How do you judge a speaker’s ability? Many people and many of my clients ask me who I think is the best speaker in the world as of now and they tell me their own opinions. But how should a speaker be judged?
Of Course, there are many obvious things that make a speaker either stand out, or seem boring. If someone is holding a piece of paper and is just reading off of it with their head down, it will not matter what their content is as you will only view them as a horrible speaker. But there are plenty of people who can give you good eye contact, walk around the stage, tell a story, but does that mean they are necessarily a good or great speaker?
I would like you to hold people to a higher standard which is this: beyond the superficial criteria of: are they not boring, you need to think how they actually make you feel and how do they potentially help improve your life. What messages are you retaining that you want to act on? If someone who is just a comedian- which is a great skill in itself- if they make me laugh, I will judge them like that. But in the business and civil world it has to be: how does this person have an impact on me?
That is how I believe a speaker should ultimately be judged. How do you like to judge presenters?