Randy Pausch - in Last Lecture

Extraordinary speakers move their audience. They succeed that their listeners identify with them and convey their content with emotions. One excellent example is the Last Lecture of Randy Pausch. Let´s take a closer look, he uses techniques you can easily use yourself for improve:

1. Introduce the elephant in the room -- clear the room
2. Personal Stories / Storytelling
3. Repetitions
4. Visual Aids
5. Enthusiasm -- Bonding

I know you don´t deliver only speeches which should move and inspire. But if you do Randy Pausch´s Last Lecture is an extraordinary example. The blogger Andrew Dlugan (Six Minutes) declares him as THE best communicator in year 2008.

Which are key success factors for Randy Pausch´s speech

My first impression was: hmmm, he didn´t dress up for this occasion, in front of such a large audience and during the first minutes he had quite a lot of Ahs (being German: yes, we first see those things). Nevertheless I got stuck and watched the whole Last Lecture video. Let me tell you why.

Introduce the elephant in the room -- clear the room

An excellent technique to get rid of any topics which might divert the audience´s attention: Name it. Or as he put it: introduce the elephant in the room. I like this picture: imagine a big elephant in the room, but nobody addresses it -- it is so unusual that listeners might get distracted once in a while wondering why it´s there. Randy Pausch had pacreatic cancer at that time and the diagnosis pointed to only a few months to live. Randy said: I won´t talk about it today. He wrapped it up in a short summary and a show of push-ups where he demonstrated how fit he is and how he feels. This caused the audience to calm down in that area and focus only on Randy and his lecture. This is a good technique to mention a topic you won´t lecture about and show the environment in which the situation is embedded. I observed this techniwue also with another speaker. He delivered a speech about green electricity. He started his speech with: “I will not talk about the accident in a nuclear power plant which nearly caused a catastrophy lately or about the environmental damage aused by coal-fired power plants.” -- So he got his audience to think about these topics shortly and recall that this is a very complex topic. Then he focused on a specific part in this topic during his speech. This is a brilliant trick to calm down the audience and start with a clean background. Then you can direct the audience´s thoughts and emotions where you want it.

Personal Stories / Storytelling

Randy Pausch built in lots of personal stories. He started with his choldhood dreams. Of course -- you probably say -- his topic was: “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” -- then it is understandable that he reports about his own dreams. Nevertheless I am surprised how many speakers don´t tell their own stories, but speak about other people´s experience, if at all. Randy Pausch did not only point out his childhood dreams, he reported what he had done to achieve them. Including the two dreams he did not achieve but what he learned from not achieving them. He thanked a lot of people who helped or supported him. It is very noble -- not the German way, but I like it. Randy´s stories were presented in a way that every listener was able to put themselves into Randy´s position and had them on the edge of their seats to get to know how he achieved his dreams. Randy included many details into his stories, which helps the audience to believe in them and see them with their inner eye. For example his dream “Being Captain Kirk” -- he admired the communicator which Captain Kirk used in the earlier series -- it had the size of a mobile phone and you swung it open. Next he took his mobile phone out of his pocket and swung it open -- the vision which got reality.

Repetitions

Randy repeats during his lecture every once in a while the topic obstacles: he presents a slide showing an excerpt of a brick wall which is his symbol for obstacles. He starts with it as an obstacle and gives it a new meaning. In fact he does this several times -- each time the brick wall stands for another meaning:

1. the test if we really are committed,
2. the obstacle which is there to hold the others back,
3. the challenge to value more what we achieved,
4. our creativity which we need to activate to circumvent it or climb over it.

Plus others. The regular repetition -- in this case the obstacle (brick wall) and its new meaning -- cause a constant generalization. You will see the brick wall never again as insurmountable, but you have many new meanings for it. Other repetitions cause light bulb moments. Randy summarizes regularly what he talked about and pauses to show his audience. He anchors the new knowledge even deeper in their minds. Summaries are best with only a few sentences or even words and are the essence of what had been said. This is especially valuable if you want to ensure that your audience grasps certain knowledge.

Visual Aids

Randy Pausch uses several visual aids. He supports his lecture with only a few PowerPoint slides at strategic way points. He uses point lists which were kept very brief and he supplemented with his stories. Other than that he only shows pictures or video. Randy also showed several props which he included playfully, pointed out or ingored. The football which comes with his childhood dream to play once in the NFL is rather unobtrusive and would not be missed if left out. But his proof that he indeed achieved his childhood dream “Winning stuffed animals” is rather impressive: he has a parade of stuffed animals marched in on the stage. I love his leather vest with arrows sticking in the back -- which he wore while talking about something that dod not go as planned (what a great “hidden” message). Of course this includes the vision to reality show of Captain Kirk´s communicator to today´s mobile phone which I mentioned earlier.

Enthusiasm -- Bonding

Randy Pausch burned for his dreams. You can easily sense it in the video -- look at his eyes, his smile and his gestures. Randy is self-confindent and uses his humor. He is relaxed and moves smoothly as if he talked to a handful of students standing around him. He shows how much he feels associated with his audience. And of course he has a lot of fun during his lecture. Randy not only shows enthusiasm for his goals but also in detail -- for example when reporting about the reaction of two of his bosses when he tried to get a sabbatical time for his dream to be an imagineer at Disney. He slipd into each role shortly: the one very strict, nearly screaming and the other one calm and asking for more information. Both say “I don´t know”, but in totally different ways. Randy seems extremely authentic through these emotions which can be sensed so clearly. Everybody knows he is convinced about what he speaks. This is a stregth which gets lost especially in technical presentations as being hold uncountable in many companies. Those presentations are being delivered with no passion or emotion. No wonder that listeners have problems staying awake. I can only recommend to include personal stories, visual aids and especially use your enthusiasm to convince your audience. This enthusiasm is a spark which sets your audience on fire -- and bond with your listeners.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture -- Video, Transcript & Book

• Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Author), Jeffrey Zaslow (Author)
• Read the transcript of the Last Lecture: Last Lecture Transcript
• Watch “Last Lecture” as video:

Many thanks to Randy Pausch -- posthum -- for this example of an extraordinary presentation.