Can a weak speaker with a great message hold an audience? That’s the question that a speaker like Ray Anderson poses. And can he improve? I’ll answer that question at the end. But first, who is Ray Anderson? You can watch him speak at TED.com: http://tinyurl.com/ndkn5w
Ray Anderson likes to call himself someone who’s made a journey from “plunderer” to “reformed plunderer” to “the greenest CEO in America.” It’s quite a journey. Ray is the CEO of Interface, a maker of carpet tile and broadloom carpets. Some 15 years ago, Ray read Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology of Commerce (http://tinyurl.com/ra4z4d) and decided that he had to turn his carpet company from a typical “take-make-waste” company to sustainability.
The results have been – and continue to be – extraordinary. Ray’s company makes Flor carpet tiles, which are sustainable and eco-friendly and also just plain cool (http://www.flor.com/). The company has reduced its carbon footprint 82 % while growing by 2/3rds. Ray estimates that the company is half-way to its goal of zero emissions by 2020. More than that, costs are down, the products are better, the workers are more inspired, and the free advertising is incalculable.
Now, Ray’s goal is to transform all of business. As he says, ‘more happiness with less stuff’ is the big idea.
So he’s got a great message. The full story is told, by the way, in Tim Sanders’ excellent book, Saving the World at Work (http://tinyurl.com/r9t3qe).
Unfortunately, Ray’s not an inspiring speaker. His voice needs work; it’s pitched too high and his sibilants are too pronounced. Worse, he doesn’t connect with his audience. He reads his speech with his nose in the paper, and the result is a sing-song, solipsistic delivery that doesn’t inspire.
But the audience at TED did get on their feet, slowly, and in sections, to applaud him when he was done. Why? The message is great, the man is a hero. And the speech was short.
The solution? Rehearse him in brief segments, getting him to get his head up from the page. By looking down too much of the time, Ray appears to the audience to be closed off from them. He needs to practice talking to a close friend, or a grandchild, and then he’d get the idea. I talk more about how to do this here: http://tinyurl.com/qrv3yk. Ray needs to learn to be as open with an audience as he obviously is to a great idea.
Nick
How do you feel about weak speakers who happen to be celebrities? Do you find that people receive information well when delivered by a weak celebrity speaker?
Nick
How do you feel about weak speakers who happen to be celebrities? Do you find that people receive information well when delivered by a weak celebrity speaker?
Good question, Marcus, thanks. It’s one of the unfair realities of public speaking that celebrities and anyone who gets a big build-up one way or another beforehand is far more likely to get a favorable rating from an audience than someone who is less well known. I’ve seen this happen many times at conferences with a mix of well-known ‘outside’ speakers and ‘internal’ speakers from the sponsoring company. The internal speakers have to work much, much harder to get a similar rating.
I once saw a speech from a bestselling author (who shall remain nameless) that was quite possibly one of the worst public speeches I’d ever seen to that point. The speaker read from notes, for 90 minutes, with head buried in them, and never looked up. It was academic in the worst sense of the word. But the audience wanted to be able to say, ‘I was at a conference and heard X speak’, so the speaker got a high rating.
It’s rare for an audience to turn on a celebrity speaker and be disappointed. It takes a truly horrible performance.
What can less famous people do to combat this bias? Get a great introduction. Have the person introducing you give some good reasons as to why you are the best person on this subject. Let the introduction do the work of building you up so you don’t have to.
Good question, Marcus, thanks. It’s one of the unfair realities of public speaking that celebrities and anyone who gets a big build-up one way or another beforehand is far more likely to get a favorable rating from an audience than someone who is less well known. I’ve seen this happen many times at conferences with a mix of well-known ‘outside’ speakers and ‘internal’ speakers from the sponsoring company. The internal speakers have to work much, much harder to get a similar rating.
I once saw a speech from a bestselling author (who shall remain nameless) that was quite possibly one of the worst public speeches I’d ever seen to that point. The speaker read from notes, for 90 minutes, with head buried in them, and never looked up. It was academic in the worst sense of the word. But the audience wanted to be able to say, ‘I was at a conference and heard X speak’, so the speaker got a high rating.
It’s rare for an audience to turn on a celebrity speaker and be disappointed. It takes a truly horrible performance.
What can less famous people do to combat this bias? Get a great introduction. Have the person introducing you give some good reasons as to why you are the best person on this subject. Let the introduction do the work of building you up so you don’t have to.