The 3 Ps in Speechmaking - Pace, Poise and Polish.
If someone were to ask you how many Ps there are in speechmaking, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is only one. Strictly speaking, of course, you’d be right. But if you intend to make a speech, you had better remember that there are, in fact, three Ps in speechmaking - Pace, Poise and Polish.
And if you can incorporate these three Ps into your speechmaking, you will be certain of making a good impression on just about any audience you may come across.
Pace. This P can make or break your speech - it’s that important. Get this wrong and you will either bore your audience to tears OR they will be nudging their close neighbour to ask whether he could understand a garbled word you say.
Have you ever listened to a speaker who had been taught that speaking slowly allowed the audience to understand what you were saying better? If you have, you’ll know that there is a world of difference between easily understandable and excruciatingly slow! Even the most interesting topic will be made boring by a slow drawl and your audience will be itching to scream “speed it up, won’t you? I have to be in work tomorrow morning!”
Delivering your speech too slowly is guaranteed to make even the most polite audience lose their patience with you.
Too fast a delivery, on the other hand, will simply mean that a large portion of your audience will miss what you have to say and others will find making sense of your ideas extremely hard work. Your job, when speaking to an audience, is to take the hard work out of listening to you speak and allow the audience the luxury of simply relaxing and letting your words seep effortlessly into their consciousness.
Speak slowly enough for your audience to absorb what you are saying yet fast enough to prevent your delivery from becoming tedious. Learn to vary your pace throughout your presentation so that your delivery remains interesting to those listening to it.
Poise. Most speakers only focus on the subject matter of their speeches and work long and hard on the actual construction of their speech. Hours are spent collecting information, arranging it into the correct sequence, choosing the most appropriate opening and closing words and making sure that the rhythm and flow of their delivery is just right.
And of course, all that effort is certainly required to produce an excellent speech. But that’s not the end of it. How you present yourself is just as important as how you present your words.
Run through this checklist immediately before you step out in front of your audience:
1. Is your clothing presentable, clean, appropriate and arranged correctly? 2. Is your hair neatly combed? 3. Does your body language convey the right impression?
Always bear in mind that your audience will start forming their opinion of you from the first moment that they see you and long before you have a chance to woo them with your words. Your poise - that is, the visual impression given to the audience - will influence their first impression of you and that is something that you must pay great attention to .
Make sure that your impression is a positive one.
Polish. This is what will make a good speech great! It is also the element that will be of the most help in ridding yourself of any pre-speech nervousness. Proper preparation is the key to most things in life and when speaking in public thorough preparation is nothing less than vital.
Rehearse your speech in front of a mirror, or better still, in front of your friends and family. Become very familiar with the content of your speech, the most effective style of delivery, the incorporation of suitable gestures - anything that you feel needs to be practised until it becomes second nature.
Closely scrutinise your stage outfit and pay detailed attention to your posture. How you stand will certainly display any outward signs of tension you may be feeling so don’t lean, don’t hunch, don’t slouch and don’t allow yourself lose concentration. Polish your performance until it gleams! In spite of all these efforts, you must strive to appear relaxed, confident and in control at all times - even if you don’t feel it.
Pace, Poise and Polish - if you can remember these three Ps in ’speechmaking’ you can guarantee that your speech will be delivered in such a manner that any audience will be entertained, enraptured and enthralled by your performance.
