How do you add warmth to a speech? That’s a challenge for most public speakers. It does not mean, for instance, that you have to speak about hellfire and damnation. Nor does it mean speaking about a blazing sun. It is all about making your audience feel involved and part of the process. If you are an M.C. for instance, your opening remarks speech should be genuinely welcoming and a light-hearted comment about some topical event should make people laugh and there is no warmer sound than people laughing together. If you are the father of the bride your expressed love for your daughter should give that warm feeling to the audience who will understand and appreciate how much she means to you. In a eulogy, of course, the appreciative way you speak about the deceased and what he or she meant in your life should reflect the warmth of your feeling for that person. Basically it’s about involvement. It’s about your audience feeling at one with you about whatever the topic or the reason for the speech happens to be. It’s about getting them to understand how you feel and to share that feeling with you. It means making you speech easy to understand, interesting to the listener and relevant to their lives. In other words it’s the same sort of feeling you get when you meet someone with whom you feel an immediate rapport.

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“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.” This sentence is one that thousands of people used when learning to type on an old fashioned typewriter. The keyboard is still the same today and that sentence is even more relevant. It is certainly one that managers or C.E.O’s should take to heart in these recessionary times. For that to happen they need to be told to get their message across-clear communications count. They might for instance have to get their staff to appreciate the fact that they simply have to cut company costs. They might want to push the fact that staff has the responsibility of helping more by telling them to go the extra mile and urge them to give service with a smile. Obviously they have to reconsider any failings the company may have and to tell their staff to make innovation their business. It is a time to re-evaluate exactly what the company is doing and what its objectives are. It is time to decide whether existing practises are working or whether changes have to be made. Above all it is time to consider what you say to your staff and how you say it. If you want them to be more involved in the success of your company you have to be sure that your relationship with them is one that works. After all companies don’t succeed in business people do.

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Pride is an important ingredient when you are writing a reunion speech of any kind. You can have pride in the family, pride in the workforce or pride in the old school tie. It’s a sentiment we all understand and share. So go on appeal to their pride.

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I don’t sail and know little or nothing about boats so when the Commodore of the local yacht club asked to write a speech I was in a bit of a quandary. He explained that they were going to have a sail pass dinner and that he needed to speak at it. He confessed that no matter how many times he had to speak he still found it hard going. My imagination took flight as I remembered walking by the seashore one balmy evening recently and being entranced by the colours of the sails reflected in the water. He wanted to speak about the youngsters who were the life blood of the club. He spoke proudly of how, when a sudden squall had overturned many of the boats, the children had not panicked but had kept their wits and waited to be rescued. He had the interesting thought that their training at sea would help them deal with the squalls of life later on. With that interesting though I was soon in full flow and his speech, he told me later on, was plain sailing.

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The chairman of the amateur football club wanted me to write a few words for his annual general meeting. Obviously he wanted to praise the work done by his coaches. He wanted to talk about the success of the various teams during the year. He also wanted to point out that some teams were not doing as well as could be expected and he wanted to suggest, tactfully, ways they could improve. He needed to address the general membership about the support they could give the club and about the urgent need for fundraising. He said that, overall, he’d like to speak about the whole ethos of the club, how it had enriched many lives and to lay out the challenges it faced. He wanted to end on a positive note so that everyone would go home proud to be a member of the club and willing to volunteer their services in some way. My challenge was to see that the speech coaxed busy people into believing that they could spare the time to become involved in such a worthwhile organisation. He had sold it to me, now it was my job to sell it to others. I hope I can score with this one.

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Motivating and Business speeches

Today I’m in a motivating speech mood. ‘Simplicity’ is the keystone. I like the sound of simplifying everything down. So I’m reseaching the word, the topic, the religion (Quakers and Taoists) and can you believe the language? It’s called Toki Pona and was invented in 2001. It has something like 118 words in total. Incredible. If I ever have to study languages again, I’m electing for this one. Anyway I came across a guy Bill Jensen whose written a couple of books on simplicity in business and life. There is a stat along the lines of 80% of business communication has absolutely nothing to do with getting things done. Wow.

That includes meetings, e-mails and presentations, which is where I come in writing business speeches. He talks about getting people engaged being the key to simplicity. So you make a business speech like a story. You describe where we are, where we want to be and how to get there. I’ve adapted that last bit a little as I think it sounds better.

If you have anything else in your business speech, it’s probably in the 80%. I’m going to bear it in mind. As for the motivational speech on ‘Simplicity’. I’m still working on it. It’s more complicated than I thought.

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