Throughout history people have used public speaking as a vital means of communication. What the Greek leader Pericles said more than 2,500 years ago is still true today: "One who forms a judgment on any point but cannot explain" it clearly "might as well never have thought at all on the subject." Public speaking, as its name implies, is a way of making your ideas public-of sharing them with other people and of influencing other people.
During modern times many women and men around the globe have spread their ideas and influence through public speaking. In the United States, the list includes Franklin Roosevelt, Billy Graham, Cesar Chavez, Barbara Jordan, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, and Elizabeth Dole. In other countries, we see the power of public speaking employed by such people as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, South African leader Nelson Mandela, Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu, and Burmese democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi.
As you read these names, you may think to yourself, "That's fine. Good for them. But what does that have to do with me? I don't plan to be a president or a preacher or a crusader for any cause." Nevertheless, the need for public speaking will almost certainly touch you sometime in your life-maybe tomorrow, maybe not for five years. Can you imagine yourself in any of these situations?
You are a management trainee in a large corporation. Altogether, there are seven trainees in the program. One of you will get the lower-management job that has just opened. There is to be a large staff meeting at which each of the trainees will discuss the project he or she has been developing. One by one your colleagues make their presentations. They have no experience in public speaking and are intimidated by the higher-ranking managers present. Their speeches are stumbling and awkward. You, however, call upon all the skills you learned in your public speaking course. You deliver an informative talk that is clear, well-reasoned, and articulate. You get the job.
You are married and have three children. One of your children has a learning dis-ability. You hear that your local school board has decided, for budget reasons, to eliminate the special teacher who has been helping your child. At an open meeting of the school board, you stand up and deliver a thoughtful, compelling speech on the necessity for keeping the special teacher. The school board changes its mind.
You are the assistant manager in a branch office of a national company. Your immediate superior, the branch manager, is about to retire, and there will be a retirement dinner. All the executives from the home office will attend. As his close working associate, you are asked to give a farewell toast at the party. You prepare and deliver a speech that is both witty and touching a perfect tribute to your boss. After the speech, everyone applauds enthusiastically, and a few people have tears in their eyes.
The following week you are named branch manager.
Fantasies? Not really. Any of these situations could occur. In a recent survey of 480 companies and public organizations, communication skills-including public speaking were ranked first among the personal qualities of college graduates sought by employers.? The importance of such skills is true across the board- for accountants and architects, teachers and technicians, scientists and stockbrokers. Even in highly specialized fields such as civil and mechanical engineering, employers consistently rank the ability to communicate above technical knowledge when deciding whom to hire and whom to promote.
Nor has the growth of the Internet and other new technologies reduced the need for public speaking. As one communication consultant states,
"There are more avenues to reach people than ever before, but there's no substitute for face-to-face communication." To be successful, says business leader Midge Costanza, you must have "the ability to stand on your feet, either on a one-to-one basis or before a group, and make a presentation that is convincing and believable."
The same is true in community life. Public speaking is a vital means of civic engagement. It is a way to express your ideas and to have an impact on issues that matter in a democratic society. Look back for a moment at the second of our three hypothetical situations, the one in which you persuade the school board to keep the special teacher who has been helping your child. Why did the school board change its mind? Not simply because the facts were on your side (though they may have been) or because you knew more about education than the school board (which you probably do not).
The school board changed its mind because of your speech-in which you presented a compelling case for keeping the special teacher.
The point is that public speaking is a form of empowerment. It can-and often does--make a difference in things people care about very much.
The key phrase here is "make a difference." This is what most of us want to do in life to make a difference, to change the world in some small way.
Public speaking offers you an opportunity to make a difference in something you care about very much.
The Tradition of Public Speaking
Given the importance of public speaking, it's not surprising that it has been taught and studied around the globe for thousands of years. Almost all cultures have an equivalent of the English word "orator" to designate someone with special skills in public speaking. The oldest known handbook on effective speech was written on papyrus in Egypt some 4,500 years ago. Eloquence was highly prized in ancient India, Africa, and China, as well as among the Aztecs and other pre-European cultures of North and South America.* In classical Greece and Rome, public speaking played a central role in education and civic life. It was also studied extensively. Aristotle's Rhetoric, composed during the third century B.C.., is still considered the most important work on its subject, and many of its principles are followed by speakers (and writers) today. The great Roman leader Cicero used his speeches to defend liberty and wrote several works about oratory in general.
Over the centuries, many other notable thinkers have dealt with issues of rhetoric, speech, and language including the Roman educator Quintilian, the Christian preacher St. Augustine, the medieval writer Christine de Pizan, the British philosopher Francis Bacon, and the American critic Kenneth Burke. In recent years, communication researchers have provided an increasingly scientific basis for understanding the methods and strategies of effective speech.
Your immediate objective is to apply those methods and strategies in your classroom speeches. What you learn in your class, however, will be applicable long after you leave college. As you read this book, keep in mind that the principles of public speaking are derived from a long tradition and have been confirmed by a substantial body of research? The more you know about those principles, the more effective you will be in your own speeches and the more effective you will be in listening to the speeches of other people.
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