You’re as Good as You Decide to Be

Are great leaders, athletes, politicians, and speakers born to greatness, or did they learn the skill? Is it nature or nurture?

As Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” All the talent in the world won’t take you to the top of the PGA or the business world if you don’t decide to do what it
takes. With all due respect to Nike for one of the world’s greatest slogans, you have to decide to “just do it.”
Speaking well is your decision. It doesn’t matter if you were an introverted child or the quiet type in high school. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t have opportunities to speak early in your career. It doesn’t matter
if you have a busy schedule or a company that doesn’t particularly support your professional development. You are the one who has to decide to be great. 

All CEOs who speak well were once average, and many were terrible. Many people would like to be better speakers, but they don’t make the decision to do what it takes. The decision sets a chain of events in

Make It a “Game”

 

The work of becoming great is not always much fun. Even golf can become a job when you have to do it every day and there is pressure to win. So, you have to make work a game. That’s what Tiger Woods did. “I always kept it fun,” he said of practicing. “Not necessarily by just going
out there and beating balls all day; that gets boring. I like to play games, play situational games.”
You can take the same approach to the “speaking game.” Make i interesting. Look for opportunities to try something new. Put yourself on the line. Set goals and determine what would make an event interesting for you. Set up your own rules, your own guidelines for success. Do more than meet other people’s expectations. 
Say “Yes” to Public Speaking

Many people avoid public speaking if they can. In fact, it’s often said that
many people are more afraid of public speaking than of death. Whether
that is true or not, the excuses I typically hear are that people are too busy
or have more important things to do.
You can hand off the speaking roles to others in your organization.
But you will be missing important opportunities. When you are the CEO,
you are the face and voice of the organization, and people expect you to
be standing up at the front of the room. You will never improve if you
don’t say yes to public speaking. 

Ask for Help 

It isn’t always easy to ask for help. You may be accustomed to getting
things done on your own. A client in financial services got a big promotion
to a senior executive position. One Friday, she found herself in a
quandary. She had made a commitment to teach a course, attend several
meetings, and entertain a client, but she also had a major presentation to
give on Tuesday. She didn’t have time to brush her teeth, let alone prepare
a major speech 

Eight Secrets of Successful CEOs and Leaders Who Speak Well

Eight Secrets of Successful CEOs and Leaders Who Speak Well.......

“To speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.”
(Ben Jonson, British Poet and Dramatist)

When it comes to public speaking, speakers must technically speak well, but they must also have substance. They must look and sound like leaders—especially if they’re CEOs and executives.
Your first focus must be content. Technical skill alone is not enough. Your first concern should be what you say and then how you can make it clear and compelling. The leaders cited in this September Dish provide some guidance on powerful messages. Message is the foundation. Without that,
you’re just a speaker, not a leader.

Secret 1: Talk About Big Ideas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.”
—Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President

Every speech, presentation, or other communication needs one big idea. A big idea is all that most people can remember. A big idea has a life of its own. And it doesn’t require a big speech. It’s big because of its power, not its length.

No one likes long speeches. Personally, I never like it when I’m asked to give a forty-five-minute keynote—it’s too long! Short speeches, big ideas—that’s the secret. Another example of a big idea is President
Kennedy’s 1961 speech that inspired the United States to put a man on
the moon. At the time, the country had fallen behind the Soviet Union
in the space race and had made only a few successful manned flights.
Kennedy said we would go to the moon, and we did—we landed before
the decade was out. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in
this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy,
but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize
and measure the best of our energies and skills, because
that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are
unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the
others, too.

Secret 2: Speak in the Moment.

No one likes a canned speech. Canned speeches turn people off. You
must talk to people about what is happening in the moment. “If you think
about the usual setting,” said one CEO, “you have an audience sitting
there saying, ‘Who is this person and why is he talking?’ That’s not a great
18 • Speak like a CEO
setting to start with. It appears somewhat adversarial.” Your message must
be about them and about what’s happening in the moment in order to
win over an audience that isn’t sure it even wants to listen.

Secret 3: Keep It Simple

One problem with many speeches is that they try to do too much. Your
message must be simple and straightforward to be remembered.
Roger Marino, founder of the high-tech giant EMC, grew up in a
working-class neighborhood on Boston’s north shore and got his electrical
engineering degree from a co-op school, Northeastern University. Yet,
Marino was a salesman at heart. EMC sold one of the least sexy products
or services you can imagine—storage systems for computer information—
but he and his two partners built a company that went on to dominate
the industry.

to be continued......

I love you all, enjoy your dish....