Speakers with too much baggage

Are you a believer in providing plenty of useful content when you speak? If the answer is yes, then we have at least one thing in common. It also means that you might have too much speaker baggage. I used to have speaker baggage too. But then I realized it was hurting me. And now I want to help you. Let me explain.

You see, when I speak,  I want the audience to be entertained but I also want them to be better informed. Those are all good things. But in the past, that led me to feel like the more points I packed into a speech, the better.  Do you feel that way sometimes too?

Well, now, I know better. Now I realize that I was bringing too much baggage to the stage.

To understand this, let us see what I mean by speaker baggage.

Why you should lose the excess baggage

Baggage = Speaking points/ideas.

No dirty laundry being aired today, sorry. Perhaps in a future article we will discuss the inner mental game of dealing with the other kind of "baggage". But today we focus on the practical technique of consciously limiting your speaking points and ideas.

When speaking, I invite you to think about each point or idea as a piece of baggage. You can choose to unpack a few of them using different speech support tools and letting the audience pick the items they want.  

Or you can saddle the audience with a few dozen suitcases hoping they will lug them home and then sit and unpack each for themselves. This would be a mistake.

Image by Miroslavik from Pixabay

From experience, I have learned that audiences are not wont to do that.

I learned that, as a speaker, the number (or size for that matter) of your points are not as important as how well you make them. They may be the most correct, insightful and useful points for the speech you are making. But if you gloss over them, they won't work for you as well as they could.  

I learned all this from a pile of paper forms. 

Feedback form frenzy 

One afternoon a few years ago after one particularly intense productivity seminar, I was reviewing the audience feedback forms as I typically do. I noticed a trend.  

Under the section on content, about 40% of the participants wrote that they wish I had gone deeper and explained some points better. They wanted to know more!  

Now, there were time constraints from the company which informed how long I had with the team. But it got me thinking if I would have been better off having (gasp) fewer points, but unpacking them better.  

A second chance 

Based on this feedback, at my next seminar with the company, I had the same amount of time but purposefully cut about half the number of points.  

Not only did this force me to use only the vital few points, it also afforded me time to expand the ideas, employ stories, analogies, research and case studies. It even let me squeeze in some audience participation.  

The reviews this time were glowing! Attendees were even quoting my lines back to me in their session feedback forms - a sign that the points landed.  

How too much baggage can hurt you 

The more you know about a subject, the more you are likely to forget how unfamiliar others are with the subject. This curse of knowledge can cause you to take points for granted and quickly bounce from point to point thus leaving the audience reeling.  

This leads to the audience having so much to think about that they don't really think about anything you have said. It leaves them with too much to process. And instead of clarity and action, they end up with confusion and paralysis.

It is so much better and more effective to make a few points well and give clear direction for action. In other words, it is better to have less baggage, but to unpack them well.

Until the next article, speak with skill.