Communication Skills: Public Speaking

There are many methods to train a team but one of the most successful is getting everyone up to speed through a group discussion or program. Running a successful training session will put your communication skills to the test and often involve the ever-dreaded Public Speaking.

We all remember the anxiety of watching a classmate present their science project while squirming in your seat knowing you were next. Public speaking is among the most common anxieties adults still experience on a day-to-day basis. According to Psychology Today, 25% of people experience Glossophobia: the fear of public speaking. Thankfully, the skills developed to combat this fear have gone far beyond picturing your audience in their underwear.

Honing in on your Communication Skills

At Bookboon we want our business eBooks to teach a wide range of skills in under 50 pages, allowing professionals to implement what they learn quickly and efficiently. In Arina Nikitina’s Successful Public Speaking, you will learn to dramatically improve your speaking presence by capturing your listener’s attention and honing in on both your verbal and non-verbal communication skills.

Training your Team

Not every training exercise is going to be fun, thrilling and exhilarating. A Monday morning training exercise on responsible cash-handling is unlikely going to be as gripping as the latest Michael Bay film your team watched over the weekend. However, there are ways to keep your audience’s attention even without the help of gratuitous explosions and car chases.

Here are a few of Nikitina’s tips for keeping your team engaged and suggestions of what to avoid if you don’t want to hear snoring in your training room.

Know the Dos and Don’ts of Storytelling

Do:
● Keep your stories simple and short
● Keep your stories relevant to the subject at hand
● Make sure your story concludes with a lesson or transformation

Don’t:
● Fill stories with too many characters or details
● Use terms that are complicated or foreign to your audience – you want to engage
them, not alienate them.

Speak Slowly, Clearly and Confidently

Nikitina tells us that tone of voice accounts for 33% of a transmitted message, while the actual words are only responsible for 7% of communication. Imagine the Economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off giving Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech
and you’ll understand what she means.

Use Non-Verbal Communication to Your Advantage

As much as your tone of voice is important while delivering training to a team, body language is even more crucial. We were all shouted at as children to “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”, “Stand up straight!”, and “Stop fidgeting!”, but as it turns out, our school teachers were right. Nikitina found that non-verbal communication such as confident body language accounts for 55% of the message received by your audience.

About the Author: Russian born personal coach and goal setting expert Arina Nikitina has been helping people to achieve their goals since 2002. She has used her proven 7-Step Goal Setting System to help entrepreneurs and business professionals all over the country create success on their own terms. Arina’s passion and success as a compelling and passionate professional coach and speaker comes from helping people find the courage and confidence to create their own definition of success and to live it with conviction, joy, and prosperity.