I need two outside speaker evaluation done in

Andrew Zhao

Professor Steele

Outside Speaker Evaluation

Comm212

Review of Dan Pink’s Speech

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Dan Pink’s speech on motivation, it is a great listen either way. Pink’s topic of motivation is something that easily relates to any audience, especially the one present (mainly adult/older), because we all plan on or are currently working a full time job that will present some form of motivation. In his speech he really tries to convey the idea that many businesses are using the wrong form of motivation for their workers. There are many aspects of his speech that are executed very well and a few parts that could have been better. I’m going to evaluate his speech’s overall organization, the effectiveness of the speech, and his delivery of the speech. I will begin by evaluating his overall organization and the different aspects of it.

It was clear that Dan Pink had a specific structure for his speech. He began with a personal story about his experience with law school and then used this for the main structure of his entire speech by making his audience the jury and himself as the lawyer. His speech therefore acted as his case that he planned to justify to the audience through supporting evidence. His introduction gained interest very well but did not fulfill the major function of previewing his main points and it did not have a strong/clear transition. On the other hand, his conclusion fulfilled all the major objectives of a speech conclusion. Other than the introduction, the main parts of his speech had clear transitions (e.g. “Now I want to tell you about…). Overall Pink’s speech is quite easy to follow and understand with an appropriate structure of stating his point then backing it up with evidence to make it seem like a case in a courtroom. Next, I want to discuss the effectiveness of his speech.

The speech’s effectiveness was extremely strong due to his different approach of presenting it as stated above. Making his speech into somewhat of a courtroom case really set my expectations to see a lot of evidence supporting every statement he made. This was accomplished well by his use of visual aids/ Power Point slideshow. Dan Pink not only puts his citations on each slide that has a quote but he also verbally cites them (e.g. “…Sam Glucksberg, who is now at Princeton University in the U.S.). His word choices throughout the speech are also well selected, as everything is easy to understand and if it is an uncommonly heard of term he explains it (e.g. functional fixedness). Now that I have discussed the effectiveness of his speech I will evaluate the general delivery of his speech.

The delivery of the speech was Dan Pink’s huge strength. He seemed extremely enthusiastic about his topic through all of his facial expressions and well used hand gestures. Additionally, he raised his voice appropriately and paused at times to really get a point across. Dan Pink also used a lot of humor in his speech to keep it light hearted and interesting. For instance in his story about law school he says, “To put it mildly, I didn’t do very well. I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90 percent possible.” His small bits of humor made him seem like a down to earth guy right from the beginning guy, which was smart and it made his delivery seem much more relaxed. In general, his delivery was fantastic and really impactful in making his speech as strong as it was.

Overall, Dan Pink’s speech was quite a memorable one due to his great execution in presenting it. The speech’s organization, effectiveness, and Pink’s delivery all came together to create a very solid speech. I found that his use of his citations were extremely effective because of the case-like speech he made. His use of hand gestures was also extremely effective and has made me want to implement hand gestures just as effectively as he has. For example when he talks about how rewards narrow our focus he puts his hands up to his eyes/head and depicts the act of focusing. There are a few things, though; that I would advise him of if I had received the chance to do so. One instance is in the beginning of his speech there were quite a few fillers such as “um”. I would have also advised him to put blank slides between the slides with images and info in it so the audience would not be distracted. Other than these few issues, Dan Pink’s speech is a memorable one and it has really made me consider the benefits of a high intrinsic motivator as opposed to just cash rewards.