Let a doctor (and frequent speaker) explain why you need a coach

There's a great recent TED talk from physician, bestselling author, and frequent speaker Atul Gawande that makes a great case for getting a coach--and in the process of giving this talk, Gawande tackles directly a barrier I face when working with highly trained individuals: They think they've been taught everything they need to know to figure out on their own what they need to know.

In other words, they react poorly to the idea they need to be coached or taught new skills, particularly the ones they diminish by calling them "soft" skills. You know, like public speaking. Trouble is, few of them have ever learned the skills involved in public presentations and speechmaking.

As a physician, Gawande notes in his talk, he and his colleagues have been taught that "A professional is someone who is capable of managing their own improvement." But, he, notes, "Now, the contrasting view comes out of sports. And they say "You are never done, everybody needs a coach." Everyone. The greatest in the world needs a coach."

After thinking about his own work as a surgeon, Gawande concluded, "Turns out there are numerous problems in making it on your own. You don't recognize the issues that are standing in your way or if you do, you don't necessarily know how to fix them. And the result is that somewhere along the way, you stop improving." So he got a coach--a surgeon-as-coach. And he offers numerous other examples, from medicine and other fields, of situations that went well (or not) when coaching was applied (or not).

As a coach myself, I often reach for lessons from other coaches in many fields. That's why I'm reading basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's memoir, Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court. He recalls being at the White House ceremony to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom along with luminaries like Robert Redford, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bruce Springsteen:

I looked down the line of the wonderfully successful people on either side of me and wondered if each of them had a Coach Wooden, who, to quote President Obama, "helped make me who I am." I hoped so, because without Coach, my life would have been so much less. Less joyous. Less meaningful. Less filled with love.

Jabbar notes that Coach Wooden focused players on the activity at hand, not the outcome. It's a great lesson for public speakers as well.

Take a look at Gawande's exploration of coaching, and if you want to improve your speaking skills, get in touch with me at eloquentwoman AT gmail DOT com. Watch the video below or here:

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The Eloquent Woman's weekly speaker toolkit

I read a lot about women and public speaking, and post my finds first on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook. But I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. Here's what I've been reading lately:

• Sexism at scale: Taking a look at the largest trade show, The insidious sexism of CES is impossible to ignore is a thoughtful examination of all the ways the conference discriminates against women.
• What about them? In Stop asking me what about men? the author finds an interesting way to do some research on this sexist trope.
• Did you miss? This week, the blog looked at a new volume of talks from The Moth, and Famous Speech Friday shared a speech by Megan Red Shirt-Shaw at a Harvard convocation.
• A great loss: The wonderful novelist Ursula K. LeGuin died last week 88. Her speech, We Are Volcanoes, was our 100th Famous Speech Friday and a rallying cry for women today who want to speak up.
• About the quote: Wisdom from actor Lupita Nyong'o.

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

Famous Speech Friday: Megan Red Shirt-Shaw's convocation speech

In May 2017, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw became one of the first Native Americans to give a convocation speech at Harvard University, speaking on behalf of her fellow students in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the venue, the speech garnered much attention for its passionate defense of education for all. But Red Shirt-Shaw's take on the topic is a reminder that education doesn't start, end, or remained confined within a school--even a place as prestigious as Harvard.

Red Shirt-Shaw spent her graduate years balancing study time with time as a front-line activist working with the Harvard student group Future Indigenous Educators Resisting Colonial Education (FIERCE) on urgent issues such as the Dakota Pipeline Access movement. Her convocation speech is unusual in that it highlights the way that traditional classrooms and assignments can often be the least important parts of an education. This part of the address, describing her work with a Canadian education program for indigenous girls called Moving the Mountain, is just one of the striking examples of this fact:

That day with faces like mine would remind me in my greatest lesson of the year what resilience is, unlike my own experiences. Almost every person and every system in their life has let them down, and yet they persevere, rising like fire from the ashes. Moving the mountains, unleashed in their ways. I cried in anger for the entire flight back because I knew what I was learning here in the classroom wasn't going to make the world better for them tomorrow.

