Kate's Voice

Two of the most important components of great communication are how you start and how you finish.  This is as true for a phone conversation or a WebEx as it is for public speaking.  In the first few minutes, your audience or conversation partners are making judgments about how and who you are and they will not hear what you have to say until they get that straight in their minds! As for the finish, often people finish with a dangling, “so…” or a hurried “go to my website,” and the effect is to leave the audience without a clear direction to continue or respond to the conversation.

Thus, I always tell my clients to create an opening and a close.  Period. Even if you are put on the spot to speak extemporaneously or are expressing your opinion in “a conversation that matters, “ delivering a real opening and closing help to ensure that your intention is in alignment with your content and both with your delivery.

I’ve created an acronym for each to help my clients create strong openings and closings. It will help you do the same. Practice this approach the next time you prepare an important communication.

Opening:
Here’s a way to think about an opening for a talk.  Make it NICE by including the following elements:

Name: Let them know who you are both with your name and with a personal reference such as a story or observation.
Intention: The purpose of your talk and perhaps what will be covered, or what you hope to accomplish
Call to adventure or discovery:  What you expect of them and something enticing or mysterious that they can expect to experience in your talk. (This is a term  I like that is used by Nancy Duarte in the book Resonate)
Engagement: A story or joke or interactive activity, or an unexpected provocative statement or challenge. Get them involved.

Closing: Bring it to a real finish by creating a close that has RICH elements.  Above all,  resist the urge to make “so” your final word!

Restate or summarize: Review what was presented or discussed
Inspire:  Ignite a desire to continue the conversation (motivational quote, personal statement, thought provoking idea)
Call to action: give them something to do next.
Help them on their way: Say goodbye, or simply move them along to the next activity by asking for questions, etc. If you host a Q&A, afterwards, reiterate the call to action an say goodbye.

Related posts:

How to start an important conversation

How to create a voice with executive presence

When I memorize a piece of music or a talk, it doesn’t take long before I see the pages in my head.  I flip through them mentally as I go along.  I know this happens after repeated exposure to a written document.  In fact, I seem to remember all of my notes and scribbling, too.  I understand this as pattern memorization of a sort, which is why I was so excited to discover a pattern memorization tool that I can teach others.

About ten years ago, I came upon the “memory palace.”  This is an ancient technique for memorization used by orators in ancient Greece, and rediscovered by Mateo Ricci in the late 17^th century.  Ricci used the technique to make Catholicism memorable to the Chinese.  While you could argue that it didn’t work out so well for Ricci, still it’s a great tool and one that I find very helpful.  The basic approach is to create a mental picture of a familiar setting.  You “place” reminders of what you are trying to remember throughout the mental picture.  To recall your piece, you simply “walk” through your setting and what you need to remember is all there.

It’s a great technique, and its usefulness is probably related to why it seems to be easier to remember what you have to say if you create movements to go along with a talk, or blocking as in a dramatic piece. Do that, by the way, if you have trouble memorizing your talks.  Block your part so that you move on specific words or ideas.  That will help your memorization significantly.

Recently, I found a wonderful description of the Memory Palace technique and instructions for its use on the blog, Litemind, written by Luciano Passuello.  This blog, by the way, is  one of my new favs and I highly recommend it..  I used the technique and memorized the grocery list of 9 items that he gives as a practice piece in one attempt.  Check it out.

What do you do to memorize?  Please share your tips.

Here are some other articles for learning memorization techniques:

How to memorize anything, on the blog JohnPlace Online

Brain Imaging Identifies Best Memorization Strategies, on Science Daily

Using Memory Effectively, on the website Study Guides and Strategies