A Very Brief Keynote - Outside of my Comfort Zone

Recently I was asked to keynote an online event for a group in the United Kingdom. The event was organized to inform and inspire volunteers to offer for available roles.  After my keynote, there would be a series of past leaders, who had served in the positions, and each would offer reflections on the position and how it aided in their personal development.  My job was to broadly inspire desire in people to step forward.  The event was recorded and a link to the content is provided below.

While preparing to construct the speech, I knew that I had much scholarly material to draw from, and more personal experience and stories, which resonate best with most audiences.

When I sought to better understand the organizers specific needs, I asked how long they’d like me to speak for, what was my time allocation.  I was a little taken aback when I was told I had five minutes to deliver the keynote. This might be the shortest keynote ever. 

Constraints Inspire Creativity and Motivation

I wasn’t offended as I knew the organizers needed to manage an agenda, and they soon sent a copy of their very full agenda.  However, I was surprised - and newly motivated.  Sometimes a constraint does that for us. A constraint can inspire creativity and new motivation.

Instead of casually selecting amongst several talking points, I needed to be super focused on delivering high value in just five minutes. This assignment was outside my routine, and I was a little outside of my comfort zone of developing a twenty-to-forty minute keynote.

When the parameters are set, I’ll work to accommodate them.  In some cases, I might try to negotiate some more time, but these organizers had shared their agenda, it was tight, and ultimately the event did run longer than planned. When all was said and done, I spoke for almost six minutes, almost one full minute over my time allocation, while other presenters were more significantly over their allocation.

 

Typical Keynote Durations

A keynote speech is intended to set the scene, to emphasize a theme, and get an audience engaged and receptive for the remainder of the event. Typically, a keynote speech is at least fifteen minutes long, and this is my preference. Some can run to ninety minutes. I tend to organize my material in eight-to-ten minute components, so constructing and assembling for twenty-to-forty minutes or longer isn’t an issue. 

The challenge becomes researching and understanding the audience needs, selecting content, ensuring relevance, and then planning transitions and the emphasis of key points. I work to ensure relevance by briefly reviewing a speech plan with one or more of the organizers.

For a sample of an excellent keynote speech, or in this case a commencement speech, take a look at the text of Steve Job’s work at Stanford in 2015. This speech is fifteen minutes long, is comprised of three stories, and offers many lessons for speakers. The text is available here https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/12/youve-got-find-love-jobs-says/

 

Using Time Constraints

Self-imposed time constraints can be helpful. I sometimes impose a time constraint on myself in order to trick myself into making some small progress when I’m procrastinating on a project, or I’m unsure of what direction to take a project. I’ll allocate fifteen minutes and commit to doing something. Surely, I can spend fifteen minutes to get something done.

Here's an example of how short time constraints work for me. I recently used this technique again for an upcoming project I had been avoiding. During that fifteen minutes, as is typical, I started with some silent muttering to myself that fifteen minutes is very little time.  I quickly moved to the realization that I needed to talk with a specific person to clarify a project objective, and I emailed that person to arrange time to talk. Then I thought once that conversation was complete there were two probable directions the project might take, and I began to map what each path might look like.  I made progress.  Not significant progress, but some momentum is helpful.

I ended up spending forty minutes to achieve that progress, more than the fifteen minutes to which I had committed myself. However, I was energized and didn’t mind spending more time. This often happens for me.  I end up spending more than my fifteen-minute allocation because I become excited with the plan that was now in motion.

The recent keynote imposed a different time constraint, one that required me to deliver impact for the audience in a very short time.

 

Video Content

The event was recorded and a link to the content is below. The feedback I received after the event was good. I stayed for the entire event and was delighted that some of the later speakers made reference to content from my keynote. 

Kudos to Daniel Sanders and all of the organizers as they inspired applicants for every one of the available positions. That’s a tremendous success. A key part of that success, in my opinion, was being very clear on their purpose and goal in planning the event.

Should you wish to see the recording please visit this link (My section starts at the 5- minute mark)  https://youtu.be/kpCPdoFb28Q