DailyPost 297
IS YOUR NARRATIVE IN PLACE
Whether its a speech, keynote address, panellists presentation, lecture et al in the public domain, the standard rote or a mechanical presentation barely draws an applause, less so leaves the audience with food for thought. It is waste of ones time & of the audience as well. More often than not, the narrative is not in place, with learnings interspersed and thoughts ideally positioned to rattle the participants brain. You and audience forget the public speaking even before it ends.
Creating narrative is an art which can learnt only the hard way, by incessant practice, facing the audience, learning form their feedback & improving upon it. Once, you able to achieve the benchmarked level, you can make out yourself. Your satisfaction would increase phenomenally, based on the interactions during the lecture & later on the direct feedback or otherwise.
Bookish knowledge with torn & tattered case studies & quotes, broadly disjointed, cannot be even the starting point. Narrative is story professionally delivered with clarity, poise, wit & charisma with the audience getting spellbound, a roaring applause would stand testimony to such public speaking. It’s has ones own anecdotes, latest & unknown but relevant facts & figures, new analysis & newer ways to make change happen, interwoven into it. Delivery is be flawless, if the narrative is flawless.
One size fits all, does not work. The attention span of 20 mins is another escape route. Blaming the audience for our incompetences does not work. Audience is not captive. They cannot be treated that way. They have a mind of their own, to measure the speaker. They can see through the drama, lack of knowledge & also lack of preparation. In the days of easily available quality knowledge, why should somebody spend time listening to you?
In the sea is mediocrity & misconceived perceptions of the reality, a contrarian view, well substantiated, with a workable roadmap is the answer.
A WORTHWHILE NARRATIVE MAKES PUBLIC SPEAKING WORTHWHILE.
Sanjay Sahay