Public speaking

Nowadays, public speaking or presentation has become a prerequisite for the success of modern managers. This skill is an important part of leadership capacity.

A survey in the US with human resources directors of companies shows that speaking/presentation skills are the most important skills that graduates must have to be hired. Therefore, in American universities there are many subjects to improve these skills such as public speaking, interpersonal communication, and persuasion techniques. . These subjects are usually for students at the general stage. Besides, in other subjects, professors always encourage and require students to present assignments or projects to the class. These are good opportunities to perfect communication skills. Students in the US and other countries are therefore very confident and have good presentation skills.

In Vietnam, very little attention is paid to this skill in the curriculum. Therefore, a large part of our staff is very weak in this skill. Attending our meetings and conferences (especially state agencies) will see long speeches and speakers only "reading" and not "speaking". A few years ago, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji of China made the provincial leaders extremely confused when at the beginning of a meeting he asked the leaders who were going to report to speak and not read. As a result, most are confused and cannot meet the requirements. At this point, it can be seen that speaking is not simple even for experienced leaders. So what needs to be done to perfect this important skill?

Prepare for a talk or presentation

Communication goals.

To communicate effectively, we must clearly understand the goals we want to achieve through talking or presenting. Usually there are 3 main goals. The first is to convey information, which often appears in forms such as reports, instructions or lectures. For this goal, the speaker must focus on presenting, explaining, defining and clarifying concepts, and using examples to illustrate. The second goal is persuasion, often expressed in forms such as sales presentations, debates, candidacies or negotiations. In this goal, the speaker must highlight the strengths, advantages, and values (material and emotional) of his or her logic or arguments to attract and persuade the audience. The third goal is to inspire (creativity), encourage and motivate, often appearing in professional speeches (principal talks with teachers, senior artists talk with juniors, company leaders with employees), or social events (military enlistment, blood donation). With this goal, the speaker often emphasizes spiritual, social, and moral impacts, as well as emotions and personal experiences to arouse the empathy and sublimation of the listener. A talk usually pursues one or several goals, only the weight given to each goal differs.

Audience analysis.

Just like selling a product, to sell our words we must understand who our customers or listeners are, what they want to hear, what information and messages they want to receive from us. Usually we need to collect general information: gender, age, education level, knowledge, occupation, group or social class, religion. This information allows us to estimate the audience's possible reactions to our presentation content and thereby map out an appropriate behavioral strategy. The same topic as "Vietnam and US trade relations" but when presented to students, the content and approach will be completely different when presented to experts or business leaders. This is a particularly important step that determines the success of a talk but is often overlooked.

Select and limit topics.

Based on the goals and expectations of the audience, we will choose the topic. The name of the talk is extremely important because it conveys the main message of the topic, attracting the audience's attention. Therefore, choosing a topic always comes with choosing a suitable name, which also means we must know the limits of the content that needs to be presented. Usually, we make two types of mistakes in limits. The first type is wanting to say everything because you're afraid the audience won't have enough information or want to show off your own knowledge (this is a common mistake even with experienced speakers, because at this point we're talking to serve your own speaking needs, regardless of whether others are listening). This error distracts from the focus of the talk and distracts the audience.