第4章 Earning the Right to Talk 做好演讲前的准备

Part Two Speech, Speaker, and Audience

In this part we discuss the speech triangle—the three aspects of every speaking situation.

First, there is the speech itself. We learn about the content of the talk, how it must be recreated from the warp and woof of our experience.

Second, there is the speaker. Here we discuss those attributes of mind, body, and voice that must energize the delivery of the speech.

Third, there is the audience, the target toward which the speech is aimed and the final arbiter of the success or failure of the speaker's message.

MANY YEARS AGO, a Doctor of Philosophy and a rough-and-ready fellow who had spent his youth in the British Navy were enrolled in one of our classes in New York. The man with the degree was a college professor; the ex-tar was the proprietor of a small side-street trucking business. His talks were far better received by the class than those given by the professor. Why? The college man used beautiful English. He was urbane, cultured, refined. His talks were always logical and clear. But they lacked one essential—concreteness. They were vague and general. Not once did he illustrate a point with anything approaching a personal experience. His talks were usually nothing more than a series of abstract ideas held together by a thin string of logic.

On the other hand, the trucking firm proprietor's language was definite, concrete, and picturesque. He talked in terms of everyday facts. He gave us one point and then backed it up by telling us what happened to him in the course of his business. He described the people he had to deal with and the headaches of keeping up with regulations. The virility and freshness of his phraseology made his talks highly instructive and entertaining.

I cite this instance, not because it is typical of college professors or of men in the trucking business, but because it illustrates the attention-compelling power of rich, colorful details in a talk.

There are four ways to develop speech material that guarantees audience attention. If you follow these four steps in your preparation you will be well on the way to commanding the eager attention of your listeners.

FIRST/ LIMIT YOUR SUBJECT

Once you have selected your topic, the first step is to stake out the area you want to cover and stay strictly within those limits. Don't make the mistake of trying to cover the open range. One young man attempted to speak for two minutes on the subject of “Athens from 500 B.C. to the Korean War”. How utterly futile! He barely had gone beyond the founding of the city before he had to sit down, another victim of the compulsion to cover too much in one talk. This is an extreme example, I know; I have heard thousands of talks, less encompassing in scope, that failed to hold attention for the same reason—they covered far too many points. Why? Because it is impossible for the mind to attend to a monotonous series of factual points. If your talk sounds like the World Almanac you will not be able to hold attention very long. Take a simple subject, like a trip to Yellowstone Park. In their eagerness to leave nothing out, most people have something to say about every scenic view in the Park. The audience is whisked from one point to another with dizzying speed. At the end, all that remains in the mind is a blur of waterfalls, mountains, and geysers.How much more memorable such a talk would be if the speaker limited himself to one aspect of the Park, the wildlife or the hot springs, for example. Then there would be time to develop the kind of pictorial detail that would make Yellowstone Park come alive in all its vivid color and variety.

This is true of any subject, whether it be salesmanship, baking cakes, tax exemptions, or ballistic missiles. You must limit and select before you begin, narrow your subject down to an area that will fit the time at your disposal.

In a short talk, less than five minutes in duration, all you can expect is to get one or two main points across. In a longer talk, up to thirty minutes, few speakers ever succeed if they try to cover more than four or five main ideas.

SECOND/ DEVELOP RESERVE POWER

It is far easier to give a talk that skims over the surface than to dig down for facts. But when you take the easy way you make little or no impression on the audience. After you have narrowed your subject, then the next step is to ask yourself questions that will deepen your understanding and prepare you to talk with authority on the topic you have chosen:“Why do I believe this? When did I ever see this point exemplified in real life? What precisely am I trying to prove? Exactly how did it happen?”

Questions like these call for answers that will give you reserve power, the power that makes people sit up and take notice. It was said of Luther Burbank, the botanical wizard, that he produced a million plant specimens to find one or two superlative ones. It is the same with a talk. Assemble a hundred thoughts around your theme, then discard ninety.

“I always try to get ten times as much information as I use, sometimes a hundred times as much,” said John Gunther not long ago. The author of the bestselling “Inside” books was speaking of the way he prepared to write a book or give a talk.

On one occasion in particular, his actions bore out his words. In 1956, he was working on a series of articles on mental hospitals. He visited institutions, talked to supervisors, attendants, and patients. A friend of mine was with him, giving some small assistance in the research, and he told me they must have walked countless miles up stairs and down, along corridors, building to building, day after day. Mr. Gunther filled notebooks. Back in his office, he stacked up government and state reports, private hospital reports, and reams of committees' statistics.

“In the end,” my friend told me, “he wrote four short articles, simple enough and anecdotal enough to make good speeches. The paper on which they were typed weighed, perhaps, a few ounces. The filled notebooks, and everything else he used as the basis for the few ounces of product, must have weighed twenty pounds”.

Mr. Gunther knew that he was working with pay dirt. He knew he couldn't overlook any of it. An old hand at this sort of thing, he put his mind to it, and he sifted out the gold nuggets.

A surgeon friend of mine said: “I can teach you in ten minutes how to take out an appendix. But it will take me four years to teach you what to do if something goes wrong.”So it is with speaking: Always prepare so that you are ready for any emergency, such as a change of emphasis because of a previous speaker's remarks, or a well-aimed question from the audience in the discussion period following your talk.

