philadelphia?
Well-worded analogy or famous quote: “In a sense the U.S. is climate
illiterate. If you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate
change even in Brazil or China you have more people who know about the
problem and think deep cuts in emission are needed.” —Dr. Hans Joachim
Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Change, Telegraph, Sep. 28, 2009
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To write or organize a speech, you first need to do your homework and research your
topic so you can determine what the three most important ideas are! This is the hard
part but it is very important to decide what you want to convey and condense it to
three main ideas.
Often, writing your conclusion first is a great idea. I mean, what do you really want
people to leave with?
Once you write your conclusion use it at your introduction! And write a more snappy
finish at the end.
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You can organize your talk in a variety of ways, here is one using the idea of telling
several stories.
The first story or example is one about how the topic affects you and then back it up
with data.
“I don’t know about you but I wilt in the summer heat. I move slower, can’t exercise
and once had a heat stroke playing tennis” Then back it up with facts about
temperature rise, increased frequency of heat waves and its impact.
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Example 2—Use an example of how it affects by again using the story of someone
who represents a large group.
The corridors of the hospitals in Paris France were overflowing with ill people during
the European heat wave of 2003. This heat wave killed 70,000 people based on
epidemiologic data. This was in first world countries with state of the art hospitals
and care centers. People died not only due to heat stroke but due to increased rates
of heart attacks, strokes and exacerbation of chronic disease.
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Provide the solution.
In the U.S. the leading contributor of climate change is electricity production, so the
lowest cost energy solution is the one which reduces electricity consumption. So I
want you to take action by calling your Senator today to support the Shaheen
Portman energy efficiency bill.
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Then you review it all again—repetition is the key to memory!
Yourconclusion—such as
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Often as a speaker you feel like the audience is hypercritical watching out for your
every miscue to guffaw at your embarrassment, when really the audience, especially
one full of strangers, will tend to assume that you are the expert. After all, someone
arranged for you to be there to speak to them that day, so you have probably done
this many times before. And even if you haven’t, there is no way for them to know
that.
So with that vote of confidence, start the confidence cycle- you probably look less
nervous than you feel, and the more you remember that, the more it reinforces you
to look less nervous. When all else fails, return your focus to the message, as that
(not you personally) is probably why most of the people came to hear you speak in
the first place.
Passion – care about what your talking about, presence – be there in the moment,
power – convey authority.
In the moment, you may wish to do some relaxation techniques before the speech,
like deep breathing, progressive body relaxation.
Another good technique is to visualize yourself giving a great speech.
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Know your material – the more familiar you are with your material and comfortable
you are the less likely you are to be nervous. It will also help prevent you from
reading from a script.
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Knowing your material is reinforced the more you practice, as you will become used
to the inflections and anecdotes used and know when to pause, look up, etc…). Know
how long you will really talk. Do it in front of the mirror! Yes—it helps.
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It helps to know the location. Will it be a classroom or an auditorium? Do you have a
projector? A Podium? Go early and scope it out!
Knowing the audience is essential to provide the right examples and gearing the
language to them. What kind of age group—you don’t want to use examples of
energy efficient washing machines for a high school group. What is their
background? Are they blue collar union people students, the administration or
students?
How much do they already know about the topic? What will they find the most
interesting?
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I think it’s important especially on issues that are more controversial to think of the
reasons that make people willing to advocate for change. We use ideas of frames for
talking about climate, these concepts are major motivators and shows that you share
their values.
When you speak to older individuals or to a progressive audience, you may wish to
relate the impacts of climate change to future generations (what kind of
responsibility do we have to turn over an inhabitable world to our children and our
children’s children).
For young people the value may be a sense of justice.
For religious audiences—appealing to the social value that they should be good
stewards of the earth and that our burning of fossil fuels is harming the environment
such as the acidification of the oceans causing loss of coral.
If you have a conservative audience, you may want to cite the military’s actions to
address climate change because they have a respect for authority. I’ve included a
website reference for this regarding climate change.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Markowitz_Climate%20Change%20
and%20Moral%20Judgement.pdf
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Work in groups of 4
Activity slide – students must identify different frames for argument to appeal to
different folks they may speak to.
