Effective delivery is the controlled use of voice and body to express the qualities of naturalness, enthusiasm, confidence, and directness. As Winans has noted, effective delivery is characterized by “a style at once simple and effective.”3 Thus an effective delivery style rests on the same natural foundation as everyday conversation, except that it is more rehearsed and purposeful.
Strive for Naturalness
Contemporary audiences expect naturalness from a speaker. Had you been a student in the early 1900s, during the heyday of the elocutionary movement, the opposite would have been true. The elocutionists regarded speechmaking as a type of performance, much like acting.4 Students were given a rigid set of rules on how to use their eyes, faces, gestures, and voices to drive home certain points in the speech and to manipulate audience members’ moods. Instructors emphasized delivery to such an extent that it often assumed more importance than the content of the speech.
Today, the content or message itself, rather than the delivery, is seen as being most important. Audience members expect speakers to be without artifice, to be genuine. Conveying these qualities, however, requires practice. Perhaps ironically, it is only by thoroughly rehearsing the message that you gain the confidence to deliver it in a natural manner.
Show Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is contagious, and is seldom criticized. When you talk about something that excites you, you talk more rapidly, use more gestures, look at your listeners more frequently, use more pronounced facial expressions, and probably stand closer to your listeners and perhaps even touch them more. Your enthusiasm spills over to your listeners, drawing them into your message. As their own enthusiasm grows, they listen more attentively because they want to know more about the thing that excites you. In turn, you sense their interest and responsiveness and realize that you are truly connecting with them. The value of enthusiastic delivery is thus accomplished: It focuses your audience’s attention on the message.
Project a Sense of Confidence
Speeches delivered with confidence and composure inspire the audience’s confidence in you and in your message. Your focus is on the ideas that you want to convey, not on memorized words and sentences and not on yourself. Instead of thinking about how you look and sound, think about the idea you’re trying to convey and how well your listeners are grasping it. Confident delivery directs the audience’s attention to the message and away from the speaker’s behavior.
Be Direct
To truly communicate with an audience, you must build rapport with your listeners. You need to show that you care about them and their reasons for listening to you. This is generally done in two ways: by making your message relevant to the interests and attitudes of audience members, and by demonstrating your interest and concern for them in your delivery. The best way to do the latter is by being direct: Maintain eye contact; use a friendly tone of voice; animate your facial expressions, especially positive ones such as smiling and nodding; and position yourself so that you are physically close to the audience. Of course, you don’t want to go overboard by becoming annoying or overly familiar with the audience. But neither do you want to appear distant, aloof, or uncaring. Both extremes draw audience attention away from the message. Chapters 18 and 19 focus on techniques for using your voice and body, respectively, to achieve a natural, enthusiastic, confident, and direct delivery. In the following section, we consider the major methods of delivery.