You, too, can acquire reserve power by selecting your topic as soon as possible. Don't put it off until a day or two before you have to speak. If you decide on the topic early you will have the inestimable advantage of having your subconscious mind working for you. At odd moments of the day when you are free from your work, you can explore your subject, refine the ideas you want to convey to your audience. Time ordinarily spent in reverie while you are driving home, waiting for a bus, or riding the subway, can he devoted to mulling over the subject matter of your talk. It is during this incubation period that flashes of insight will come, just because you have determined your topic far in advance and your mind subconsciously works over it.

Norman Thomas, a superb speaker who has commanded the respectful attention of audiences quite opposed to his political point of view, said: “If a speech is to be of any importance at all, the speaker should live with the theme or message, turning it over and over in his mind. He will be surprised at how many useful illustrations or ways of putting his case will come to him as he walks the street, or reads a newspaper, or gets ready for bed, or wakes up in the morning. Mediocre speaking very often is merely the inevitable and the appiopriate reflection of mediocre thinking, and the consequence of imperfect acquaintance with the subject in hand.”

While you are involved in this process you will be under strong temptation to write your talk out, word for word. Try not to do this, for once you have set a pattern, you are likely to be satisfied with it, and you may cease to give it any more constructive thought. In addition, there is the danger of memorizing the script. Mark Twain had this to say about such memorization: “Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy effective delivery with the tongue. Where their purpose is merely to entertain, not to instruct, they have to be limbered up, broken up, colloquialized, and turned into the common form of unpremeditated talk; otherwise they will bore the house—not entertain it.”

Charles F. Kettering, whose inventive genius sparked the growth of General Motors, was one of America's most renowned and heartwarming speakers. Asked if he ever wrote out any part or all of his talks, he replied: “What I have to say is, I believe, far too important to write down on paper. I prefer to write on my audience's mind, on their emotions, with every ounce of my being. A piece of paper cannot stand between me and those I want to impress.”

THIRD/ FILL YOUR TALK WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND EXAMPLES

In the Art of Readable Writing, Rudolf Flesch begins one of his chapters with this sentence:“Only stories are really readable.” He then shows how this principle is used by Time and Reader's Digest. Almost every article in these top-circulation magazines either is written as pure narrative or is generously sprinkled with anecdotes. There is no denying the power of a story to hold attention in talking before groups as well as writing for magazines.

Norman Vincent Peale, whose sermons have been heard by millions on radio and television, says that his favorite form of supporting material in a talk is the illustration or example. He once told an interviewer from the Quarterly Journal of Speech that “the true example is the finest method I know of to make an idea clear, interesting, and persuasive. Usually, I use several examples to support each major point.”

Readers of my books are soon aware of my use of the anecdote as a means of developing the main points of my message. The rules from How to Win Friends and Influence People can be listed on one and a half pages. The other two hundred and thirty pages of the book are filled with stories and illustrations to point up how others have used these rules with wholesome effect.

How can we acquire this most important technique of using illustrative material? There are five ways of doing this: Humanize, Personalize, Specify, Dramatize, and Visualize.

HUMANIZE YOUR TALK

I once asked a group of American businessmen in Paris to talk on “How to Succeed.”Most of them merely listed a lot of abstract qualities and gave preachments on the value of hard work, persistence, and ambition.

So I halted this class, and said something like this: “We don't want to be lectured to. No one enjoys that. Remember, you must be entertaining or we will pay no attention whatever to what you are saying. Also remember that one of the most interesting things in the world is sublimated, glorified gossip. So tell us the stoties of two men you have known. Tell why one succeeded and why the other failed. We will gladly listen to that, remember it, and possibly profit by it.”

There was a certain member of that course who invariably found it difficult to interest either himself or his audience. This night, however, he seized the human interest suggestion and told us of two of his classmates in college. One of them had been so conservative that he had bought shirts at the different stores in town, and made charts showing which ones laundered best, wore longest, and gave the most service per dollar invested. His mind was always on pennies; yet, when he was graduated—it was an engineering college—he had such a high opinion of his own importance that he was not willing to begin at the bottom and work his way up, as the other graduates were doing. Even when the third annual reunion of the class came, he was still making laundry charts of his shirts, while waiting for some extraordinanly good thing to come his way. It never came. A quarter of a century has passed since then, and this man, dissatisfied and soured on life, still holds a minor position.

The speaker then contrasted with this failure the story of one of his classmates who had surpassed all expectations.This particular chap was a good mixer. Everyone liked him. Although he was ambitious to do big things later, he started as a draftsman. But he was always on the lookout for opportunity. Plans were then being made for the New York World's Fair. He knew engineering talent would be needed there, so he resigned from his position in Philadelphia and moved to New York. There he formed a partnership and engaged immediately in the contracting business. They did considerable work for the telephone company, and this man was finally taken over by that concern at a large salary.

I have recorded here only the bare outline of what the speaker told. He made his talk interesting and illuminating with a score of amusing and human interest details. He talked on and on—this man who could not ordinarily find material for a three—minute speech—and he was surprised to learn, when he stopped, that he had held the floor on this occasion for ten minutes.The speech had been so interesting that it seemed short to everyone. It was his first real triumph.

Almost everyone can profit by this incident. The average speech would be far more appealing if it were rich with human interest stories. The speaker should attempt to make only a few points and to illustrate them with concrete cases. Such a method of speechbuilding can hardly fail to get and hold attention.

Of course, the richest source of such human interest material is your own background. Don't hesitate to tell us about your experiences because of some feeling that you should not talk about yourself. The only time an audience objects to hearing a person talk about himself is when he does it in an offensive, egotistical way. Otherwise, audiences are tremendously interested in the personal stories speakers tell. They are the surest means of holding attention; don't neglect them.

