Stage time is precious and every second counts. A proficient speaker is one who knows to value stage time and prepares in a manner that he utilizes it in the best manner possible.

When you are allotted 10 minutes to deliver a speech, it means you are allotted 600 seconds to be precise, and every second matters. It also means that you need to be stepping off the lectern/stage before the 600^th second. Most people fail to get this right.

When you are allotted 10 minutes,

 it just doesn’t mean that “ You have 10 minutes to express your views!”,

it means ”The audience (be it 10/100/1000) are sparing their valuable time and  listening to you , their time needs to be valued”

it means “The Audience listening to you deserve the best possible insights in those 10 minutes!”

I have come across many senior professionals, who are subject matter experts in their space, when called on stage to ‘say a few words’ end up saying ‘a few thousand words’. Many consider it their right and privilege to consume stage time. It boosts their ego and makes them feel that they have done justice to the post or designation they occupy. What they fail to realize is that each person in the audience is actually cribbing and thinking “This person just doesn’t stop!”. Essentially most leaders lose their ability to influence the audience by overshooting stage time.

The primary reasons for overshooting stage time are :

• Lack of Preparation
• Many equate consuming stage time as a matter of privilege
• Stage time is directly proportional to my designation-“I am the CEO, it only augurs well if I at least speak for 20 minutes”
• Many don’t even realize they have overshot time. Stage is such a tricky space. The person on stage feels like its just been 5 minutes and he has another 5 minutes to go, while for the audience it seems like its already been an hour. In reality, the person may have spoken for over 20 minutes.
• Many initially struggle to ‘get into the groove’ and by the time they get to the point, they have conveniently overshot time.

Beyond personality traits and ego issues, some genuinely are unable to stick to time, the primary reason being lack of preparation. Preparation is the key to delivering a terrific speech. If you don’t prepare, the speech would be terrifying!

When you are allotted 10 minutes, it translates to about 1000-1200 words depending on the pace of a speaker. It is said that the average pace of a speaker shouldn’t exceed 120 words a minute, else it would be difficult to follow. In case you are a relatively slow speaker, you still need to stick to about 100 words per minute. If you speak at a pace slower than that, it would essentially put your audience to sleep (will write a detailed article on pace of speech in the coming weeks). The key is to prepare a speech accordingly and try to stick to it.

They other notion most speakers have is  “ I will have bullet points and use it to elaborate on stage”. This is a classy mistake committed by many inexperienced speakers. Most overshoot time, while trying to complete their points. It takes a lot of practice and ‘stage presence’ to know how much to speak and how to complete within the given timeline. It is advisable to always prepare in detail for a 10 min speech rather than just use bullet points ( shall write a detailed post on the art of speech preparation in my future blogs).

In short, Stage time is like gold- its precious, valuable and needs to be handled with care. If you wish to be respected as a speaker, professional or a fellow being, it is absolutely pertinent to stick to the allotted time and leave the stage on a high.

While on stage, LESS IS ALWAYS MORE!