What can you learn from this famous speech?

• Take advantage of an historic opportunity. As one of Harvard's first Native American convocation speakers, Red Shirt-Shaw found ways to explain how her background had fueled and influenced her time at the university. The passage about how she carried the voices of her family and other native students with her, from her first day on campus, reminded me of what institutions have to gain from expanding the diversity of their student body. And one of the most popular lines from the speech passed around on social media (see below) was her mother's cherished Lakota phrase: "Weksuye, ciksuye, miksuye." ("I remember, I remember you, remember me.")
• Reach for poetry, if it's in your grasp. Red Shirt-Shaw, among her many talents, is a gifted writer and editor who founded the online publication Natives in America to highlight the work of young Native writers. I think part of the appeal of her speech is the gorgeous bits of writing in it that verge on the poetic--lines like this one: "We cannot begin to predict in the future what will be difficult, what will feel safe, who will be beautiful to us, and what will make us feel like we've come undone."
• Keep the conversation going after your speech. There are plenty of ways to make your speech resonate far beyond the time and space occupied by its original listeners. Recording and sharing video, transcriptions, links to materials used in preparing your talk and following up on social media are all great options. I was touched by Red Shirt-Shaw's follow-up on Twitter as the speech gathered more online viewers, listing her hopes the speech's future impact, including the hope to "honor indigenous voices and let's move more of them onto stages everywhere, every day, all the time."

  Almost one week later and watching my convocation speech rise over 770,000 views today, here are my hopes:

  — Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (@mredshirtshaw) May 30, 2017

Here's the full video of the speech:


(Freelance writer Becky Ham contributed this Famous Speech Friday post)

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

New volume of talks from The Moth focuses on uncertainty

I received as a gift The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown from a friend after a hospital stay during which the doctors couldn't yet diagnose me, so I was living in medical uncertainty. It was a well-timed choice, focused as this volume is on talks about the unknown.

And aside from being a beautifully made volume--one you will want in hardcopy even if, like me, you mostly collect ebooks--this book does something I wish we'd see more of: It collects actual scripts (or in this case transcripts) of complete talks. Talks at The Moth must be personal experiences of the speakers and they must be true, but after that, anything goes.

This is a wonderful volume for the shelf of a speechwriter, a speaker seeking to learn how to tell effective personal stories, or that good friend waiting for a diagnosis or a decision to land.

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

The Eloquent Woman's weekly speaker toolkit

I read a lot about women and public speaking, and post my finds first on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook. But I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. Here's what I've been reading lately:

• How to respond to harassment: Recently, reader Claire Duffy made this request: "The lid has blown right off the sexual harassment issue. It’s ugly and traumatic territory. I’d like to see girls and women getting some help with negotiating this difficult topic. I am surrounded by women saying - ashamedly ‘I didn’t know how to get him to stop’ and I know several who are simply paralyzed by the inability to speak up about it - whether they’re victims, or just dealing with discussions in a social setting. It all comes back to the age old power imbalance that got you started on this blog in the first place. To that I would add the stupefying insensitivity so many men show on this matter. They just don’t get it. How can we help them? So that’s my item for the ‘to do’ list." This resource page from Catalyst is a great start with info for harrassed women, men, and employers.
• A voice that resonates: A wonderful look from The Library of Congress about the little we know about Abraham Lincoln's voice. I love that he was a slow speaker: "Lincoln also spoke slowly, allowing his words to be considered and understood. While this pace may have accorded with Lincoln’s own speaking style, he clearly recognized the value of a slow cadence in a public address. Unable to attend a rally in Springfield, Illinois, in 1863, he sent a letter to be read aloud on his behalf, a draft of which is in the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. “You are one of the best public readers. I have but one suggestion,” Lincoln advised his political associate James C. Conkling: “Read it very slowly.” "
• Did you miss? This week, the blog looked at Mary Beard's new book on women and power, and Famous Speech Friday shared Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet trends report, a rule-breaking presentation.
• About the quote: Get some courage from frequent-speaking First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

Famous Speech Friday: Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet trends report

She breaks every rule in the book with her annual presentation. She tends to wear unremarkable black. Her slide deck is enormous, with more than 300 slides for a 30-minute time slot. Her charts have too much type on them, many impossible to read from the audience. Her delivery is staccato, clipped, fast-talker fast, and often monotone.