PERSONALIZE YOUR TALK BY USING NAMES

By all means, when you tell stories involving others, use their names, or, if you want to protect their identity, use fictitious names. Even impersonal names like “Mr. Smith” or“Joe Brown” are far more descriptive than “this man” or “a person.” The label identifies and individualizes. As Rudolf Flesch points out, “Nothing adds more realism to a story than names; nothing is as unrealistic as anonymity.” Imagine a story whose hero has no name.

If your talk is full of names and personal pronouns you can be sure of high listenability, for you will have the priceless ingredient of human interest in your speech.

BE SPECIFIC—FILL YOUR TALK WITH DETAIL

You might say at this point, “this is all very fine, but how can I be sure of getting enough detail into my talk?”There is one test. Use the 5-W formula every reporter follows when he writes a news story: answer the questions When? Where? Who? What? and Why? If you follow this formula your examples will have life and color. Let me ill ustrate this with an anecdote of my own, one that was published by the Reader's Digest:

“After leaving college, I spent two years traveling through South Dakota as a salesman for Armour and Company. I covered my territory by riding on freight trains. One day I had to lay over in Redfield, S.D., for two hours to get a train going south. Since Redfield was not in my territory I couldn't use the time for making sales. Within a year I was going to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, so I decided to use this spare time practicing speaking. I wandered down through the train yards and began rehearsing a scene for Macbeth. Thrusting out my arms, I cried dramatically: ‘ Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.’

“I was still immersed in the scene when four policemen leaped upon me and asked why I was frightening women. I couldn't have been more astounded if they had accused me of robbing a train. They informed me that a housewife had been watching me from behind her kitchen curtains a hundred yards away. She had never seen such goings-on. So she called the police, and when they approached they heard me ranting about daggers.

“I told them I was ‘ practicing Shakespeare, ' but I had to produce my order book for Armour and company before they let me go.”

Notice how this anecdote answers the questions posed in the 5-W formula above.

Of course, too much detail is worse than none. All of us have been bored by lengthy recitals of superficial, irrelevant details. Notice how in the incident about my near-arrest in a South Dakota town there is a brief and concise answer to each of the 5-W questions. If you clutter your talk with too much detail, your audience will blue-pencil your remarks by refusing to give you their complete attention. There is no blue-pencil more severe than inattentiveness.

DRAMATIZE YOUR TALK BY USING DIALOGUE

Suppose you want to give an illustration of how you succeeded in calming down an irate customer by using one of the rules of human relations. You could begin like this:

“The other day a man came into my office. He was pretty mad because the appliance we had sent out to his house only the week before was not working properly. I told him that we would do all we could to remedy the situation. After a while he calmed down and seemed satisfied that we had every intention to make things right.” This anecdote has one virtue—it is fairly specific—but it lacks names, specific details, and, above all, the actual dialogue which would make this incident come alive. Here it is with these added qualities:

“Last Tuesday, the door of my office slammed and I looked up to see the angry features of Charles Blexam, one of my regular customers. I didn't have time to ask him to take a seat. ‘Ed, this is the last straw, ' he said, ‘you can send a truck right out and cart that wash machine out of my basement.’

“I asked him what was up. He was too willing to reply.

“‘It won't work, ' he shouted, ‘ the clothes get all tangled, and my wife's sick and tired of it.’

“I asked him to sit down and explain it in more detail.

“‘I haven't got time to sit down. I'm late for work and I wish I'd never come in here to buy an appliance in the first place. Believe me, I'll never do it again.' Here he hit the desk with his hand and knocked over my wife's picture.

“‘ Look, Charley, ' I said, ‘ if you will just sit down and tell me all about it, I promise to do whatever you want me to do.' With that, he sat down, and we calmly talked it over.”

It isn't always possible to work dialogue into your talk, but you can see how the direct quotation of the conversation in the excerpt above helps to dramatize the incident for the listener. If the speaker has some imitative skill and can get the original tone of voice into the words, dialogue can become more effective. Also, dialogue gives your speech the authentic ring of everyday conversation. It makes you sound like a real person talking across a dinner table, not like a pedant delivering a paper before a learned society or an orator ranting into a microphone.

VISUALIZE BY DEMONSTRA TING WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT

Psychologists tell us that more than eighty-five per cent of our knowledge comes to us through visual impressions.No doubt this accounts for the enormous efectiveness of television as an advertising as well as entertainment medium. Public speaking, too, is a visual as well as auditory art.

One of the best ways to enrich a talk with detail is to incorporate visual demonstration into it. You might spend hours just telling me how to swing a golf club, and I might be bored by it. But get up and show me what you do when you drive a ball down the fairway and I am all eyes and ears. Likewise, if you describe the erratic maneuvers of an airplane with your arms and shoulders, I am more intent on the outcome of your brush with death.

I remember a talk given in an industrial class that was a masterpiece of visual detail. The speaker was poking good-natured fun at inspectors and efficiency experts. His mimicry of the gestures and bodily antics of these gentlemen as they inspected a broken-down machine was more hilarious than anything I have ever seen on television. What is more, visual detail made that talk memorable—I for one shall never forget it, and I am sure the other members of that class are still talking about it.

It is a good idea to ask yourself, “How can I put some visual detail into my talk?”Then proceed to demonstrate, for, as the ancient Chinese observed, one picture is worth ten thousand words.

