MINNEAPOLIS Executives flock for speech coaching

The 'speech doctor' helps executives conquer their fear of speaking.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
MINNEAPOLIS -- The vice president of an international drug company got so nervous during a corporate presentation that he fainted, the victim of what Annet Grant calls "a classic case" of speaking anxiety.
"In the theater we call it stage fright," said Grant, who holds a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Minnesota and spent several years as a director in community theaters hereabouts.
These days you might call her the Speech Doctor: She's the founder and sole revenue producer of a 27-year-old Minneapolis company called Executive Speaking Inc. Using the skills developed in the theater, she offers a communications coaching service that focuses on teaching senior executives how to make presentations with ease and authority.
Grant charges 9,000 for a two-day program of one-on-one counseling, 7,000 for a day and a half. Despite the hefty cost, executives from around the world flock to her downtown office, where they sweat and strain in front of a video camera in Grant's soundproofed studio while she barks critiques and suggestions.
The result is a business that approached a record 870,000 last year, when clients included executives from Alcoa, PepsiCo, Pfizer and R.J. Reynolds, 3M, Cargill and General Mills. About 30 percent of her business is international, usually senior executives running overseas operations for U.S. companies.
Intense training helped
One of last year's clients was that drug company executive, who had spent years avoiding the speaker's rostrum. But he could not dodge a summons to appear before an international forum in Switzerland.
So he flew to Minneapolis seeking Grant's help. In a strenuous four-day marathon, they worked in her studio on breathing, focus and organizational structure.
Shortly after the speech, he was on the phone to Grant: "I was great," he enthused.
The problems she addresses vary: Take the recently promoted executive who was preparing for his first presentation to securities analysts.
"He kept trying to inject humor into the talk," with pitiful results, Grant recalled. "So there were a lot of interruptions while I tried to teach him about the art of timing."
Or the cardiovascular surgeon who was having trouble with the difficult job of informing families after a death on the operating table.
"He wasn't uncaring," Grant said. "But it was so hard for him to tell the families that he came off as withdrawn and defensive." With Grant's help, he worked on organizing his thoughts and relaxing enough to allow his sympathy to show. The payoff was a letter he shared with Grant from a family member thanking him for his compassion.
A favorite is the young heir to a good-sized fortune who was so shy he barely uttered a word as Grant sought to diagnose his problems. After hearing monosyllables in response to all her questions, she finally resorted to a trick used occasionally to help actors overcome stage fright: She bought a pair of large hand puppets and asked the client to carry on a conversation with them.
And it worked, sort of: "It wasn't a night-and-day change," Grant said. "But he did get better."
How not to be boring
Perhaps the largest client group is the throng of executives who tend to fall back on a tedious recitation of facts and figures when confronted by an audience.
"The difficulty is convincing them that they must create a story, not just regurgitate data, if they want to hold an audience's attention," Grant said. In sum, they not only must organize their thoughts, but they must learn how to project their voices and develop the movements and rhythms that "add up to presence."
Grant offered a prominent example: "By all accounts, President Bush is charming in person," she said. "But when he makes a speech, he's stiff and mechanical."
In short, the aim is "to show clients how to be friendly and warm on demand," she said.