Chopped salad, fruit salad, potato salad. How many random foods have you encountered at a family picnic that have been carefully cleaned, sliced and combined into a mystery dish that forces you to ask- “What’s in this?” Of course, many of us are familiar with these types of culinary adventures, and it makes for a fitting illustration for presenters giving speeches on topics that are sometimes haphazardly combined.
We’ve all heard those kinds of speakers: the enthusiastic expert who, although very qualified and experienced, can leave you asking 5 to 10 minutes into their presentation- “What’s your point?” Although you may be an expert on your subject, and perhaps very gregarious and outgoing, these traits can sometimes have a detrimental effect on your speech quality.
Like wisely avoiding warm potato salad, a confused audience will often tune out a rambling talk. In order to maintain the audience’s attention and to avoid serving a verbose and confusing word salad, it’s imperative to properly develop your speech in advance.
This requires developing your material logically. This means that you arrange your thoughts in a way that makes it clear how your individual ideas relate to each other in the overall theme of your presentation. These ideas should all point to the same objective and avoid digressing into meaningless details or stories.
This article is going to outline a methodical approach you can take to organize your speech in a logical manner that will maintain the attention of the audience, and clearly and accurately help you present your material.
Start With Your Recipe- a Clear Objective
The first thing you want to do is start by setting a clear objective. What exactly are you trying to accomplish with your presentation or speech?
Perhaps you’re asked to spend 15 to 30 minutes talking about financial trends or experiences in your industry. If your initial assignment is somewhat vague, you may be tempted to rely on your considerable experience or natural skills to go up there and “wing it.” This is a recipe for an unwelcome word salad.
So begin by being as clear as possible when setting your objective. Think about what you really want to accomplish. What do you want your audience to learn, what do you want them to take away that will benefit them? Only when you have a clear objective in mind can you move on to the next step, which is gathering your research material. With a clear objective, you know exactly what materials will help you to reach that goal.
Going Shopping- Research with a Purpose
Have you ever gone shopping for ingredients and forgot your recipe? I know that when I’ve done that I spend twice the amount of time in the store. In the same way, setting your clear objective can make the research portion of your preparation much more efficient and purposeful.
For example, instead of discussing unrelated trends in your industry, perhaps your objective is to explain how just one of these trends could affect sales in that industry. Now, your research is more targeted in terms of specific sales history, production costs, marketing spends, etc.
Chop, Chop, Chop
If you’re a professional in your field, you no doubt have cupboards full of ingredients that you can whip up into a spicy word salad. And when doing research, don’t be afraid to gather as much pertinent information as you can. But remember your recipe- do not become overly attached to any of the research. Not all of the information you find, as amazing as it is, will help you reach your stated objective.
Once you’ve set your objective and you’ve found the best materials that will properly support it, chop everything else. Get rid of redundant or weaker material. Focus on the freshest and tastiest ingredients. Now you can now start focusing on creating an outline that will best help you achieve that objective.
Preparing the Dish- Your Outline
Organize your material in an outline format that best suits your objective. We’re going to discuss a few useful formats.
- Topical format. A topical format is one where each section of your outline is a topic that contributes to your objective. These topics are usually main points that argue, prove or disprove your objective. While this may feel like the way you would normally go about presenting a topic, your intention of letting your objective edit each topic should fine-tune your choices.
Ask yourself: Does this section really support my objective, or is it just a story or example that I really like?
- Problem and solution format. Problem and solution formats provide opportunities to relate to your audience by presenting a well-known problem in your field that needs to be solved. Logically detailing the steps that creates the problem could lend itself to audience attention, as well as building anticipation for your solution. You may also reference a past solution for a previous problem to highlight a problem-solving methodology. In any case, outlining the details of a problem often unfolds logically, helping your audience follow along with your subject, and ultimately understand your objective, providing the solution.
Ask yourself: Are these the typical steps someone takes to tackle this problem? What's missing? What's redundant?
- Cause and Effect. This format outlines a situation that directly leads to a logical outcome. Depending on your subject, this format can also work backwards, where a discussion begins with an effect and analyzes the causes that lead to it. Using a cause and effect format can make explaining detailed outcomes easier, as each step should logically build to the next.
Ask Yourself: Is this really a cause, or is there something even more foundational that I need to address?
- Chronological order. Chronological order is often built right into a topic that has historic significance, or took a significant amount of time and development. Providing information in this format can be very helpful to give your audience background and context that they might not be aware of. It can also aid in captivating storytelling. When telling chronological formats, starting at a dramatic point of the history can be a great way to launch the events that led to it.
Ask Yourself: Is this particular landmark in the history needed to hit the objective of my presentation? Is it too much information to accomplish my goal?
- Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. This is a Favorite of mine. This format is one of the more complete outlining exercises that we practice in the Speaking Guild. It is generally used to persuade and includes five steps: Attention, Need, Satisfaction, Visualization, and Action.
This method is named after Alan Monroe, a Purdue University professor during the 1930s, and it’s widely used in politics, advertising, and other fields where persuasive speaking is a focus.
You will likely notice that any of the above formats can be integrated into this outline:
- Attention: The speaker first ensures they have the full attention of their audience using a startling fact, personal story, hypothetical scenario, or other means that they think is best suited to the cause and audience.
- Need: The speaker presents a problem that needs solving and provides sufficient evidence to convince their audience that indeed, a problem exists and requires a solution. The aim is to get the audience to feel a sense of necessity.
- Satisfaction: This step involves presenting a solution to the problem outlined earlier. The proposed solution needs to be feasible and effective. It’s vital for the speaker to provide a detailed explanation of how their solution works and why it’s preferable.
- Visualization: The speaker helps the audience visualize how implementing the solution will improve the situation. The speaker might describe a positive future where their solution has been implemented or a negative one where their solution was ignored.
- Action: The final step involves the speaker calling for their audience to act. It’s a clear statement of what the audience should do or believe – your objective.
Season for Taste
After choosing and completing an outline, you want to analyze it for gaps that could derail a person’s understanding of the development of the objective. Practice out loud and ask yourself: When moving from topic to topic, are these clearly supporting my objective or potentially raising more questions? Do the topics connect logically, or am I expecting my audience to have some missing information? Is it reasonable to expect them to have that information?
For example, if your objective is to highlight the importance of good food safety practices at picnics, you may not need to explain to an audience of Americans why you don’t want potato salad to get too warm. But if your audience is from a country that doesn’t traditionally serve potato salad in the summer months, you may decide to add that information to clarify your point, or use another example altogether.
Ultimately, a well-crafted presentation should be like a well-prepared dish. It should arouse interest, have high-quality ingredients, and be satisfying. What is the most important ingredient? You guessed it – your objective.
Perhaps you will notice that I use that word 24 times in this article. It really is the most important ingredient. By carefully prioritizing your objective, and then aligning your materials and outline with it, your speech can be more like a Michelin star dinner and less like Aunt Edna’s mystery salad.
