In his 25-year quest to pin down the precise techniques that make a public delivery truly exceptional, Jonathan Pease has seen too many brilliant and highly qualified school and university leavers that just can’t win over a room.
And in the real world of business, where the ability to influence matters a great deal, these bright young sparks can fall horribly short of reaching their potential, Pease suggests.
“I get to interview lots of them for different opportunities and jobs … they have lots of interesting [ideas and skills] to add to a business, but they aren’t able to articulate it very well in a room, let alone if that room is not as receptive as they might like,” the consultant and director tells EducationHQ.
Navigating pushback or reluctance from clients, customers or business partners requires skilled communication, the expert adds – and it’s here that he sees an obvious need for public speaking to be explicitly taught well before people enter the boardroom or spheres of influence.
Many high-level executives are hampered by poor public speaking skills too, he says.
“I see a real need for this rigour, for people really understanding not only what are the right answers, what is the right theory, what are the right ideas – but importantly, how do I express them to other people so I get their attention and they are able to comprehend it and able to do something with it – adopt it, change their behaviour or invest or agree – whatever the endpoint is you’re looking to achieve in that meeting or that public speaking moment.
“I often see people coming into business without those skills.”
“I went through my own schooling period with a real fear of public speaking, and really just chose not to get up in front of other people,” Pease says.
Last year Pease released a book, Winning the Room, which encapsules the practical wisdoms he’s honed over years of research and experience in public speaking.
And having endured the fear and anxiety that’s so often attached to the experience himself, Pease hopes his insights will help those in business, but also teachers and school leaders, to dismantle much of the negative headspin around it.
“I went through my own schooling period with a real fear of public speaking, and really just chose not to get up in front of other people,” he recalls.
“At the time, I didn’t really think much of it. And I then went into the workforce, and that fear persisted. As a result, I started to miss out on opportunities.”
Pease’s reckoning struck towards the beginning of his career in New York, when he witnessed a new business leader deliver a rousing speech to his entire firm.
“He spoke for no more than seven minutes, and I just watched the whole business completely convert to this guy’s plan, and this guy’s vision.
“That was the moment where I thought to myself, ‘I need to at least get over this fear and take some of the advantages that you can get from public speaking and start incorporating that into my world’…” Pease says.
Since then the expert has been on a ‘wild journey’ that’s involved completing ‘every course I could find’ in New York, Europe and eventually, Australia.
“I watched great people around me, and wrote down my observations and started collecting tips and ideas from these people ... and I eventually broke the back of it for myself,” he says.
Pease has concluded that public speaking ought to be included as a core subject in K-12 education.
Whilst Australian educational policy arguably relegates oracy to the periphery of schools’ core purpose, England is striding ahead in its efforts to embed it throughout the curriculum.
In our schools at the moment, it’s only the very self-assured students that put their hands up for fleeting in-class speaking opportunities or whom join the debating club, Pease says, with the vast majority of students shying away from these entirely.
“I understand moments are created for public speaking. But the reality is, only the confident kids get up for those moments – that’s the ‘three percents’,” he explains.
“…And they’re the same kids over and over and over. And yes, they get the benefits of public speaking exposure.
“But I also question, are they really getting the tools to improve, and the tools to apply it to a business context? I’d probably say they’re not.
“What I'm proposing is, schools should create curriculum that gives people the tools and techniques and fundamentals of public speaking, that makes it much more accessible so all kids get it as a basic grounding.”
"My hope would be a teacher could pick up my book ... and then build curriculum straight out the back of it," Pease says.
Factors such as what to do with nerves, how to deliver a point with cut-through impact, the best way to structure ideas and arguments, and techniques for engaging eye contact with your audience are just some of the topics that ought to be explicitly covered, Pease suggests.
“I think public speaking is a great way to build your own confidence.
“And more than just when you’re public speaking, just in general, being able to believe in yourself, believe in your ideas, structure them in a way where they’re easy to understand, easy to remember, that just builds confidence in your own thinking, let alone the way you might go into a moment in public.”
In Winning the Room, Pease promotes the CLAIM model as the one to guide any foray into public speaking.
“CLAIM is confidence, likability, authenticity, influence and memorability … that model is what you want to embody as a public speaker, but also demonstrate in the room whilst you’re public speaking,” he explains.
“So, my hope would be a teacher could pick up my book, read through those five sections, and then build curriculum straight out the back of it.”
What is it about public speaking that makes the stomach clench and the blood drain from the top down? Pease says it’s all about giving up control, when it comes down to it.
“Once you are speaking in public, and that could be as few as two people around a coffee, you are sharing your ideas, your attitudes, your insights, whatever it may be – you’re putting these things out in the world, and you’re really relinquishing control.
“You have no control – or at least limited control – over what these other people are going to think, maybe their opinion on you, your reputation, a whole bunch of things ... no one wants to do that naturally, right?
“I think that’s a big part of it.”
Pease is currently working with students from the University of Sydney Business School to sharpen their pitching skills so they’re able to win more often when speaking in front of potential employers and clients.
So far it’s been a promising venture, he reports.
“We are seeing really great lifts for people when they put these tips and techniques into practice.
“So, I’m not saying I’ve got full-blown proof, but I’ve certainly got the start of some evidence that it can work at an educational level.”
