Great feedback makes a great speaker

At the first TEDx I organized we had a terrible speaker.


Boring, unprepared, forgot her script so often that it became painful.

A real squirm in your seat, suddenly need the loo so you can escape the room type of awkward.

And it was entirely my fault.


I was so worried about upsetting her by saying her script wasn’t ready, that I just kept nodding and smiling when I’d hear her practice.

And so insecure in my coaching (I was an event organizer, not a speaker coach!!!) that I trusted her on her word that she’d be ready on the night.


But all that kindness didn’t help anyone.

She was devastated about how the talk went.

The poor audience had to suffer not only the awful talk, but then feel incredibly sorry for a lovely woman clearly having a meltdown on stage.

And as organizers we felt pretty silly for having let it get that far.


We were trapped in a collective delusion.

The kindest thing we could have done was to provide honest feedback.


I’ve come a long way since that first event more than 10 years ago.

Now, the feedback part is the bit I really feel I excel at.

There are so many ways to share an idea, present a topic, tell your story... and my job is to help you say it in the most effective, engaging way possible.

So,

Let's try this...
Have you thought about that...
The audience is going to feel X, is that what you want?
I'm not sure if that's working...
I wonder if...

All the way to a great talk!