The tone of their speech, the way they sit, their facial expressions and of course their knowledge all play a huge role of being a great speaker.

There is a cool website called Meet The Boss TV that offers free video interviews with top business leaders and Fortune 500 CEOs that I would like to share with you guys.

Let me know what you think about the leadership training videos at http://www.meettheboss.tv and please share any resources you may have.

Cheers!

You’re right: just because no empirical evidence has been found to support the theory doesn’t invalidate it. But the lack of supporting evidence sure shoud give its proponents reason to pause and to question their assumptions.

I don’t like basing behavior on commonly accepted, though unproven theory.

There is some validity to the theory, because so many — yourself and the many people who have responded to this post — find it helpful. But I think it needs more analysis.

I think — and this is just a tentative, totally unsupported hypothesis — that there is something about the nature of information that is visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (or some of each). So I tend to explain information in the mode(s) most appropriate to it. I struggle to present information as clearly as possible, using whichever mode makes the most sense. I usually end up using at least two, sometime three, modes. But I do not base my presentations on the “learning modes” of the listeners. I may be splitting hairs here.

By the way, aerodynamcis does not prove that bees can’t fly. That misconception was / is based on an early scientific error. It has subsequently been shown, using the laws of aerodynamcis, how bees fly.

I like splitting semantic hairs, since words are the heart of what I do.

To learn something is, to my way of thinking, to gain insight, knowledge, or skill. Learning improves what we know or how we act. If I keep doing the same thing over and over again, whether it’s good or bad, I may get conditioned — as you say — but I don’t think I’ve learned anything. I taken a bad habit and reinforced it so it’s even harder to break.

Thanks for sharing how you learned to speak. You confirm my belief that we have to work at it. In my training classes and with my coaching clients, I always help them observe and analyze other speakers. It’s what helped me. It helped you. I think it’s a great practice.

Best, Chris

As far as learning how to speak, I did exactly what you said — I took hundreds of pages of notes over the course of a year or so. Every speaker I watched got observed from a “what works, what doesn’t?” standpoint. Eventually those things became ingrained in me. I then tested them in a lab setting (my classrooms — I’m a trainer) and followed up with some very specific and analytical evaluation using video and audio recordings. And I partnered along the way with like-minded folks who would tell me the truth and not just say “I loved your talk!”

I’ve got video to prove I got better. I took notes today and will video my next effort because I believe I can get better still.

I agree that many — not all — of the phrases are commonly understood in business circles. It’s just that I don’t think of them as metaphors. They’ve become jargon, which has its own uses — in small doses.

Thanks for your insight.

I use some of the phrases myself, although I’m trying to break myself of the habit. It’s a personal thing.

Chris

About whether to use these, it’s all context. I would *never* recommend anyone speak in trite language like this for a speech or other formal communication. My comment had to do with the usefulness of some of them as short-hand in quick conversations. Most of them are universally understood in a business setting, and are evocative of many shades of meaning you may wish to convey simultaneously. Some of them are useful in that way. But please don’t take my defense of their usefulness as a defense of any of them as good communications. They’re all bad. Some just happen to be handy.