How can Insights Discovery help your presentation and public speaking?

When presenting and public speaking, of course we want our audience to be inspired – at the very least to listen, remember, and be positively affected. We need to express ideas in a way that has meaning for them, both in terms of content and delivery. To achieve that, we can structure our story clearly; we think about what’s in it for them (the audience); we use vocal variety and congruent body language; we make great eye contact – in short, we do everything we can to create rapport.

We still might only hit the mark with a small proportion of listeners. Why? Because we have our own preferred mode of communicating, and we will probably stay within that comfortable style particularly when under pressure. There’s nothing wrong with playing to our strengths, but to reach the different kinds of people any audience, we need to understand what they need to hear and how they need to hear it – not just what we think we are good at doing. …or there will be a whole bunch of people who we will never reach.

So when we are coaching speaking skills, at the heart of building a compelling relationship with the audience is the wonderful personality tool, Insights Discovery®, designed by father and son team, Andi Lothian and Andy Lothian, based in Dundee. Insights Discovery is built on a foundation of just 4 colour preferences, each of which has its special contribution to make to an inspiring speech, for the listeners and the speaker. (It goes much deeper, but shall we keep it simple for now?).

You are probably familiar with the Influencing triangle that goes back to Aristotle: logos, pathos and ethos, or thinking, feeling, and credibility. That is, we capture hearts and minds through content, and trust through committed and congruent delivery. By filtering this principle through the 4 major colour-energy preferences described by Insights Discovery, we ensure we employ not only thinking and feeling material, but delivery that encompasses both a’ present/harnessed’ style a ‘charismatic/released’ style of performance.

Different messages will require a different mix of the colour palette. If we tried to use the same leading edge when announcing redundancies as when asking our team to increase their targets to a tight deadline, we would get ourselves into a lot of trouble. Remember, however, all 4 preferences will be sitting in the audience, so ignore them at your peril. Broadly speaking, the elements we need to include are: clear thinking, purpose, why it matters, and great storytelling to bring it to life.

When you are the speaker, you are by definition the leader. This allows you to lead from 4 distinct edges: Fiery Red ‘warrior/hero’, Sunshine Yellow ‘story-teller/positive visionary’, Earth Green ‘nurturer/caregiver’, and Cool Blue ‘expert/sage’. The listeners will all get a flavour of an approach that resonates for them, and the speaker gets a nuanced, varied performance. How could you resist?

Find a way to access each of the different preferences in a way that is truthful for you, and use it to generate ideas and structure your speech. [The next blog will suggest ideas for the speaker strengths and uses in each colour energy].

Do you want to discover your Insights Discovery colour energy and learn how to transform your public speaking skills?  Why not contact us here.

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