FOURTH/ USE CONCRETE, FAMILIAR WORDS THAT CREATE ICTURES

In the process of getting and holding attention, which is the first purpose of every speaker, there is one aid, one technique, that is of the highest importance. Yet, it is all but ignored. The average speaker does not seem to be aware of its existence. He has probably never consciously thought about it at all. I refer to the process of using words that create pictures. The speaker who is easy to listen to is the one who sets images floating before your eyes. The one who employs foggy, commonplace, colorless symbols sets the audience to nodding.

Pictures. Pictures. Pictures. They are as free as the air you breathe. Sprinkle them through your talks, your conversation, and you will be more entertaining, more influential.

Herbert Spencer, in his famous essay on the “Philosophy of Style,” pointed out long ago the superiority of terms that call forth bright pictures:

“We do not think in generals but in particulars…We should avoid such a sentence as:

“‘In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of their penal code will be severe! ’

“And in place of it, we should write:

“‘In proportion as men delight in battles, bull fights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning, and the rack.’”

Picture-building phrases swarm through the pages of the Bible and through Shakespeare like bees around a cider mill. For example, a commonplace writer would have said that a certain thing would be “superfluous,”like trying to improve the perfect. How did Shakespeare express the same thought? With a picture phrase that is immortal: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw perfume on the violet.”

Did you ever pause to observe that the proverbs that are passed on from generation to generation are almost all visual sayings? “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”“It never rains but it pours.” “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.”And you will find the same picture element in almost all the similes that have lived for centuries and grown hoary with too much use: “Sly as a fox.” “Dead as a doornail.” “Flat as a pancake.” “Hard as a rock.”

Lincoln continually talked in visual terminology. When he became annoyed with the long, complicated, red-tape reports that came to his desk in the White House, he objected to them, not with colorless phraseology, but with a picture phrase that it is almost impossible to forget. “When I send a man to buy a horse,” he said, “I don't want to be told how many hairs the horse has in his tail. I wish only to know his points.”

Make your eye appeals definite and specific. Paint mental pictures that stand out as sharp and clear as a stag's antlers silhouetted against the setting sun. For example, the word“dog” calls up a more or less definite picture of such an animal—perhaps a cocker spaniel, a Scottish terrier, a St. Bernard, or a Pomeranian. Notice how much more distinct an image springs into your mind when a speaker says “bulldog” —the term is less inclusive. Doesn't“a brindle bulldog” call up a still more explicit picture? Is it not more vivid to say “a black Shetland pony” than to talk of “a horse”? Doesn't “a white bantam rooster with a broken leg” give a much more definite and sharp picture than merely the word “fowl”?

In The Elements of Style, William States, Jr., states: “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.” This is as true of speaking as of writing. I once devoted a session years ago in my course in Effective Speaking to an experiment in being factual. We adopted a rule that in every sentence the speaker must put either a fact or a proper noun, a figure, or a date. The results were revolutionary. The class members made a game of catching one another on generalities; it wasn't long before they were talking, not the cloudy language that floats over the head of an audience, but the clear-cut,vigorous language of the man on the street.

“An abstract style,” said the French philosopher Alain, “is always bad. Your sentences should be full of stones, metals, chairs, tables, animals, men, and women.”

This is true of everyday conversation as well. In fact, all that has been said in this chapter about the use of detail in talks before groups applies to general conversation. It is detail that makes conversation sparkle. Anyone who is intent upon making himself a more effective conversationalist may profit by following the advice contained in this chapter. Salesmen, too, will discover the magic of detail when applied to their sales presentations. Those in executive positions, housewives, and teachers will find that giving instructions and dispensing information will be greatly improvet by the use of concrete, factual detail.

第二篇 演讲、演讲者和听众

本部分我们要讨论演讲的三角关系——每次演讲中的三个方面。

首先，是演讲本身。我们知道，演讲的内容必须从我们的亲身经历中再创作出来。

其次，是演讲者本身。在这里我们要讨论思想、身体和声音的特性，它们必须使演讲的表词达意富有活力。

再次，是听众本身。听众是演讲瞄准的目标，而且是演讲者信息传递成功与否的最终裁判。

多年以前，有两个人同时参加了我在纽约的一个训练班。一个是哲学博士，在大学当教授；另一个是在街头流动的小摊贩，他年轻的时候曾是一名英国海军，为人豪爽而粗鲁。但令人奇怪的是，那位流动摊贩的演讲远比大学教授的更吸引人。这是为什么呢？大学教授上台演讲时，总是以漂亮的词汇发言，台风优雅，讲话条理清楚；但是他缺少了一个必备的因素——具体化。他的谈话太不明确了，太过空泛了。他从未用个人经历解释过什么观点。他的演讲只不过是用一条逻辑的绳子连接在一起的抽象的理念。

至于那位流动摊贩，却正好相反：他开口之后，就可以立即抓住问题的核心，内容具体而明确。他的演讲充满了生活气息。他说出一个观点，然后用他生意中发生的真实事件来证明。他讲了他与之打交道的人，以及遵守各项规则的头痛之事。他那男人的气质和新奇的词句，使他的演讲非常吸引人。

