On Rehearsing: Value and Process

Rehearsing has value, if you process it correctly.

In my experience, this is a learned skill.

The best communicators—whether speakers, presenters, interviewees, performers—rehearse and rehearse well.

They know that absent, ineffective preparation leads to stillborn or deformed communication.

Yet I hear many senior business people say, “I don’t like rehearsing. It only makes me worse.” They claim rehearsing interferes with their ability to present naturally and authentically. Consequently, they rely on their experience and preparation on paper and computer—and avoid rehearsing.

In the ten years I’ve been coaching (mostly senior) executives in Australia and overseas to present, speak and interview I’ve seen that effective rehearsing most often improves performances on multiple levels, including:

• Content, depth, logic, rhetoric, compression, use of audio-visual aids.
• Emphasis, transitions and flow, good and bad repetition, focusing attention, culling dull or dead spots to improve engagement.
• Naturalness, comfort and the appearance of spontaneity.
• Confidence, nerve management.

The appearance, feel and sound of spontaneity need not lessen with rehearsal.

Some things are never discovered until you deliver them, including how the words roll off the tongue (or not) and how they sound together.

If this were not true, the most talented actors, speakers and presenters in the world would never rehearse. But largely they do rehearse—in company and intensely—especially in the live arts, namely the stage and theatre. TV is lower budget—and it shows.

Learning how to rehearse takes effort, but need not be onerous. Often it’s fun.

One on one coaching is a safe and productive context in which to learn effective rehearsal and keynote delivery skills.

Process

An independent external view brings a useful, friendly and outside perspective.

Discretely focus on content or delivery issues, including nerves, speech and message structure, energy dynamics, audience involvement levels, Q&A processes, handling heckling and hostility, purposeful and authentic expression, working the room, reading your audience, over and under preparing, verbal tics, information dryness, managing issues, heading off roadblocks, improving likability, how to be memorable, etc.

I usually recommend three rehearsals, if you can manage them: once to focus and improve content, a second time for expressive elements including props and emphasis, and a third to put it all together and make it natural.