How To Prepare a Speech in Five Minutes

Have you ever been asked or told to make a presentation with little lead time? In my business career there were times when I was strongly requested to make a presentation in very short order.  I had a lot of experience at work and in Toastmasters so I developed a simple approach to these situations.  You might find the approach helpful.

Every speech should have structure, kind of a table of contents that helps you organize your ideas, and then for the audience to follow along. It’s my practice near the start of a speech to tell the audience the structure, and as the speech concludes to remind them of the structure. Even if your speech is almost entirely a story, you can apply a helpful structure such as lesson learned, story itself, how to apply the lesson in other situations.

Past-Present-Future

My starting point for most presentations is past-present-future. This is a simple routine for me.  If you struggle to even start preparation for a presentation, begin with past-present-future. Your product may evolve, but you’ll be off to a great start.  

With this structure, the time frame doesn’t matter. The time frame could be this morning, now, later today. It could be last quarter, this quarter, next steps. It could be 1967, current results, improving current results. It could be how we got here, current situation, options for progress.

Having a plan for impromptu or planned speeches provides speakers with confidence which will be apparent to audiences.  Such structure is helpful to audiences as well as they will hear and interpret the organization. We like organization.  People may disagree with your message, but they’ll feel the message was well delivered, because they heard structure.

Other Structures

There are many other structures available, but in my opinion, none are as simple and intuitive as past-present-future.

For your consideration, another structure is A-I-D-A, for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. Another is O-B-A for Opening, Body, Conclusion, which I find is far too rudimentary. 

 

Practice, Practice, Practice

I have been a member of Toastmasters since 1987 and I remain for many reasons. One is to regularly practice these skills including 2-minute impromptu speeches and quickly prepared 5–7-minute speeches.  Public speaking is a skill and skills require practice if you expect them to be sharp.

 

Comfort Zone – A Leap from 829 Feet: Great Speakers Tell Great Stories

 Great speakers tell great stories. Often their stories are original, but sometimes the source is someone else, told as a third-person story. Such stories can be found in books, videos, one-on-one conversations and other sources. Using someone else’s story is fine, so long as you attribute the story to the source, or in some way modify and make the story your own. You’ve likely heard speakers use material from notables such as Steve Jobs and Warren Buffet.

Skills Needed For Effective Story Telling

There are a few key skills involved in effectively using stories in presentations. First is simply being a good story teller, which involves dramatizing some elements, and using voice and pausing. The purpose of a story is to make a point with an audience, so if some embellishment might help land the point, it’s worth some polish. The objective isn’t to provide 100% accuracy, even in the unlikely event that your memory of the event is 100% accurate, or to share every tiny detail. The objective should be to tell the story so it’s remembered and the lesson is clear and vivid, along with the most important story elements.

A second skill in using stories effectively is finding them, usually by mining your personal experience. Often when I am working with a speaker, during casual conversation we uncover stories that are valuable for future presentations.

A third skill is in understanding the point and value, and maybe the multiple points, of a story. I usually carry a 4x6 moleskin notebook in a jacket pocket. Just about any story I tell with passion to a friend or colleague I jot down in the notebook and capture the point of the story. For example, one story I captured was about a minor, but funny, incident that happened while on a plane.  That story was simple, relatable and offered some lessons on clear communication, on asking for what you want, and on customer service. One story with at least three lessons.

Jumping From the Stratosphere Hotel Tower

I write this because last year I discovered a video I had saved on YouTube, and then ignored, from a team building event.  I wasn’t excited about this team building event at the time. Each team member individually jumped from the 829-foot (253 meters) Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas and recorded a personal video of the jump from a wrist-mounted camera. I didn’t see great value in this as a team building experience, and would not have spent the money personally to make the jump. Regardless, we shared this individual, sequential experience. We all enjoyed the adrenaline rush, and we spoke about it afterwards, but we didn’t observe and learn how team members react and perform as we would in other team building experiences

Information on the jump is available at this link https://thestrat.com/attractions/skyjump

My jump video is available here https://youtu.be/E7U64OV0iVU

Mining Our Experiences for Stories

When I rediscovered and watched the ninety-second video after these years had passed, I recognized that those ninety-seconds perfectly illustrate an element of situational leadership, a model I like to present to audiences. I will write a second post on that those elements, but this post focuses on mining for stories.

Great speakers do tell great stories.  The best way to find great stories is to consider and mine your personal experiences. I had saved this video but saw no value in my Stratosphere experience beyond the immediate rush. However, when I reviewed it again, I realized the potential of the video.  It’s always well received by audiences and helps me illustrate situational leadership.

You may also have some video content you’ve tucked away somewhere. You may have some stories you like to tell from past experiences. You might have a passionate discussion today with a friend of colleague about a recent event. Become skilled at capturing these stories and the lessons they illuminate. Then share them with audiences.  

People love stories. People remember stories. Bolt your point or lesson to a good story and you have an asset to build into a great, reusable speech.

 

#situationalleadership #leadership #risk #stories