我之所以举这个例子，并不是因为它是大学教授或流动摊贩的典型，而是因为它正好说明只有充满生气、说话具体而且明确的人，才会吸引别人的注意力。

有四种组织演讲材料的方法，保证可以获得听众的注意。如果你在演讲时遵循这四个步骤，你就可以十拿九稳地调动听众的热切关注。

一、限定题材范围

演讲的题目一旦选好，第一步就是要确定演讲所包含的范围，并且把话题严格限定在其中。不要妄想讲一个无所不包的话题。例如有一个年轻人想用两分钟的时间就“从公元前500年至朝鲜战争时期的雅典”这个题目发表看法。这几乎是痴人说梦话！因为他刚讲完雅典城的建造就该下台了。他想在一场演讲中包含太多的东西，最终却只有失败，而且不明不白。当然，这只是个极端的例子。我曾听过许多演讲，都因为范围不确定，结果都出于同样的原因——包含了太多的论点，以致无法吸引听众的注意力。为什么呢？因为人们的注意力不可能一直放在一连串单调的事实上。如果你的演讲听起来像是一部世界年鉴，那么你根本无法长时间抓住听众的注意力。假设你选了一个简单的题目，如“黄石公园之旅”，那么大多数演讲者都会十分详细地介绍公园中每个景色，不肯遗漏半点东西。虽然这样听众会被引导着由这一点到另一点，但最后只能记住一些模糊的瀑布、山岭和喷泉。如果演讲者把自己的话题限定在公园的某一个方面，例如野生动物或者温泉，这场演讲将会令人难以忘怀！这样，你便有时间来介绍那些生动而有趣的细节，将黄石公园那鲜明的颜色和无穷的变化栩栩如生地展现在听众眼前。

这个道理用于任何题目都很有效，不论它讲的是销售术、烤蛋糕、减免税赋或者是炸弹。在演讲开始以前先对题材加以限制和选择，把题目缩小至某一个范围，这样就会适合自己的时间。

在短短的不超过5分钟的演讲里，我们只能期望说明一两点。就算是30分钟的演讲，但演讲者若想包含4个或5个以上的主要概念，也很少会成功。

二、深入思考题材

做浮光掠影的演讲，要比深入事实的演讲容易得多。但前者仅能让听众获得很少的印象，甚至全无印象。因此，在题目范围确定之后，下一步就要问自己一些问题，加深自己的了解，使自己可以用权威的口吻来讲述这个题目：“我为什么会相信这一点？我在现实生活中有没有看到？我究竟想要证明什么？它是怎样发生的？”

像这样一类问题的答案可以使你深入思考演讲题材，让听众集中注意力。据说植物界的天才路德·伯班克，为了寻找一两种高级品种而培养了100万种植物品种。演讲也是如此，围绕主题汇集100种思想，然后舍去其中90种。

“我总是搜集比我要使用的材料多10倍的东西，有时甚至达到上百倍，”约翰·甘德不久前这样说。他是畅销书《内涵》的作者。他在这里说的是准备写作或演讲的方法。

有一次，他的行动恰好印证了他的话。当时，他正准备写一系列关于精神病院的文章。他前往各地的医院，和院长、护士及病人分别谈话。我的一位朋友跟随他，为他的研究工作提供了一些小的帮助。后来我朋友告诉我，他们从这栋大楼到另外一栋大楼，不停地上下楼梯，日复一日地沿着走道不知走了多少路。甘德先生记录了许多笔记本。在他的办公室，到处都放了政府与各州的报告、私立医院的报告、各委员会的统计资料。

“最后，”我朋友说，“他写了4篇短文，简单而又趣味横生，是很好的演讲题材。写成文章的几张纸也许只有几盎司。可是，那些密密麻麻的笔记本以及其他材料，也即他创作出这几盎司产品的依据，却超过了20磅。”

甘德先生知道自己的回报不值一提，但他也知道自己不应该忽视任何一部分。他是这一行业的资深专家，他把心思全放在上面，然后筛选出金块。

我的一位外科医生朋友也说：“我可以在10分钟内教会你如何取出盲肠。然而，要教你出了差错时该如何应付，却要花4年时间。”演讲也是如此：必须做好周密准备，以应付变化。例如，可能由于前一名演讲者的观点，你不得不当场决定改变自己观点的重心；或者是在演讲后的讨论时间里，回答听众关注的更多问题。

选好题目之后，应尽快对其深入思考。千万不能等到演讲的前一两天才去做。如果及早确定了题目，你的潜意识便能为你发挥很大的作用，这对你大有好处。在每天工作完成后的零散时间里，你可以深入思考自己的题材，提炼你想传达给听众的理念。在驾车回家的途中、在等候公共汽车或乘地铁时，你也可以将这些时间用来思考自己的演讲题材。也许灵光一闪的顿悟，正巧来自这段孕育的过程，因为你已经提前思考了题材，你的大脑早已对它做了潜意识的加工。

诺曼·托马斯是世界一流的演讲家，即使面对强烈反对他的政治观点的听众他也能驾驭自如，获得他们的敬佩。他说：“如果一篇演讲真的十分重要，演讲者就应该和其主题或内涵融为一体。他必须在头脑里反复思考。他会惊讶地发现，不管是走在街上，还是在看报纸，或者准备睡觉，或者清晨醒来时，自己观点的例证和演讲方式就会自动涌现。平庸的思考只能产生平庸的演讲；这种不可避免的现象，正是因为对题目认识不清楚的结果。”

