Public Speaking Tips for Speaking Slower
I had just won one National Speaking prize and still had people coming up to me to tell me that I spoke too fast.
I was well aware of that but struggled to address it – particularly when I was nervous.
Telling me to slow down felt as helpful as someone coming up to you after a tennis match and saying:
‘You would do better if you got the ball back more often.’
Well yeah! – I know.
I did learn two profoundly useful things from the comments about speaking too fast;
- firstly it was not the end of the world. I had still won a speaking competition.
And I already understood that probably more important than pace was clarity.
Someone who speaks fast, but clearly, may be perceived as passionate and enthusiastic. As long as you can understand them, you can still participate in the journey. You may even become infected by their apparent enthusiasm.
Also, bear in mind, one can listen faster than the other person speaks.
So, speaking fast, in itself, is not the problem.
However, since engaging an audience is achieved through contrast and variety, speaking quickly without any change of pace will become at best, exhausting to listen to, at worst, numbingly monotonous.
- secondly, I realised that many people are good at telling you what you are doing wrong, while people who can offer you a way of improving are much rarer. People telling me I spoke too fast without offering a solution taught me that if I really wanted to slow down my delivery I had to come up with my own solutions.
Some of which I am happy to share with you now.
I recently heard the comedian Rob Brydon on a BBC interview saying that if a performance is not going well, the tendency is to speed up; panic and anxiety tend to quicken the pace. He suggests slowing down and smiling so that at the very least you are giving an impression of being in control and enjoying yourself.
He gives the example of a paramedic at an accident reassuring the patient by speaking calmly.
If the paramedic is saying:
‘Oh God, that looks terrible! What are we going to do? Think, think, think!’
that will only increase the stress and anxiety in the patient.
Similarly, a speaker who seems flustered will lose credibility with the audience and so it is more about ‘seeming’ in control than necessarily ‘feeling’ in control.
Speed may be good for expressing passion, but sometimes we want to express authority – and that rarely comes through hurrying.
Great!
We need to slow down – but how do we do it?!
10 tips for speaking slowly
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One word at a time
One reason we rush is because our mind is already racing on to the next idea.
In fact, we are probably thinking of many ideas and then the words want to come out all at the same time! Think of your ideas like herds of sheep in a field and think of your mouth like the gate from the field. Each individual sheep is a word and your job at the gate is to make sure that only one word leaves the field at a time. If you don’t hold the gate they will all push together and rush out in an uncontrolled mass: so one sheep at a time. Therefore in speaking, separate each word and make sure that you finish one word before you start the next. Try this speaking into your phone.
You will think it will sound ridiculous, but when you hear it back, it will sound measured and controlled.
Particularly at the beginning of a presentation when you are likely to be the most nervous and more inclined to rush, consciously hold the gate and end one word before starting the next.
Below, the Labour politician Hilary Benn is introducing a speech about military commitment to the Middle East and can be clearly heard annunciating every word precisely. He wants to come across as a statesman and he realises that speaking excitedly and waving his hands in the air would not achieve that.
He is consciously measuring his pace and delivering each word separately and clearly
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Now slow down even more if there is a sharp bend coming!
While we still have Hilary Benn in mind, notice in the brief excerpt above how he takes extra care when he comes to the words, ‘different division lobbies’.
Like a car driving down a country road should slow down at a sharp bend or a show-jumping horse takes an extra moment to be set before jumping, Hillary Benn is aware of the potential danger coming up – he is reading the road ahead.
Think about those three words, ‘different division lobbies’ – how easily they could come out as ‘diffdevijnlobbies’.
We may have a difficult name to pronounce, a significant job title, or a challenging juxtaposition of vowels and consonants to contend with – slow down as you come up to them and give yourself an extra moment to negotiate them.
Presumably, looking at it from the other side, this is why many actors have chosen to adopt names that are easy to say, rather than spend their lives having to hear their real name being mangled.
Michael Caine is easier to say than Maurice Micklewhite and Tom Cruise is easier to say than Thomas Cruise Mapother IV.
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Focus on your mouth
Most of these tips I am offering you are techniques that will help at the very beginning of a presentation or if you lose composure in the middle. The opening of a presentation is a moment when we are likely to feel most nervous and it is important to offer that reassurance of competence to the audience and that is never achieved by rushing and mixing up our words.
Therefore as part of speaking one word at a time, make sure your mouth does a little bit of work. Mumblers are usually characterised as not opening their mouths enough. If I was introducing Maurice Micklewhite to the stage I would make sure, as well as slowing down, to annunciate each syllable correctly – particularly Micklewhite. Try saying Micklewhite and notice the three very different positions you lips need to find to properly pronounce each syllable.
