I’ve lost count of the number of times when I’ve read fora online – about public speaking – when the advice has been the mantra “practice, practice, pracatice”. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t practice! Of course you should.
I’m continually bugged by people saying “I have an presentation to make next week: help!” who look slightly surprised when I say “How much time do you have to practice between now and then?”. They seem to think there’s a silver bullet which will solve their problems. Practice helps for sure!
I’d like to differentiate between what I’m going to call ‘strategic practice’ and ‘tactical practice’. Tactical practice is what you do when you go over and over and over something, again and again and again. A pianist doing their scales would be a classic example or a tennis player receiving balls from a serving machine….
There’s certainly something to be gained from this: mind you, less than you think – I’ve talked a bit more about differentiating practice and rehearsing.
Strategic practice is when you have a go at something, as before over and over, but this time with a gap between so that you can get feedback. In the context of public speaking, this would be something like giving a presentation at Toastmasters, thinking about what you did right and wrong over a couple of weeks and having another go. Obviously there’s a lot to be gained here, too.
There are times, however, when you can over do it – particularly the tactical stuff.
I follow guykawasaki on Twitter and a recent Tweet of his pointed me at this article about why we sometimes get things wrong, no matter how well practiced we are. I particularly ‘like’ number nine in the list as a presenter… the harder you try, the more likely it is go wrong.
Apart from all that, there’s also the obvious one – if you’re too practiced, you sound like you’re too practiced… and that’s boring to listen to. Obviously you shouldn’t be making it up as you go along either, but don’t let it go stale, either! :)
Simon,
Absolutely agree with you.
I like talking through my speech, first while I’m standing in my office with my notes nearby and then as I’m walking through a nearby park. (Since I gesture a lot while I’m speaking — even when I’m not speaking aloud– people tend to avoid me on these walks.)
I focus on what I want to say, on the concepts, not on the exact words because memorizing anything other than a few phrases I particularly like always backfires on me.
When I’m with an audience, I want to be able to go with the moment, not recite what I’ve practiced.
Chris