A Public Speaking Lesson in a Pot of Clay

I recently heard a story from my friend, Conor Neill about a pot of clay. Conor came across the story via Malcolm Gladwell. I am not sure where Gladwell got it, but on with the story …

On the first day of a pottery course, the teacher did something rather peculiar. She divided the students into two groups.

Everyone in the first group, she said, would be graded based on the total weight of the ceramic pots that they produced during the semester. At the end of the course, these students would place their pots on a large scale. The more pots they produced, the more the weight would add up; the heavier the weight, the higher the mark.

By contrast, the grades for the students in the second group depended strictly on the quality of their work. They only had to produce a single pot of clay, but their marks would depend 100% on the aesthetic beauty of their work.

The course began and, as you might expect, the students in the first group dove right in. Every class, they were hard at it producing clay pots. Big ones, little ones, all different kinds. They experimented, tried different approaches and produced all manner of odd-looking pots. And at the end of every class, they were spattered with clay from their efforts.

The students in the second group took a different approach. They wanted their clay pots to be perfect, so they stepped back and thought about the task. They discussed ideas with each other and searched the Internet. The students visited museums to see examples of beautiful pottery and ceramics; they drew sketches.

Time passed and the pots produced by the first group began to pile up in the cupboards and on the countertops and in the corners of the room. But it was only during the final week of the course that the students in the second group sat down and actually began to work on their pot of clay.

When the time came for grading the students, the teacher made a surprising discovery. The best pots, the most beautiful pots, the most intricately designed pots had all been produced by students in the first group. All the while they had been working, cranking out pot after pot to increase their total weight, it turns out they were doing something else as well: They were improving. They were learning from their mistakes They were becoming better potters than the students who had spent so much time studying and planning and theorizing.

The parallels with public speaking are obvious. If you want to become a better public speaker, you have to speak. You can watch all the TED Talks you like; read all the great books about public speaking; follow blogs like this one—but if you never get up on your feet and actually speak in public you are not going to improve.

Here are some ideas as to how you can get practice speaking:

• Join Toastmasters. You can start giving speeches and receiving feedback immediately.

• Volunteer to speak at events in your community. Organizers are always looking for people to speak at social events.

• Seek out opportunities at work to make presentations to colleagues or clients.

• If you attend a religious service, volunteer to be a reader. Even reading someone else’s material will help you practice projecting your voice, using intonation, pausing, etc.

• Conor has a great suggestion. Spend three minutes a day for the next ten days speaking into the camera on your computer (or any video camera). Give a short speech or presentation. Then, play it back and watch it carefully. Painful though it may be, watching ourselves on video is a great way to learn how to improve as speakers.

You might have other ideas about how to get “stage time” and I invite you to share them with us in the Comments section below. But whatever your preferred method, be sure you get your hands dirty (so to speak) and don’t just think about it.

Photo courtesy of Swapnil Dwivedi on Unsplash