I know I am guilty of this. Putting something into a speech because I loved it rather than it fitting the speech. It seems especially true with contest speeches. We want to impress.
Have you ever done this?
Can you recognize when another speaker is doing this? Can you tell them?
John Kinde has an excellent newsletter where he wrote:
Too often, we’re tempted to force fit something into a talk that really doesn’t fit…the square peg in the round hole. This applies not only to magic, but also to other things we love; stories, humor, a song. A speaker who opens a talk with a joke, for the sake of the joke, is taking the same risks as a speaker who opens with a magic trick. Anything we add to a professional talk needs to organically fit into the speech. It needs to blend naturally into the content of the speech. Adding something to a speech just because “we like it” is a critical mistake.
It really is a critical mistake. I have seen evaluators focus on commending the square peg instead of calling it out for what it is.
Do the speaker a real favor, let them know if they are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Posted under evaluations
This post was written by john on February 1, 2010
