Why Oratium? - The big problem with current training

The problem with current teaching on presentation skills is not that it’s unhelpful or wrong:- The problem is that it’s superficial and basic, endlessly recycling the same old ideas, which have little to do with great speaking and a lot to do with avoiding a speaking disaster. The reason current training/coaching is so unhelpful is that it’s rooted in two persistent myths:

 

Myth #1 - Public speaking performance is largely governed by natural ‘gifting’ (or lack thereof).

 

Result: An inevitable focus on basic skills and ‘disaster avoidance’. (Don’t jangle your keys, remember to make eye contact, check your fly, try not to insult a questioner)

 

Myth #2 - Presentation excellence is mostly about what happens at the podium.

 

Result: A total lack of attention to the critical area of presentation architecture/messaging, reflecting a total failure to recognize that the fate of most presentations is actually sealed long before the podium moment.

 

[By the way - This emphasis on delivery is what attracts failed actors/directors to a ‘second career’ in speaker coaching. Well and good, but don’t expect too much on presentation design from people whose entire lives have been spent delivering the design of others….]

By focusing almost exclusively on ‘game-day’ delivery skills, and with an emphasis on disaster avoidance, traditional training/coaching has almost no hope of creating exceptional speakers. Instead, it sets out to help challenged speakers sidestep the obvious landmines in their podium performance. It focuses on the trivial and its highest hope is competence.

 

While not getting booed off stage is certainly an admirable goal, perhaps we should set our sights a little higher than this. True, great speakers don’t jangle the keys in their pockets. But that isn’t what makes them great.

 

 

A surprisingly convenient truth.

 

Whether a presentation spectacularly succeeds or spectacularly fails, it does so for reasons that are largely within any speaker’s control. These reasons have little to do with natural ‘speaking talent’ and much less to do with ‘game-day’ performance than we have been lead to believe.

 

Success comes when exceptional presentation design is matched with exceptional delivery, and the critical truth is that the skills and processes of both can be learned. Because of this fact, a high level of accomplishment can be attained by virtually anyone.

 

What We Teach: The DNA of exceptional speaking ...