I recently had the (unwelcome) opportunity of sitting through a convocation speech given by one of India’s richest businessmen to a batch of graduating MBA’s.

Guess what?

While this guy is pretty good at spotting pots of gold, his public speaking skills need a truckload of attention! Despite my focused efforts at concentrating, he lost me (and guessing from the reactions, most others as well) within 2 minutes of “Good Afternoon”! Yawn!

I guess it’s pretty basic that when you are invited to make a speech, the least you can do is read it once before you step on stage! Unfortunately, our speaker’s eyes were glued to the paper in front of him, while he struggled with token glances to the audience. Maybe next time the poor speechwriter should send him a copy a week in advance, keeping in mind his boss’s abysmal speech making abilities!

Secondly, his speech was liberally peppered with the usual clichés of ‘you need to have passion’, ‘you are the future’ and ‘innovation is the key’ “think outside the box’ which seem to abound at every graduation ceremony these days. If I got a Rupee for each time a professor/ speaker mentioned the words “Innovation”  or “box” in a BSchool, I could retire rich right now! Can someone please tell our speech writing fraternity that firing a string of business clichés is not the best way to inspire a audience or maybe some could share these videos with our circuit of ‘professional graduation speakers/ speech writers’?

And finally, if you are hunched behind the podium and holding on to it for dear life it is difficult for the audience to believe that you have something worth listening to! You appear weak and unsure! Besides, the lectern is not there to prop you up. And yeah, while you are at it, take time to smile! It shows that you are confident, capable and in control! It also puts the audience at ease and in a better frame of mind!

So there I was, in the middle of a disaster of a speech, thinking to myself that surely someone with his level of public visibility would recognize the benefit of getting coached in public speaking. It’s not like he’d  be wasting time gaining a skill that would directly benefit him and his business. Besides, would it be too much to expect that the Chairman of a company would want to give his shareholders the pleasure of a delightful, rousing speech at their AGM! I am certain many of Apple’s shareholders attended Steve Jobs’ presentations not just for the numbers!

And yeah, I am pretty sure he can afford it!