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Hands and Voice
It is essential to make the hands-voice connection as a speaker. Active gestures will be reflected in an active voice. We can therefore use our hands to help moderate the speed. One danger for speakers who stand clasping the sides of a lectern, or stand with their hands passively in front of them, is that there is no way to put a break on the cascade of words. The words can flow like a torrent out of the speaker’s mouth and there is nothing to control the deluge.
We can use our gestures to stress a particular word and to punctuate the speed at which each word comes out.
Think of it like an orchestral conductor using his hands to control the pitch, pace and power of the words coming out of the mouth.
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Keywords
To continue the flowing water analogy…
In the park near to where I live, the council has chosen to landscape the little stream flowing through the middle. They have broken the steady flow with little obstacles, rocks, logs, and plants that force a change in pace and rhythm in the water.
Similarly, in speaking, not every word is of equal importance, and by breaking up the flow we can highlight what is significant in meaning. Some words will be essential to expressing the idea clearly. Become aware of what these words are and emphasise them to create a change of pace.
If my presentation focused on the importance of ‘discipline’, then that word would get extra emphasis each time it came around. I could use it as a break in the steady flow of words by slowing down before it or waiting for an instant after saying it. I want that word to stand out. If all the words are too fast there is no contrast and everything becomes a blur.
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Pause
I have always loved the analysis of Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon final win.
The pundit was asked what the difference was between that year and the year before. The answer came:
‘He slowed down between points.’
There was probably more to it than that, but to highlight the pausing shows that under pressure a characteristic of the successful is their ability to slow down, take time, and not rush.
Look for opportunities to pause: maybe after a keyword or before a keyword; maybe allowing time for a significant statement or a rhetorical question to resonate; or maybe using the structure of the presentation as a chance to gather your thoughts between sections.
Remember that your audience is probably hearing this for the first time so they need time to digest.
I always remember one of my great life lessons as a musician, which actually had nothing to do with music or performing and everything to do with not being flustered. We were on tour and I was late for a rehearsal in the next town. I was travelling with an older, very experienced and highly respected colleague. I became incredibly flustered as I realised we were going to be late, particularly as a youngster, as I understood that being late is the greatest sin for a professional.
As I got out of the car and grabbed my cello, preparing to get into the rehearsal as soon as I could, my mentor said to me:
‘Do you know what we are going to do now? We are going to find a café and have a quiet cup of coffee first – because when you arrive ten minutes late for a rehearsal everyone says ‘Where have you been?’; if you arrive forty minutes late everyone asks ‘Are you all right?!
Ten minutes late looks like your fault. Forty minutes looks like it was someone else’s!’
Apart from that useful life wisdom, I think that my mentor realised that I was too flustered to be any use to anyone and he wanted to show me that we were not dealing with a life and death situation and as the souvenir coffee cups say:
‘Keep calm and carry on.’
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Use metaphorical language
One great advantage of using descriptive or metaphorical terms is that they often call for a gesture of support: ‘climbing over’, ‘working through’, ‘raising expectations’, ‘gathering together’, and as we use our hands to support those images we can make sure that we are also using our hands to slow down our delivery.
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Tell stories
Stories are the most natural way of communicating and if part of the reason for rushing is panic, then telling a story that you are confident in will help lower the anxiety and if we are also describing a scene or an event in our story we can once again use our gestures to support the descriptive and geographical words and use them to act as a brake on the desire to rush ahead.
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Count or ‘think’ punctuation
If I have an important statement that I do not want to rush, I will force myself to count silently in my head to stop myself driving on and ruining the impact of that statement (two, three, four, five.) Then I will move on to the next idea.
Some speakers will silently think punctuation as the speak (Full stop). That way (comma) they are creating the space they require in their sentences (Full stop)
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Rehearse
Yep! We finish with our old friend – rehearsal or repetition.
To return to Rob Brydon, a comedian will take their new act out on the road and try it out a few times, maybe as a free local show, to find the rhythm of their delivery. Rob Brydon says he is analysing his performance all the time:
Could he leave more space? Should he drop that word?
And obviously, if you have delivered a presentation many times you will be more aware of the bumps in the road and the pit-falls.
I find that if I am delivering a training session or a presentation that I have delivered many times before – I don’t rush!
Therefore, please use some of these techniques to help you slow your pace as you speak, but in the end, the best way to handle the situation is through practice, repetition and familiarity.
