Motivational speech is important because it helps focus human attention on reaching consensus on a problem or for guiding and synchronizing individual or collective efforts towards performing an action, searching for or implementing solutions to a given problem.
Regardless of what motivational speech ideas they originate from, such speeches usually share some common structural elements – they start with highly interesting, shocking remarks or with highly relevant information for public whose attention needs to be captured.
After that, either a problem is stated or an argument/ position is presented – for both cases, this is explained, supported with evidence, reasoning, or real-life examples. A fairly common ending for motivational speeches is a call to action, be it a change in behavior, worldview, or something else.
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Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
Monroe's motivated sequence is a technique of persuading an audience or interlocutor, which is applicable to a wide variety of motivational topics that have persuasive component. This sequence consists of five key elements/ steps:
Capture attention – do this through storytelling, by using humor, shocking statistics, inspiring quotations, rhetorical questions, etc. You could do this through 1 minute to 5 minute intervention depending on how much you want to say here and depending on how much time you have allocated for entire speech.
Illustrate the need – you should illustrate/ convince audience that it has a psychological or other kind of need that is not going to disappear by itself and which requires action for achieving desired result. It means that you should demonstrate (using arguments, persuasion, evidence) that there is a serious problem, that negatively affects audience, and that addressing it would bring significant benefits while not doing so would have negative consequences. The main point is to make audience eager to embrace proposed solution to this problem.
Satisfy the need – present solutions that address specific problems. Solutions and your position should be well-explained, viable, based on convincing examples or statistics, on high-quality and trustworthy data/ sources. At this stage, presenters should be also ready to convincingly refute counterarguments.
Visualize the future. This could be done for one or both of following scenarios: if solution is adopted and in case it is not. You should be as detailed as possible in depicting each scenario – current deficient status-quo disadvantages should be presented clearly, just like benefits of a brighter future resulting from adopting mentioned solution. To ensure credibility, it is important that these visions are realistic and not exaggerated/ inflated.
Encourage action – inform audience about specific actions they take for addressing/ solving problem. This could be done through a short 2 minute to 3 minute intervention but much more time should be dedicated depending on the topic and on what role action has an overall story. Don’t set exaggerated and numerous expectations but rather encourage involvement and step by step solutions, you might actively participate in or organize follow-up events.
