It’s clear that the capacity of a guest speaker to influence their audience depends not singly on their message but also on their delivery. More opaque is the extent of what this could mean. Acknowledging the existence of a matter little understood–an important step, I’ll not deny–is far from offering understanding, yet the inanity of a claim from me that I possess answers capable of penetrating the mentioned opacity would be matched by my certainty that it is short-sighted to derive from the recognition of dual-dependence nothing more than a caution to polish, as much as the content, the delivery portion of the influence equation.

Contemplating delivery only insofar as its improvement is sought is to overlook another option: intentionally varying delivery quality over the course of the speech. Some will question how doing so could ever trump the benefits of communicating as effectively as possible for the duration. Think of it this way: in general, the content of a speech is unpredictable, the audience cannot know precisely what next they’ll hear, whereas within a minute of the speech they’ve heard enough to have a good idea of the manner in which what they’ll next hear will be expressed. A predictable manner of expression, even a good one, fails in taking advantage of the potential for delivery to, like content, be variable. To embrace the latent flexibility of both, and to design a speech in a way that these variables complement one another, is something, I think, worth considering.

A number of implementation possibilities could surely be devised. Here are two ideas that might breed more.

1. Begin the speech under the pretense of having a paralyzing fear of public speaking. Progressively shed the faux anxiety as you delve farther into the topic at hand. Observant–yet not so perceptive as to recognize the guise–audience members may attribute your remarkable oratory transformation to the merit of what you’re saying, which presumably propelled your ascension above the embarrassing behaviors of stuttering and eye-dodging and into a realm of staid confidence. People so misled are likely to be favorably influenced.

2. If presenting an argument, share your own position clearly and save convolution for the expression of opposing views. To have been articulate in communicating your position establishes that you have an understanding of the matter, so that the confusion consequent in your raising opposing views will be chalked up to the shortcomings of the views themselves and not to your own–deliberate–failure to express them as best you could. Here again the audience should be swayed in your favor, since people rarely can adopt views they don’t understand…ha ha ha, how unsettling that that isn’t true.