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Three Minutes of Fame
Back when he worked at Microsoft, Jensen Harris (Textio's current CEO) used to do this thing with his monthly all-hands called Three Minutes of Fame.
The idea was simple. Every month, he chose five people in his organization at random. A few days before the all-hands, he told them it was their turn for Three Minutes of Fame. During the meeting, each person would have a three-minute speaking slot to talk about anything they wanted. When the timer behind them showed that three minutes were done, everyone in the crowd applauded wildly and their time was up (whether or not they were done speaking).
When I say that people could talk about anything they wanted, I do mean anything. Yeah, some people talked about work topics. But others talked about their dog, their favorite writer, or their time as a contestant on The Price is Right. Every month, the first 15 minutes of the hour-long all-hands was dedicated to Three Minutes of Fame.
The Three Minutes of Fame >> Leadership pipeline
Three Minutes of Fame was a brilliant idea for two reasons. First, it got everyone to show up to the meeting on time. No one wanted to be the loser who skipped out cheering on their teammates. For this reason alone, it was effective. But more importantly, it gave everyone in the organization public speaking practice when a) the stakes were low and b) the audience was there to hype you up no matter how you did.
No surprise, but over time, the organization developed stronger and stronger capacity for speaking in public. More than a decade later, many people from that team have gone on to leadership roles where they speak in public often. They are CEOs, Chief Product Officers, and Chief Technology Officers at some really successful companies.
When it comes to public speaking, there's no substitute for experience. And as Three Minutes of Fame shows, the best experience can be low-stakes.
If you hate public speaking, you might be tempted to manage your fear by writing out a script and reading from it when you present. I'm here to tell you that this is making both your presentations and your anxiety worse.
Learning from Three Minutes of Fame, here are three things you can do instead of reading from that script.
#1: Practice with conversations, not a formal presentation
Great speakers understand their material at heart level, so they don't have to memorize it. The best way to internalize an idea at heart level is to talk about it in a lot of different settings. Especially settings that are comfortable and familiar.
Conversations with people you trust build your confidence. To get loose and conversational, have a bunch of informal conversations about your presentation topic before you ever get on stage. If it helps, you can even structure your talk like a fireside chat, where you pose three important questions and then you just answer them like you would in a conversation.
Three Minutes of Fame worked because every speaker could pick a topic that they knew at heart level. That makes it easy to shine.
#2: Make your own slides
It's okay if you're not a designer and you need help on your final slides. But write the draft yourself. Don't rely on AI for the first draft either. It's much harder to get fluent with someone else's concepts than with your own. This is the big problem with how people use AI-slide generators or chiefs of staff. Making stuff yourself is how you internalize your messages.
And for real, skip the slides entirely if they're not adding new data or visual illustration of concepts. Just talk.
#3: Find your role model
There are a lot of ways to be a good speaker. Some people present detailed data with authority, and others tell stories. Some have an interactive dialogue with their audience and others use a stand-and-deliver style where they hold questions until the end. The right way is the way that works for you.
Study great speakers and learn specific techniques from those who are most similar to you in style and temperament. Reject techniques that don't feel natural to your personal style, even if you admire the speakers using them.
When you watch a good talk, pay attention to how they present as well as to what they're saying. What technique can you borrow?
Three Minutes of Fame showcased many different styles and they were all equally celebrated. Lots of successful models to consider.
The bottom line: Three Minutes of Fame developed incredible public speakers because of its constraints: the time was limited, people talked about things they already knew well, and the audience was guaranteed to be supportive. It gave people a chance to practice when the stakes were low.
You can do this too. Stop reading from a script over someone else's slides!
Kieran
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