7 ways to be a great communicator from MLK and Nancy Duarte

Every time I hear Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” I stop what I’m doing and just listen. It’s always had that effect on me. Always inspired me. Always captivated me. Always made me think of what could be.

But have you ever stopped and analyzed MLK’s speech? Every dug into the words and how he presented them to try and understand why it was so powerful? I hadn’t until last year when I saw Nancy Duarte speak for the first time.

Have you ever seen Nancy speak or read her work? If not, I highly recommend her. She does a masterful job of analyzing presentations and the little things memorable speakers do to make themselves…well…memorable. Here’s Nancy’s breakdown of “I Have a Dream.” It’s about seven minutes long, but I encourage you to watch the whole thing. It goes by fast and you’ll be happy you did.

So what are the key lessons we can learn from MLK and translate to our own presentations and speeches:

1. No more bullets. Nancy points out that MLK did such a great job painting the picture he wanted to convey that slides would have just messed things up. Look, most of us present with slides and will continue to. But that doesn’t mean we can’t speak with passion and use slides only as a supporting tool. The best way to do that is to put pictures on slides so that they spark a story instead of bullets that we naturally want to read. Reading takes away from storytelling. Kill the bullets and words on your slides.

2. Use metaphors anyone can understand. MLK does this with his “insufficient funds” metaphor: “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ As Nancy points out, having no money in our bank account is something we can all relate to.

3. What is vs what could be. This is Nancy’s outline for a memorable speech. Start with what is and then transition to what could be. She shows how MLK does this throughout his famous speech. No matter what you’re trying to convey when you speak, make sure to show your audience how it could make their lives different/better.

4. Tell them, tell them what you told them and then tell them again. This one isn’t just Nancy or MLK. A lot of great speakers have used this motto. The lesson here for me is that no matter how well you know your material, it’s still new to your audience. Make sure they know it when they leave like you knew it when you started. Sometimes I even post my main idea on a slide and insert it at the beginning, middle and end of my presentation.

5. Use things that are precious to your audience. This part is fascinating if you listen to Nancy’s explanation (4:45-5:30). In the New Bliss part of the speech (see below), MLK starts off by quoting an Old Testament passage from the Book of Isaiah. Through this, he hits a chord with the audience — their religion and faith — and implies that if we come together and make this dream a reality, we’ll be fulfilling scriptures. Next, MLK quotes the line “My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.” While he’s invoking a dream and ideal state, Nancy points out the song had also been used earlier in the anti-slavery movement because the country was not actually a sweet land of liberty. Therefore, those lyrics hit home with his target audience.

6. End with the New Bliss. We already talked about Nancy’s ideal outline, which starts with what is and what could be. As you’ll see in the video, it ends with the New Bliss. In MLK’s speech, the anchor of this was “free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.” What he did so well here was paint the picture of where they could get if they worked together. Up to that point he had talked about status quo and possibility. But at the end, he moves to ideal state and infuses the hope that it can be a reality.

7. Dream…because dreams inspire. This one is really simple. Don’t forget to dream and to share your dreams with your audience. Because inspiration makes a speech memorable. And dreams inspire. Look how inspirational MLK’s dream still is today.

What would you add to the list? How do you make your presentations memorable? Is it your goal to inspire?

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