当你置身于这一过程中时，你会感到一种强烈的诱惑，总想把自己的演讲内容写下来。但千万不要这样做，因为你一旦写下来，它就成了一个固定的形式，你自己也许会觉得很满意了，就会停止更有价值的思考。而且，你甚至会陷入背诵的陷阱。马克·吐温曾这样评论背诵讲稿：“笔写的东西不是为演讲而准备的；因为它的形式是文学的，生硬而缺乏灵活性，无法再通过嘴来愉悦而有效地传达。如果演讲的目的是想让听众感到快乐，而不是说教，就需要把它们变得温和、简洁，使之尽量口语化，使用一种就像平时并不怎么经过认真思考就说出来的方式。否则，就会烦死整屋子的人，而不是让他们高兴。”

查尔斯·吉特林的发明天才促成了通用汽车公司的成长，他也是美国最著名、最真诚的演讲家之一。当他被问到有没有把演讲的内容部分或全部写下来的时候，他说：“我认为，由于我要讲的话实在太重要了，所以我不能在纸上写下来。我必须把自己一丝一毫的东西都写进听众的脑子里，写进他们的情感中。在我和我尽力想感动的听众之间，纸条是没有存在的空间的。”

三、列举实例使演讲生动有趣

在《流畅的写作艺术》一书中，鲁道夫·弗烈奇在其中一章这样开篇写道：“只有故事才真正具有可读性。”然后他引用了《时代杂志》和《读者文摘》来作为例子。他说，在这两份雄踞畅销排行榜首位的杂志中，几乎每一篇文章都充满了趣闻轶事。因此，在当众讲话中，要想具备驾驭听众注意的能力，也应该学习这两本杂志中文章的写作方法。

诺曼·文森特·皮尔牧师的讲道，曾通过收音机和电视机而被无数人接受。他说，在演讲中，他最喜欢举出实例来支持自己的论点。他对《演讲季刊》的采访者说：“用真实的例子，是我知道的最好的方法。它可以使一个观点变得清晰而有趣，更具有说服力。我通常同时采用好几个例子来证明每一个主要论点。”

凡是看过我的书的读者很快也会发现，我同样喜欢用有趣的事情来概括总结我的观点。《人性的弱点》一书中的法则，列出来其实只有一页半，而其余230页全都是故事和例证，解释别人是如何使用这些法则取得实效的。

那么，在演讲中应该怎么做呢？概括起来有5种方法：人性化、个人化、翔实化、戏剧化和视觉化。

1.使演讲富有人性

有一次，我要求一群在巴黎的美国商人以“成功之道”为题做演讲。他们大多数人都只列举了一大串抽象的东西，给了一大堆勤奋工作、持之以恒或者远大目标的说教。

于是，我打断了他们：“我们都不想听别人说教，也没有人会喜欢。记住，你的话必须让我们感到愉快和有趣，否则不论你说什么我们都不会听的。同时要记住，世界上最有趣的事情，都是那些精致典雅、妙语连珠的趣闻轶事。所以，请说说你所认识的两个人的故事，并分析为什么一个人会成功，而另一个人却失败了。我们会乐意听这样的故事，会记住它，可能还会从中获益。”

这个班有个学员，他总觉得要提起自己的兴趣或激发别人的兴趣太难了。可是这天晚上，他就抓住“人的兴趣”的建议，给大家讲了他大学两个同学的故事：一个人小心谨慎，以至于买衬衫也要在不同的商店各买一件，并制出表格显示哪一件最经得起洗熨，穿得最久，以便让每一块钱的投资获得最大的效用。他的心思只在钱上。可是，这个人从工学院毕业后，自视甚高，不愿像别的毕业生那样从基层开始做起。因此当3年后同学聚会时，他仍旧在画他的衬衫洗熨表，还在等待好差事凭空降临，结果什么也没有等到。从那时候起，过了25年，那个人满腹怨恨与不满，一辈子都在一个小职位上。

然后演讲者将这个失败者与另一个同学相比。现在这个同学已经超越了当初的自我期望。他与人相处融洽，大家都喜欢他。他不乏雄心壮志，想成就一番事业，但却从绘图员做起。不过他一直在寻找机会。当时，纽约世界博览会正处在规划阶段，他知道那儿需要工程人才，所以辞去了费城的职务，迁往纽约。他与人合伙，搞起了承包工程的业务，承揽了很多电话公司的业务，最后被博览会高薪聘请。

我这里写下来的，仅仅是那位演讲者所说的概述。他本人的讲述中还有许多有趣而充满人情味的细节，使他的演讲妙趣横生。他不停地说着——这个人平时是说不了3分钟的——这次他却吃惊地发现自己讲了足足有10分钟。由于讲得太精彩了，大家似乎都觉得太短了。这也是他第一次演讲成功。

每个人都可以从这个故事中得到一些启示：如果平淡的演讲能穿插一些富含人性的趣味故事，将会引人入胜。演讲者应该只提出自己的论点，然后用具体的事例来作为例证。这样的演讲，肯定能抓住听众的注意力。

当然，这种人性化故事最丰富的源泉，正是你自己的生活背景。不要因为觉得不该谈自己，便犹豫不敢说出来。只有当一个人满怀敌意、狂妄自大地谈论自己的时候，听众才会讨厌；否则，听众对演讲者说的亲历故事都会极感兴趣。亲身经历是抓住听众注意力最可靠的方法，千万不要忽视。