Give one or two sentences for 2 or 3 different frames to encourage someone to help
your group take action to close a coal-burning power plant.
HEALTH FRAME (clean air and water are essential to living a healthy life),
GENERATIONAL FRAME (clean air and water for the next generation – your kid could
come down with asthma).
ENVIRONMENTAL FRAME : loss of sea ice and polar bear habitat.
ECONOMIC FRAME, cheaper now than later - we need to take action now because
the long term consequences will cost us A LOT more.
NATIONALISTIC FRAME- Americans solve tough problems, should be leaders on
climate change, the military is doing it. Its our RESPONSIBILITY. METAPHORIC FRAME
– use to explain science (blanket around earth example…)
COMPETITVE FRAME—use an example of developing a competition out of the issue
or the solution.
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Don’t apologize for your passion and message- luckily we live in a country where you
have the freedom to speak and support a diversity of ideas, so don’t be ashamed to
be an advocate for something you believe in.
Concentrate on the message- make sure that if people only remember one thing from
your talk, that it is the primary thesis. Repetition is crucial.
It’s important too to gain experience. You may not wish to give your speech first to
your entire medical school class, try it out on your lab first.
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Establish a common ground: If you are talking to students about Climate Change, you
may say something like “Can you believe how hot it’s been this summer?! These
record temperatures sure are killing my motivation to study.”
Watch for non-verbal clues—are people yawning? Do they look puzzled? Are they
nodding?
Use questions and ask for answers– studies have shown that people are much more
likely to pay attention if they are actively listening- getting an audience member’s
name and calling on them as an example or to answer a question, can have this
desired effect.
This can also be done by referencing a recent event in the news (i.e.- Was anyone
affected by the Derecho last year? (Raise your own hand to encourage them to do the
same)- prior to 2012 I didn’t even know that term existed, at least in the English
language).
And don’t forget to mention PSR and steer people back to the group you are
advocating for- it helps to lend credibility and makes people feel like they are part of
a larger movement.
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Using gestures and moving during a speech is very helpful in maintaining the
audiences attention, underscoring important information and helping to develop your
emotional content.
With a very small group you don’t need to overtly increase your delivery, but with
more than 5 people, there is less connection to you personally hence more
techniques to stay connected are needed. In a large group over 15-20 using more
movement and gestures is essential to maintain audience connection.
Often using a palm up or down gesture helps convey a positive or negative action.
Numbering items is also useful to help reiterate important messages.
How long should eye contact be held? It should be 5-7 seconds or for the completion
of a thought. (That sentence only took 3 seconds) so you get my idea that this
duration of eye contact takes practice.
Movement is useful to get the audience to follow you. Sometimes you can’t if you are
stuck with a podium microphone. For example, standing on the right side of the room
to deliver your key message or reiterate it, helps the audience remember, oh he’s
saying something important now.
Using facial expressions and larger gestures—within the box of the body and above
the waist is very useful to convey meaning and emotion. [show examples] your vocal
delivery too will help. By leaning forward and dropping your voice will make folks
lean in and try and catch what you’re saying for example.
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Activity– show this example of a speech and have students pick out use of these
techniques and whether she related to you?
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Now we’d like you to prepare an elevator speech. This is very useful to do to help
explain your organization, issue or event to others—so you may want to create one
when you get home.
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Students will pair up and each give a two minute impromptu speech on one of the
given topics to their partner followed by feedback. Should take no more than 10
minutes.
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Summary slide: Unless you have to relay information to those who can’t read it, the
major purpose of speaking for advocacy is to move people to take action. Providing
emotional content, using a good frame and stories will help create the context to help
bring others to take action with you.
I know that you are all leaders in your medical school, so I hope we’ve provided some
inspiration and concrete ideas on making public speaking easier and more fun!
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One final word from the great environmentalist Ronald Reagan: Preservation of our
environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it’s common sense.
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