Speech authenticity - Are you the real deal or plastic fantastic?
‘Plastic fantastic’ is the descriptor I mentally give to a person whose speech comes across as contrived or artificial. Why? How? Sign up to Speaking Out Loud and you’ll receive similar every month. Are they leaning forward in their sets eager for more? A good speaker includes the audience, inviting their participation and collaboration. Want to read more like it? Are they looking at their watches? Like this article? Be prepared to add to, extend, edit or even eliminate sections of your speech to fit your audience’s needs. Speak sincerely and honestly. Authenticity is achieved by:
open responsiveness - eye contact and gestures that arise organically and spontaneously from either your speech or audience reaction
connected observation - being aware of what your audience is expressing. The delivery and each gesture has been choreographed irrespective of who is listening. Experience hones observation and helps develop an array
of flexible, nimble skills to genuinely meet an audience ‘in the moment’. genuine passion - an audience is not a collection of fools to be fobbed off with feigned or pretend feeling for a topic. Others seemed plastic; disconnected and removed. The problem is the speech has been over-rehearsed. When you’re watching and listening you sense that regardless of whether you were there or not, the speech would be the same. Some of those speakers were outstanding. I’ve listened to many speeches over the years. You can almost hear the speaker saying to themselves, ‘This is where I step to the left, raise my hand, smile and stress the word XXX’. It’s a performance leaving no room for response to the audience. Becoming the real deal takes courage and experience. Watch for cues to pick up the pace, slow it down or ask a question. If you have any speech tips you would like to share please submit them through our
Tips and Speeches page. They spoke from the heart and fully engaged the audience. I knew they were the real deal - authentic. A presentation like that is closed and when an audience is shut out they can feel a whole mix of things: neglected, ignored, hijacked, bored, impatient or even insulted. Courage comes in the form allowing room for spontaneity, resisting the urge to slavishly stick to a rehearsed script. Are they fidgety? They will then be published on our site.
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