It’s all about connection.  If you’re already a John C. Maxwell fan, his advice on successful communication – and public speaking – won’t surprise you.  His new book is Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.  The book is a great introductory primer for speakers early in their careers, and a nice reminder for more advanced professionals. 

Maxwell is a preacher, and he knows deep in his DNA that the way to a successful public speaking career is to connect with the audience.  That means making your speech more about the audience than about yourself. 

The book breaks no new ground in terms of communication research; indeed, it gets the infamous Mehrabian study slightly wrong (see pp. 48-49 – the study wasn’t about decoding communications, but about decoding attitudes behind communications).  I’ve blogged about that study before.  But what it does do is give you a wealth of stories, many of them memorable, about people who communicate well and people who don’t.  By the time you’ve read it through, you will be reformed and ready to start communicating through authentic connection, which is the only way to communicate.  You will think more about your audience than you do yourself.  And you will prepare – as Maxwell does – with a thoroughness that would embarrass a military campaign. 

Maxwell is focused and he takes communication very seriously.  The result is a book that has good, if familiar, advice of the hortatory sort on virtually every page.  Each chapter ends with a section on “connecting one-on-one”; “connecting in a group”; and, “connecting with an audience.”  Beginning speakers especially will find these tips and takeaways helpful.  Indeed, I wish every businessperson who gives presentations and speeches occasionally would read this book and take its prescriptions to heart.  If that were to happen, the business world would be a far, far better place for its hapless audiences. 

What I particularly like about Maxwell’s take on communications is his unwavering focus on the audience, his insistence on the speaker being fully present with the audience when giving a speech, and his enthusiasm for good communication itself.  There’s not much about body language in the book, but if you take Maxwell’s advice to heart, you will speak with such an enthusiasm for the task and a concern for the audience that I won’t have to worry too much about your non-verbal communication.