Women in Business Fall 2017

26 | WOMEN IN BUSINESS—FALL 2017 PUBLISHED BY BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER
Speaking up
foot in front of the other until the fear disappears,” says
Carter, who is also the founder of GetThrival! Training
& Consulting.
Good public speaking requires that kind of conquering,
can-do-better attitude – and a shift in mindset. You need
to get comfortable with sharing thoughts, feelings, stories
and opinions. It starts with delivering the contents out
loud to yourself, then sharing it with others.
“We all have three speeches,” White says, quoting the
famed leadership trainer Dale Carnegie, “the one we
practise, the one we give, the one we wish we’d given.
That’s just to say that it’s not going to be perfect every time.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Look for an opportunity to
have fun when you’re presenting. Enjoy it. Get passionate
about it. Be enthusiastic about sharing your message.”
Tamara Vrooman, president
and CEO of Vancity credit union,
has honed her public speaking
skills through experience, and
by listening to others | GREATER
VANCOUVER BOARD OF TRADE
5 TIPS FOR SPEAKING IN PUBLIC
up to speak for two to three minutes before diving into her
seat and encouraging participants to speak up and interact
with each other instead. Then she joined Toastmasters.
She lasted 38 seconds up at the front of the room during
her first meeting in 2010. The shaking stopped after her
third speech. By her eighth, she felt confident enough to
ditch her notes. And within eight and a half months of
starting, she came third in B.C. in Toastmasters’ Humorous
Speech Contest. “I watch a lot of speeches and I’m
always looking for good role models, and people that are
doing comedy really well because I’m terrible at it,” says
Carter, who this year is serving as director of District 21
Toastmasters, which encompasses clubs in the Lower
Mainland, on Vancouver Island, and from south of the
Fraser up to the Interior.
“Forcing yourself to speak as much as you can is the
hard way of doing things. The easy way is to get into a
group that causes you to practise every week. That gives
you feedback, and mentoring, and helps you put one
Improve your writing: “The writing is as important, if not more important, as the speaking,”
says Narges Nirumvala, CEO of ExecutiveSpeak Coaching International. “If you practise your
writing ability, then when you practise your speaking and you work on it, it dramatically
improves.”
Overprepare: “It’s like anything in life: the more you do something, the less nervous and the
more comfortable you’re going to be doing it. So seek out opportunities to get up in front of a
group. Take those chances,” says Kristy White, director of operations at Dale Carnegie Training
of British Columbia.
Ditch the notes: “I find that people also are amazed when you speak without notes so they
give you a break,” says Tamara Vrooman, president and CEO of Vancity credit union. Not having
notes makes a speech more genuine and authentic, she says. It’s also never the same twice.
Watch your tone: “I can’t speak enough about the tone of your voice. You have to speak with
confidence, you have to speak with authenticity. You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not,”
says Anna Tudela, vice-president of diversity and regulatory affairs at Goldcorp.
Silence the inner critic: Women need to be less critical of themselves, Nirumvala says. “I think
as women we expect perfection,” she says. Don’t punish yourself for mistakes; celebrate
progress instead.
IF YOU DON’T FIND IT INTERESTING, OTHERS WON’T
EITHERVancity president and CEO Tamara Vrooman
started public speaking in university by giving speeches to
students, peers and professors. “My breakthrough came
when I realized that if it wasn’t interesting to me, it probably
wasn’t interesting to the audience,” says Vrooman.
Her secret? Don’t use notes or try to memorize speeches.
“That really changed the experience for me because
I realized that if I was engaged, then probably I would
be engaging,” she says. “And all of the other stuff that I
worried about would go away.”
Admitting she still gets nervous, Vrooman uses the
adrenaline to bring energy to her presentations. She
sinks into the moment, taking cues from her audience by
watching body language, and adjusting where needed. She
also looks inward, reflecting on the message she wants
to convey, and how she wants to convey it. She adapts,
using tips and tricks from other speakers whose style
resonates with hers.
“The message can be conveyed in a host of other ways,”
Vrooman says of public speaking. “Why do we choose
public speaking? Well, we must use public speaking because
the person conveying it adds value to the message.
So think about the message less and yourself more.”
At the end of the day though, it’s about good content
and not letting a poor performance set you back. “I
would rather listen to an interesting speech poorly delivered
than an uninteresting speech perfectly delivered,”
Vrooman says.
RESOURCES
A number of local institutions provide public speaking
courses, including Simon Fraser University and the British
Columbia Institute of Technology. University of British
Columbia Extended Learning offers public speaking for
international professionals. Private institutions, such as
the Harvard Advantage Consulting & Training and Dale
Carnegie Training of British Columbia, also offer sessions
aimed at working professionals. District 21 Toastmasters,
which includes the Greater Vancouver area, has dozens
of clubs available for beginner, advanced and specialty
speakers.