How to screw up a speech (CC#2: Organize Your Essay)

I screwed up today's speech. I still won the club award. But that was on my strength of speaking, and not on the quality of speech.

I've been working on a Theodore Roosevelt speech for about a month. I've gone through an estimated four drafts. And none of them sounded right. I ended up delivering a jumble of information today. It was well-received and praised.

My evaluator, a kindly retired lawyer, rightly took me to task on it. He thinks he was too harsh; he was actually just right, and I'm glad the club saw the critiques he made.

Could better preparation helped? Sure. I didn't effectively memorize the speech, or even talking points, because I was struggling until the last minute to get a draft.

Could I have worked on my physical presentation? Yes. I was in a suit. But I tended to pace. I have a way of scanning the room that's reminiscent of an oscillating sprinkler. It's eye contact, but it's not particularly effective (and for the vision impaired toastmaster, damn annoying -- the auditory input of someone pacing while speaking can actually induce nausea).

But those are secondary issues.

The biggest reason it was a bad speech was because the topic was ill-suited to the format.

The Competent Communicator (CC) #2 speech is all about organization. There should be a clear intro, in which you enumerate your three main points. There should be three supporting points. And, finally, there should be a conclusion.

The problem is that I ended up delivering a narrative speech. There's just too much info in any biographical narrative (and most obviously so when discussing a crowded life like T.R.'s.)

A narrative is a terrible approach to a highly structured speech, especially given the time constraints.

The speech would have gone better if I had stuck with draft #2, which organized roughly along certain personality traits.

But it would have still foundered on the fundamental fact that historical narrative is a poor match for this speech.

Most of us are limited by topic. We have to speak about a certain thing in a professional setting. We have to talk about the bride and groom at a wedding. In the vast majority of cases, the topic is fixed. Sometimes even the format is fixed. But even in those cases, what flexibility exists comes from format, not from content.

These Toastmasters speeches are precisely the opposite. For many of these speeches (but not all: CC#1: The Icebreaker is a conspicuous exception), the speaker has freedom -- too much for comfort -- to choose any topic he or she wishes. It's the format, structure, or grading rubric that is fixed. The intent is clear: focus on a single technical aspect of the speech. It doesn't matter if it's about something no one cares about; at this level, the emphasis is on the mechanics.

It's important to double-check that you're doing precisely what you're supposed to be doing. And sometimes, in order to do what you're supposed to do, you have to ditch your preferred topic and go with another one.

This lesson applies to writing as well. Even if you have freedom to include whatever examples or content you wish, your format will often suggest more natural topics, and, contrariwise, will build in natural barriers if you insist on alternative topics.

This might not be helpful for those of you speaking in work settings. But for those of you with some flexibility in content, but not in form, it bears remembering. I'll keep that in mind while I prepare for CC#3: Get to The Point.