“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

 Mark Twain

I publish our first blog for 2020 reflecting back on one of our most enduring memories of 2019 during a critical communications training programme in New York. At the beginning of the session, one of the delegates – a senior diplomat – politely observed that there was very little he could learn about public speaking. The others nodded respectfully, after all, here was a distinguished diplomat whose career required eloquence, confidence and the ability to make an impact during countless negotiations or addresses in frequently challenging diplomatic contexts.

However, one of the greatest challenges that even the most accomplished speakers can face is mastering the two or three-minute speech. When preparing for a longer speech, time is our friend.  We have the luxury of planning detailed sections and perhaps some impactful slides. Time, however, quickly becomes our nemesis when brevity and disciplined thinking are essential for the slick and accomplished messaging of a short speech.

It is hardly surprising that this is the speaking challenge that many people dread. Yet it is a skill that can be mastered with application and, yes, some hard work. Indeed, everyone we have trained over the past few years would bear testimony to this, whether making maiden speeches at the UN or critical pitches to investors.

The key to success is distilling (never summarising) a key message, and then showcasing it. This requires a clarity of thinking that forces us to drill down to three fundamentals. What we are trying to say; what we want the audience to know (and remember), and what we want to achieve from the speech.

After our New York training session, the diplomat quietly announced that our session was the best course he had ever attended. I smiled: even the most experienced speakers can always learn something new.