The latest from Work Matters
| Brevity is the soul of a good speech |
| Short talks are the best talks. They are more focused and thus make a greater impact. In turn, listeners remember them. Christopher Witt, in collaboration with Dale Fetherling, makes this point in "Real Leaders Don't Do PowerPoint: How To Sell Yourself and Your Ideas." They provide an interesting list of speeches and how long they lasted: Patrick Henry and his"Give me liberty or give me death" speech was six minutes. The Gettysburg Address was all of two minutes. Franklin D. Roosevelt's address to the nation after Pearl Harbor was over in seven minutes. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech was only 16 minutes. And after the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, Ronald Reagan spoke to the nation for less than five minutes. So why do lawyers think a longer speech is better? I think it's because we are trained to cover all bases and develop all lines of argument; we fear criticism for leaving something out. It's better not to take a risk, the reasoning goes. But that's wrong. The art of persuasion and inspiration is the art of what to leave out. The authors make a telling point: "Also, in this age of PDAs, instant messaging, and other electronic distractions, audiences don't have the attention spans they may have once had. What's more, you want to leave your audience wanting more if you, not less." It's just like dating: Keep a date short, and if you need to break up, get to the point. |
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