2.用人名使演讲富有个性

如果讲故事的时候要提到某个人，那就一定要讲出他的名字。不过，为了保护别人的隐私，可以用个假名。即使用的是“史密斯先生”或“乔·布朗”这种不具个人特性的名字，也比使用“这个人”或“一个人”更能使故事生动有趣。姓名有证明和显现个体的功能，就像鲁道夫·弗烈屈指出的：“没有什么更能比名字增加故事的真实性了。隐姓埋名是最虚假不过的。”试想一下，如果故事里的主角没名没姓，将是什么样子？

如果你的演讲中使用具体的名字与个人的代称，你的演讲将会有很强的可听性，因为它已经具备了人性化这一可贵的要素。

3.使演讲充满细节

对此你可能会存有疑惑：“这确实不错，可是我如何才能让我的演讲有足够多的细节？”有一个方法可以作个测试——即使用新闻记者写新闻故事时遵循的“5W”：何时（When）？何地（where）？何人（Who）？何事（What）？为何（Why）？如果你依照这五要素来准备，你的举例便会详尽周到，栩栩如生。让我拿自己一件趣事来加以说明吧。这则趣事曾刊登在《读者文摘》上：

“离开大学后，我在铁甲公司当了两年销售员，一直在南达科他州四处跑。我搭乘运货卡车来完成我的旅途。有一次，我正在莱德菲尔，两小时后才能搭上一列南行的火车。由于这里不是我负责的区域，所以我不能利用这段时间去推销。再过不到一年我就要去纽约美国戏剧艺术学院读书，所以我决定利用这段空闲来练习台词。我漫无目的地走过车场，开始演练莎士比亚的戏剧《麦克白》中的一幕。我举起双臂，戏剧性地高呼：‘难道我眼前所见是匕首吗？它的手柄正朝着我。来吧，让我抓住你！我抓不着你，但我依然看见了你！’

“正当我沉浸在表演中时，4名警察突然朝我扑来，问我为什么恐吓妇女？就算他们指控我抢劫火车，我都不会这么惊异的。他们告诉我，有一个家庭主妇在30米远的厨房窗帘后面一直看着我。她从没有见过这样的情况，所以打电话给警方。他们到达时，正好听到我在狼哭鬼嚎地表演关于匕首的情节。

“我告诉他们我是在演练莎士比亚戏剧，但是直到我出示了铁甲公司的订货簿以后，他们才放我走。”

请注意，这则故事是如何体现上述五要素的。

不过，细节过多又比没有细节更糟。每个人都会被冗长而肤浅的细节搞得厌烦透顶。你们看，我叙述自己在南达科他州差点儿被捕的经历时，对每一个要素只作了简明扼要的叙述。因此，如果你的演讲全是鸡毛蒜皮的事，听众必然会不耐烦，不会听你讲话。最糟糕的演讲，莫过于不能抓住听众的注意力了。

4.利用对话使演讲戏剧化

假设你要举例说明自己如何应用人际关系的原则成功地平息了一位顾客的愤怒，你可能会这样开始：

“前几天，有个人闯进了我的办公室。他非常愤怒，因为我们上一周送到他家里去的洗衣机不能正常工作。我对他说，我们将竭尽所能弥补失误。过了一会儿，他平静下来，对我们全心全意要把这件事情做好显得很满意。”这则小故事有个优点，就是十分详细。可是它缺少姓名、特殊的过程，而且最关键的是缺少能使这件事活生生地呈现在人们面前的真实对话。这里就给它添加一些对话材料：

“上星期二，我办公室的门砰的一声被推开。我抬起头来，只看见查尔斯·伯烈克逊先生怒气冲天。他是我的一位常客。我还没有来得及请他坐下，他劈头就说：‘艾德，我要让你帮我做最后一件事：你马上派一辆卡车去，把那台洗衣机给我从地下室运回来。’

“我问他出了什么事。他气急了，几乎无法清楚地回答。

“‘它根本不能用，’他大吼道，‘衣服全缠在一起，我老婆讨厌死它，烦死它了。’

“我请他坐下来，让他解释得更清楚些。

“‘我才没时间坐呢。我上班已经迟到了！我想我以后再也不会来你这里买电器了。请相信，我再也不买了。’说到这儿，他伸出手来又是拍打桌子，又是敲我太太的照片。

“‘听我说，查理，’我说，‘你坐下来把情况都告诉我，我愿意替你做你要我做的一切事，好吧？’听了我这话，他这才坐下，我们总算平静地把事情讨论个清楚。”

当然，不可能每次都能把对话加进演讲。不过，你应该可以看出来，上面例子直接引用对话，对于听众有助于增加戏剧性。如果演讲者还有模仿技巧，把原来的声调语气表现出来，那么这些对话就更见效果了。而且，对话是日常生活中的会话，可以使演讲更为真实可信。它使你听起来像个充满了真情实意的人，是在隔着桌子说话，而不是像个老学究在学富五车的学会会员面前宣读论文，或像个大演讲家对着麦克风穷吼。

5.使演讲内容视觉化

心理学家告诉我们，85%以上的知识是通过视觉印象传递给我们的。这正好解释了电视成为广告与娱乐的主要媒介并收效显著的原因。当众讲话也是一样，是一种听觉艺术，同时还是一种视觉艺术。

采用细节来丰富演讲，最好的方法就是在其中加入有利于视觉吸收的展示。例如，你也许要花数小时告诉我如何挥动高尔夫球杆，而我却可能听烦了。可是，如果你站起来表演把球击下球道时该怎么做，那我就会全神贯注地听了。同样，如果你以手臂和肩膀来描绘飞机飘移不定的情形，我肯定会更关注你讲的故事。

