China Advanced Toastmasters

Recently I was honoured to evaluate Raymond Gao’s speech at People’s Square Club. Raymond and I have known each other for almost as long as I have been attending Toastmasters clubs in Shanghai, and to evaluate his A10 was a great privilege.

Raymond is a fantastic comedian. He grabs the audience, looks at things in a slightly twisted way, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. More than this, Raymond is a very likeable person.

But I was really taken back by his speech on Tuesday night. Here were a few highlights worth mentioning:

• Raymond read his project. Unlike many speakers, his project manual had underlining and notes all through it, showing that he had read the project in detail and intended to get the most from the speech.
• Raymond cleared the stage before he started. A whiteboard was in the middle of the performance area and he took the time to remove this potentially distracting object, pushing it off to the side of the room. It was a little thing, but it not only made sure that nothing was going to distract his audience, but it showed that he was in command of his environment.
• Raymond made it personal. While he is a funny and very likeable person anyway, his story revealed part of his past – opening himself to the audience and deepening his impact.
• Clean transition to the story. After starting in the present moment, Raymond transported us back to events from the distant past smoothly and elegantly. And then, just as I was ready to think he couldn’t make his speech any better, he tied back to his start as he concluded his speech.

Raymond’s speech was a joy to experience – and as anyone who has seen one of my evaluations will know, it is not often that I would say such a thing!

A great speech made it even more demanding to highlight some suggestions for improvement. One thing that I noticed was a slight lull in the energy level in one part of the speech – a period that just wasn’t quite as crisp as the rest. Despite outstanding gestures – necessary for the huge audience of People’s Square meetings – he sometimes came to a neutral position with his elbows bent and his hands across his naval, a posture that didn’t seem congruent with the energy of the rest of his presentation. And he tended to look down when he paused.

And seeing his speech reminded me of the importance of developing our vocal quality. It is challenging to develop projection and resonance, yet it is a very powerful thing to do. One friend described Australian Champion Mark having “a voice like chocolate”… a voice that doesn’t just command, but has their audience begging to be told.

Leaders are more powerful when they can access that strong voice, even if they don’t always use it.

While Raymond completed his ACB more rapidly than many people would dare – completing up to two speeches in a week at one point – his development reinforces to me the value of getting up there and speaking. Use the manual project as a tool to develop your skills, but keep presenting speeches!

Raymond, well done and congratulations on your ACB – your speech rocked!

- Daniel Smith, DTM