What I learned from “How To Speak” by Patrick Winston (MIT)

This article is based on a lecture given by renowned professor Patrick Winston on the topic of “How To Speak” so that people listen and your message gets understood and accepted.

Photo by Teemu Paananen on Unsplash

First suggestion he gives is do not start with a joke. You are familiar with Ted Talks Guides saying start with a joke so that you can grab the full attention of the guests. Patrick says this is not the correct way of starting a conversation since the audience is not ready yet to comprehend your talk. They are leaving their computers and telephones. They are settling down in their seats. Furthermore, this is only the beginning so you will need jokes to gather attention through the conversation. Do not pull the trigger that early.

• First rule in pocket : DO NOT start with a joke. CHECK.

How the hell am I going to start my conversation then ? Good question. I asked the same. Here is Patrick’s answer to that:

“What you want to do instead is start with empowerment promise. You want to tell people what they’re going to know at the end of the hour that they didn’t know at the beginning of the hour. It’s an empowerment promise. It’s the reason for being here.”

So, you start with an empowerment promise. You will construct a sentence like:

“In the next 15 minutes, you will learn the story of how AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol and how in the near future we can apply that knowledge to eradicate cancer from the surface of the earth.”

Powerful isn’t it ? You give an excitement here. Even if you do not give speeches about that kind of important topics, giving a reason to the listeners as to why they are here is always a good starter.

I would also one minor thing to add to that, give the audience a shocking knowledge. Like:

“Did you know all around the world around 500.000 of people die because of Influenza? Yes, I also did not know. Let’s see what we can do to fight against it.”

• Second rule in pocket : START with an empowerment promise. SHOCK them with unprecedented numbers, facts or insights. CHECK.

Third thing is CYCLING. What Patrick means by cycling is that you go around your main topic more than 3–5 times in your speech. But you do it always different than previous ones. You have sub arguments that support the main point you try to make and be sure that every sub argument refers to different part of your argument in way that it cycles back to your main argument and completes it.

• Third rule in pocket : CYCLE back to your argument throughout the speech.CHECK.

Find more stories by subscribing to my newsletter.

Fourth point is to make a fence. You make your point but someone else has already made the same point so why the audience care what you say on the topic. Give them a reason to listen to you by separating yourself from the crowd. Say like:

“On contrary to what has been discussed about the progress of the project, I would like you to look at the problem from a different angle. Yes we may fail, but we fail by learning how to win the next war.”

• Fourth rule in pocket : Make a “Fence” around your idea. Auidence has to understand that this idea is unique, it only belongs to you.

Next one is Verbal Punctuation. Patrick asserts that you have to sum up information on the way in order to make sure that everything is okay. We all now know that attention is limited. According to quantifiedcommunications ‘s article research suggests that the average adult attention span is now only 5 minutes, down from 12 minutes just a decade ago. I can easily say some of the people have even less attention span. So you need to make sure that in every 5 minutes or so you tell a joke, you ask a serious question(This was the next rule but I blended it here) to audience or you use verbal punctuation to help your audience to get back on track.

• Fifth rule in pocket : Use Verbal Punctuation. Sum up what you have just told up until now to make sure everybody is with you. And ask questions to grab the attention of your audience.CHECK.

The next rule is fair and simple.

• Sixth rule in pocket : Make sure the time slot is not earlier than 10 AM and the place is very well lit.CHECK.

If you are a teacher, or if you have a board where you can write down your ideas while you are speaking, use it. The reason Patrick says it is because of mirror neurons. These neurons make you feel like you are the one writing on the board so it is like you are doing the mental and physical work. Also, slides are good for exposing ideas, do not use them to convey your ideas use them just to support your sentences. Visuals are good and a picture or good graphic is worth a thousand words. Pictures are great way to raise questions among the audience so use this tip to build your argument out of a picture. When people are wondering what is the reason you use this picture at this particular point you have better chance of getting your message approved. Do not put too many words in a slide. And if you want to know more about how you have to design a powerpoint you can read the book below. It got you covered.

Slide:ology

• Seventh rule in pocket : Use boards when possible. Use slides to only show some visuals to support your ideas. Use astonishing graphics to solidify your argument not use a simple one. Not too much word on slide. Use picture to confuse audience and to grab their attention.CHECK.
• Eighth rule in pocket : Watch your hands. Do not keep them behind. Use them openly, supporting what you are saying and conveying that you are confident in what you are talking about.CHECK.

For further lessons on how to use your hands and too see how a master use it please refer to the video below:

Also I have one more suggestion to make on the subject of gesture. Vanessa is one of the experts on how to communicate and you better start listening her videos immediately.

Next rule: NEVER forget humans only have one language processors. So either they listen to you or they read the slides or they look at their phones. Do not make them read long slides so that they can spare more attention to you and only you.

• Ninth rule in pocket: PEOPLE ONLY HAVE ONE LANGUAGE PROCESSOR.CHECK.

Use storytelling. All over the talk, Patrick uses different stories to support his ideas. Like the one where he said there is too much on words on a presentation without even looking at the content. Humans communicate via stories and you have to capture not your audience’s mind but also her heart. People not change their opinions or understand what you say unless you push them emotionally.

“So how do you teach people how to think? Well, I believe that we are storytelling animals. And that we start developing our story, understanding and manipulating skills with fairy tales in childhood and continue on through professional schools like law, business, medicine, everything. And we continue doing that throughout life.”

— Patrick

So you may want to learn how to storytell. I am attaching one book and a good video below in order for you to get your feet wet with storytelling.

TEDTalks’ guide to storytelling. Click.

Storytelling is a joke telling. You know your story and punchline.

Frankly, there isn’t anyone who you couldn’t learn to love once you have learnt their story.

Click.

If you want to be heard, you have only 5 minutes, at least so Patrick says. I think it is even less than 5 minutes. He continues to elaborate on the concept of “Getting Famous”. You got to have “5S”. Then comes the next rule.

• Ninth rule in pocket : 5 S:

1. Symbols : Associate symbols with your ideas . In the talk professor uses arch example to grab the attention. It was unique and different, something to remember after the talk.
2. Slogan : A punchline. One-sentence-long, not more not less. You need to fully squeeze what you want to say into one strong punchline.
3. Surprise : Tell something unexpected. Give a surprising example.
4. Salient Idea : This is the idea that sets you different than the other speakers. This idea is why the audience is there for. Give them the hook they need.
5. Story : Tell the background of the story. How you came up with it, what were the obstacles, what were the bad moments, good moments, tell the times that you thought you failed, tell how difficult it was and tell how you figured it out. Give the audience the relief they long for.CHECK.

And now on to last rule. How to end. Never end the presentation with a question. It is a good idea to have a core slide to show just the important things and to sum up all the important points you have been talking about. You do not “thank” people at the end of the slideshow, it is not sincere. However you can say how much you appreciate the time they allocated for you. You may leave with a joke since most of the people will remember the last minutes of your presentation. Give them a warm reminder.

• Tenth rule in pocket : No thanks at the end. No questions. Show respect to audiences’ time and patience. Leave with a joke. Or a surprising fact.CHECK.

This was my notes from the lecture. You can listen to full version of it below:

Cheers till the next time.