But Mary Meeker, a venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, gives what is arguably the most famous annual slide presentation in any industry. Her slide deck this year has more than 1.8 million views on SlideShare at this writing and, unlike yours or mine, is pored over for clues and hints as to what this expert on the digital space foresees for the year ahead.

For Meeker, it is what it is. Her beginning--almost a warning to the audience--tells you this is not going to be some kind of inspiring TED talk: "This presentation is meant to be read, it's not meant to be presented, so it is online at KleinerPerkins.com and elsewhere, so please do not take notes and I apologize for the speed at which I will go through this." Her delivery is not without humor, pauses, or expressiveness, although it is a workmanlike effort to get through a lot of material.

The presentation is not as unremarkable as that sounds. In fact, it carries huge influence. For one relatively new private ad tech company, Vungle, being featured on slide 27 of Meeker's 355-slide deck this year meant instant fame: "Large investors, the type that you would dream about reaching out to you, are courting you and your board," [Vungle co-founder and CEO Zain] Jaffer, 29, said. "Now I'm being asked what I would do if I had an 'extra $100 million or $200 million.'"

What can you learn from this famous speech?

• Content matters: Meeker's annual report is sought after because of its unique and comprehensive look at all the major internet and digital trends of the day--not just a data dump, but trenchant analysis, distilled so it makes sense. Yes, you can have a 355-page distillation. On occasion. This presentation is eagerly awaited each year for the content, which is stellar. It adds value. Don't let anyone tell you your content doesn't matter. It does.
• If you're going to buck the rules, explain how: Meeker's early disclaimer that the slides are not meant to be presented is there for a reason: To be sure her audiences (those in front of her and the virtual gang) understand her intention. But it's a useful reminder for speakers: Your slides are not the be-all end-all of your presentation.
• Throw me a sparse summary to keep my understanding high: Throughout the deck, you'll see nearly blank slides with just a few words of summary highlighting and summarizing the trend data she's discussing. "Ad Growth = Driven by Mobile" is one example. Those short markers ensure her audience can follow along and get the gist of what the longer, more complex data slides will back up in later reading.

This isn't necessarily a format to emulate, but one to marvel at in the hands of a master. I follow Meeker's report every year, and learn much from it. You can see the full slide deck here, and watch the entire talk in the video here or below:

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"Find your voice and use it:" New book encourages women speakers

A British writer gave two powerful lectures on women and their right to express themselves, and they were published as a book that went on to be a manifesto for women's right to an independent voice that had a huge impact on women for decades. I'm referring, of course, to the lectures that became Virginia Woolf's masterpiece A Room of One's Own. But there is a new manifesto out, one that also combines two lectures with an equal power to inspire women on public speaking and the power that comes with it.

Women and Power A Manifesto combines two lectures by British classics scholar Mary Beard. If you want a preview, we covered both of these lectures in our Famous Speech Friday series, with the lecture on women and power here, and the lecture on the public voice of women here. So many women don't realize that today's issues in public speaking for women are not just issues of today, but endless repetitions that stem from ancient times. And since ancient times are Beard's specialty, she takes the time to show us the impact that patriarchy has had on women's voices and power for centuries. I should note that the same historical record has been available to male historians all this time all this time, and yet we rarely read about the systemic ways in which women's voices have been silenced throughout history. For that reason alone, this book is a must-read.

Beard isn't just influenced by history. As a female academic, she sees the gender disparities on conference programs, and is trolled unmercifully online by those who disagree with her feminist views. Her work is well-informed by today's challenges, and her advice is simple: "Find your voice and use it.". I hope you'll take the time to read this important work.
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