我记得在一个工业界人士培训班上的一场演讲，其中的视觉细节实在是一篇杰作。演讲者模仿视察员和效率专家们检查损坏的机器时所做的各种手势与滑稽动作，比我在电视上所看过的一切都形象生动得多。这些视觉细节使那场演讲很难忘记——至少我是忘不了的。我也相信，其他学员至今一定还会谈到它。

问问自己“我怎样才能给我的谈话加入一些视觉细节”是个好主意。然后就会像古代中国人所观察到的那样，证明“百闻不如一见”的道理。

四、充分利用具体熟悉的语言

演讲者的第一目标是把握听众的注意力。在此过程中，还有一项极为重要的技巧，然而，它却完全被忽视了。一般的演讲者似乎并没有注意到它的存在，恐怕也从未有意识地想到过它。我所指的这一技巧，就是使用能形成图画般鲜明景象的字眼。能够让听众听来轻松愉快的演讲者，最善于在听众眼前塑造鲜明的景象。使用模糊不清、繁琐乏味语言的演讲者，只会让听众打瞌睡。

景象！景象！景象！它就像你呼吸的空气一样，是免费的呀！可是当你把它点缀在你的演讲中时，你就更能让听众感到快乐，也更具影响力。

赫伯特·斯宾塞早就在他那篇著名的论文《风格哲学》中指出，优秀的文字能够激发读者对鲜明图画的联想：

“我们并不做一般性的思考，而是要做特殊性的思考……我们应该尽量避免这样的句子：

“‘一个国家的民族性、风俗及娱乐如果残酷而野蛮，那么，他们的刑罚必然也很严厉。’

“我们应该把它改写成：

“‘一个国家的老百姓如果喜爱战争、斗牛，并从奴隶公开格斗中取乐，那么他们的刑罚将包括绞刑、烧烙及拷打。’”

《圣经》和莎士比亚著作中同样充满了图画般的字句，就像蜂蜜围着苹果汁一样多。例如，一位平凡的作家在评论某件事是多余时，他会说这种努力完全是想把已经很完美的事情再加以改善。但莎士比亚又会怎样表达呢？他可以写出不朽的图画般的字句：“替精炼过的黄金镀金，替百合花上彩油，把香水洒在紫罗兰上。”

你有没有注意到，那些世代相传的谚语几乎全都具有视觉效果？“一鸟在手，胜过两鸟在林”、“不鸣则已，一鸣惊人”、“你可以把马牵到水边，却不能逼它喝水”。在那些流传了好几个世纪而且被广泛使用的比喻里，我们也不难发现同样的图画效果：“如狐狸般狡猾”、“僵死得像一枚钉子”、“像薄煎饼那样平”、“硬得像石头”。

林肯也一直使用有视觉效果的语言来讲话。当他厌烦每天送到他白宫办公桌上的冗长而复杂的官方报告时，他并不是用毫无色彩的话来反对，而是用几乎不可能忘记的图像词句来反对。“当我派一个人出去买马时，”他说，“我并不想这个人告诉我这匹马的尾巴有多少根毛，我只希望知道它有什么特点。”你看，他并没有用那种平淡的语句来表达他的意思。

我们要用具体、耳熟能详的语言描绘出内心的景象，使它突出、显著、分明，就像落日余晖映照着公鹿头角的长影。例如，“狗”这个词一般会让人想起某种动物的具体形象——也许是只短腿、长毛、大耳下垂的小猎犬；也许是一只苏格兰犬；也许是一只圣伯纳犬，或者是一只波密雷尼亚犬。但是演讲者如果说出“牛犬”时（一种短毛、方嘴、勇敢而顽强的犬)，请注意你的脑海里浮出的形象会更加具体。“一只有斑纹的牛犬”是不是让你有了更鲜明的印象？“一匹黑色的雪特兰小马”，是不是比说“一匹马”形象得多？“一只白色、断了一条腿的矮种公鸡”，是不是比“鸡”这个词更能给人具体的图像效果？

小威廉·史特茨在《风格之要素》中说道：“那些研究写作艺术的人，如果说他们的观点有一致的地方，那么这个观点就是：能够抓住读者注意力的最稳妥的方法就是要具体、明确而详细。像荷马、但丁、莎士比亚等最伟大的作家，他们的高明之处，就在于他们在处理特殊的情境和关键的细节时，他们的语句能唤起读者脑海里的景象。”写作是这样，讲话也同样如此。

多年以前，我和参加“高效演讲”课程班的学员进行了一项实验：讲述事实。我们订了一个规则：演讲者必须在每个句子里加入一个事实、一个专有名词、一个数字或一个日期。这次实验极其成功。学员们拿它当游戏，彼此指出对方的毛病。没花多长时间，他们便不再说那些只会让人感到晦涩不明的语言了，他们说的全都是大街上普通人都能明白的活泼的语言。

法国哲学家艾兰说：“抽象的风格总是不好的。在你的句子里，应该全是石头、金属、椅子、桌子、动物、男人和女人。”

日常对话也是如此。事实上，本章所说的一切有关当众讲话的技巧，同样也适用于日常交谈。正是细节使谈话充满了光彩。任何人要想成为一个高超的谈话者，只要牢记这些忠告，就会大有收获。销售员使用它，会发现它特有的魔力；那些公司主管、家庭主妇和教师也将会发现，自己在下达命令和传播知识、传达消息时，因为使用了具体、翔实的细节，效果会大大改进。