At the simplest level, let’s call it Level One, public speaking is a performance.  The speaker appears in front of a passive audience and delivers a scripted (more or less) combination of words, images, videos, and so on.  It’s up to the audience, at this stage, to pay attention as much as it can, or chooses to, and to remember what it finds compelling.

For Level One speaking, the primary focus of the occasion remains on the skill of the presenter.  Is she funny?  Does he tell a good story?  Do they have amazing slides or compelling bits of video?  A good speaker practices his or her message until the speech is a smooth, polished bit of stagecraft with an arresting opening, some good stuff in the middle, a compelling arc, and a close that brings the audience to its feet, roaring with applause.

Speeches like that are given all around the world, a thousand times a day, and are mostly forgotten before the next full moon rolls around the planet.

A Level Two speech is a more profound act of teaching.  Here, the speaker has developed deep expertise in a body of knowledge, whether it is leadership or grit, management or teamwork, self-improvement or life skills.  The topics can be as perennial as, well, leadership, or as arriviste as AI, but the expertise has enough depth and individuality that the speaker is capable of sharing a unique, often hard-won, perspective on a body of knowledge that he or she knows as well and as thoroughly as anyone else on the planet.

That speaker has often spent a decade or more mastering the topic and has probably written one or more books on the subject in question. By sharing her passion with audiences around the world, the speaker seeks to improve organizational life, or the way people work together, or an individual’s ability to function in the grownup world.

Level Two speaking is the equivalent of the best university teaching and can permanently change individuals in the audience – a small percentage, typically, but a real one – by infecting them with the enthusiasm of the converted and improving their competence in the subject matter in question.  Some members of the audience will leave the auditorium better managers, or stronger leaders, or having gained some awareness of an aspect of personal growth that will make them better people, parents, or partners.

In Level Two speaking, the primary focus of the occasion is the answer to the question, how many members of the audience took away something that has changed them permanently for the better?

One of the ironies of the speaking world is that these Level Two speakers are often paid less than Level One speakers at the top of their game, but the real value of the hour spent in the auditorium is arguably much larger.

Finally, Level Three speaking is deeply transformational, because it changes the world view of an audience that is privileged to attend – and has ripple effects that spread well beyond the particular time and place.  The speaker has as much or more) charisma as a Level One speaker, and as deep expertise as a Level Two speaker, but there is something about the person that enables him or her to create community as they share their story with the audience.  How many speeches have you attended where you came away ready to look at life differently, or join a cause, or help your fellow humans in a way you never considered before?

These are speeches that – unlike most – are remembered for years afterward as moments that sparked a movement or began a cause that carried their momentum down through the years.  There are the obvious examples, like President John F. Kennedy’s ‘Moon shot’ speech that put an astronaut on the moon a decade later, or Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech that spurred the United States to finally begin to put right the wrong of discrimination against Blacks.  And then there are the less obvious ones like Chef José Andrés whose talk about his quick response food delivery for disaster relief around the world, World Central Kitchen, has enlisted volunteers and aid of various kinds precisely because his expansive view of the promises and obligations of humanity inspire us to think beyond ourselves and reach out to our fellow humans around the planet.

We probably need all three levels of speaking, but if you have been privileged to sit in the audience at a Level Three speech, then you have been touched by greatness and have experienced the possibility that we humans can join together with our neighbors, look beyond our daily concerns, and make lives better for all.

We urgently need more Level Three speaking today.  Will you be one who steps up?