The arts of music, poetry, literature, and drama have been around so long that each of them has templates.  To dismiss templates is to ignore the wisdom of the ages.

To name a few, music has verses and choruses, poetry has sonnets and haiku, literature has novels and short stories, and drama has setting, character, plot, and resolution.

Templates exist for speeches and presentations too.  Past to present to future is one.  Cause and effect is another.  Thesis, antithesis, synthesis is yet a third. But by far the most useful in the business world is the situation, problem, solution template.

 In business, define the problem first, then argue for your solution.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

First of all, don’t overdo it.  If it’s dry, it’s dry.  I heard someone link his call to action to survival, which was a bit of an overstatement.  Modesty in all things!

Nevertheless, since I often find myself urging clients to include emotional arguments as well as fact-based, here are a few tips.

1. Reason makes us think.  Emotions make us act.  You need both.
2. Begin with the problem that your audience faces.
3. If they don’t face a problem, begin with the opportunity they have.
4. Then talk about the consequences if they fail to take advantage of the opportunity.
5. Personalize your message.  Speak about your own experience.  Disclose something about yourself.  Confess your own struggle in regards to the issue, or a similar issue.
6. Tell stories that are about life-changing experiences.  Make sure your stories have a character, conflict, and dialogue.
7. Stories about people they know, or famous people, living or dead, are most effective.
8. Use emotional words.  I once sat through 16 people delivering the exact same presentation, and the only person I could remember when it was over was the one who said, “I love my job.”
9. Look your audience in the eye, one person at a time.
10. Smile when appropriate.  Visibly enjoy yourself.
11. Don’t talk about how dry the topic is.  Ignore the dryness, and find a way to make it moist.

The mother of the great American poet John Berryman told him, “Ever to admit you’re bored means you have no inner resources.”

Don’t let your topic bore you, or you’ll bore your audience.  Find a way to fall in love with it.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

I attended a family wedding last weekend, and the sister of the bride gave a great toast.

I heard her round up her brothers as the cake was being served, saying, “Now is the time. Somebody has to say something.” They looked glum and stricken, and left their wine glasses on the table as they followed her to the center of the tent.

I thought to myself, “This is going to be hard. There are a hundred people yammering and drinking. Music is playing. Some people are dancing.” But I was wrong.

Lizzy tapped a wine glass with a fork. The crowd came to a hush. Somebody turned the music off, and Lizzy said what was on her mind.

It wasn’t fancy, clever, prepared, or eloquent. Just real. Sincere. Simple. Felt. She was happy for her sister and happy that so many family members had come to witness and support the marriage.

She stood still. She projected her voice. She was able to think while she was speaking, and she seemed completely comfortable.

The brothers didn’t need to say a thing. Any more would have been overkill. We clapped. The music returned, and I went back to work on my piece of cake, impressed with Lizzie’s grace, her sentiment, and the fact that her remarks were brief and unadorned.

When I ask people to remember three talks they’ve heard or seen recently, most people have to think long and hard.

I asked myself this question a few days ago, and this is the third entry in my response.

I remember Chris Myers, an author and illustrator of children’s books.

He was speaking to honor Jerry Weiss, Distinguished Service Professor of Communication at Jersey City State College.  He began by quoting an ancient saying that when a butterfly flaps its wings, the air moves on the other side of the world.

He then went on to explain that many years ago, his father, Walter Dean Myers, also an author of children’s books, met Jerry, and that Jerry had been instrumental in his father’s career.

Chris’s Dad had taken him to visit Jerry’s classes, and Jerry had been a constant presence in both their lives.

Chris built a link between Jerry’s first meeting with his Dad, and his (Chris’s) own success as a writer and illustrator.

And he concluded with the comment that Jerry was in fact the butterfly who long ago beat his wings and had moved his influence through two generations of artists.

Chris Myers was a good speaker, and a memorable speaker, for several reasons.

1. He was warm, relaxed and engaging
2. He was empathetically focused on his primary audience–Jerry Weiss, the honoree.
3. He packaged his message around a memorable image–a puff of air made by a pair of butterfly wings.

When I heard Daniel Shore on NPR blame the listeners for the implosion of the Don Imus show, I felt a little ashamed, because I tuned in, I listened, and I laughed at Imus.

I liked how he insulted his colleagues and his guests on the air. His insults were pyrotechnical bursts of language that were Shakespearean in their richness. He didn’t say, “Thou wart-lipped scurvy knave! Son of a mongrel monkey with mange!” but he did call people “scum-sucking weasels,” or something similar, and I found that entertaining. It was colorful.

It was also funny because it was a performance, an exaggerated use of language executed with his tongue situated firmly in his cheek. And it was most often directed at people in the public eye who are fair game, whose social status is not easily questioned, and who already enjoy the enmity of a large portion of the population.

Imus, in some sense, is a court jester. As long as he makes fun of the courtiers, the ladies in waiting, and the King’s enemies, the King laughs and keeps him on the payroll.

But when the jester denigrates those close to the King, or makes the King’s life more difficult by demeaning those the King needs as allies, the jester is in trouble.

The King in our country is public opinion, and Imus crossed the King.  Satire is all well and good when its target is the pomposity of the powerful or the silliness of the striving classes.  Satire works well pointing its barrel up the social ladder, but it seems cruel to belittle, racialize and sexualize (if I can make up a word or two) young women who are young, dedicated, gifted and members of the second-best women’s basketball team in the country.  You look at them and think, “Boy, this is what’s right with our country.”

What if Imus had been more theatrical with his insult?  If he was upset with them because they’d lost, what if he’d fired up his insult engine and let loose with something truly Shakespearean, something so toweringly elaborate and verbally colorful that it would have been more entertaining than hurtful, more presentational than it was authentic?  Would he have gotten away with it?

I don’t think so.  Not if it derogated young black women.  We have free speech, but we are not free to arouse hatred. Words matter, even words spoken by jesters, because they can inflame dangerous human passions. And when the King sees that the jester has endangered the kingdom with his satire, the jester has to go.