卡耐基演讲·一、对演讲题材加以限制以适合讲演时间

威廉·詹姆斯教授在向教师们发表演讲时指出，一个人在一次演讲中只能针对一个要点。他所说的演讲，指那种时间限定在一个小时内的演讲，我却听过一位演讲者三分钟的演讲，他一开头就说，他想要针对十一个要点进行谈论。平均用十六秒半的时间来说明一个要点，怎么会有这样“聪明”的人，居然想做如此荒谬的事情，不可思议吧？当然，这也是个极端的例子，但是那种方式，就算不到那种地步，也足以妨碍到任何一个新手。他像个导游，带着观光客，一天之内看遍巴黎风光。这样不是办不到，但就像你也可以三十分钟看完美国国家历史博物馆一样，你也根本不知道清楚地看到了什么。他像只敏捷的山羊，飞快地从这点跳到那点。In one of his talks to teachers, Professor William James pauses to remark that one can make only one point in a lecture, and the lecture he referred to lasted an hour. Yet I recently heard a speaker, who was limited by a stop watch to three minutes, begin by saying that he wanted to call our attention to eleven points. Sixteen and a half seconds to each phase of his subject! Seems incredible, doesn't it, that an intelligent man should attempt anything so manifestly absurd? True, this is an extreme case but the tendency to err in that fashion, if not to that degree, handicaps almost every novice. He is like a cook's guide who shows Paris to the tourist in one day. It can be done, just as one can walk through the American Museum of Natural History in thirty minutes. But neither clearness nor enjoyment results. Many a talk fails to be clear because the speaker seems intent upon establishing a world's record for ground covered in the allotted time. He leaps from one point to another with the swiftness and agility of a mountain goat.

以劳工联盟为题目的讲话为例吧，你根本不能妄想在三或六分钟内告诉我们他们成立的原因，他们采用的方法，他们的建树，他们的缺失以及怎样解决工业争端等。如果你拼命还想这样做，没有人会对你所说的产生概念。它将只是一次混乱、含糊，而且太过简单的大纲罢了。If, for example, you are to speak on Labor Unions, do not attempt to tell us in three or six minutes why they came into existence, the methods they employ, the good they have accomplished, the evil they have wrought, and how to solve industrial disputes. No, no; if you strive to do that, no one will have a very clear conception of what you have said. It will be all confused, a blur, too sketchy, too much of a mere outline.

如果你只谈“工联”的一个方面，并且详细讲述，这样做是不是要更明智一些呢？那是当然。这样你会留给听众一个单一的印象，但透彻易懂，也容易记忆。Wouldn't it be the part of wisdom to take one phase, and one phase only, of labor unions, and cover that adequately and illustrate it? It would. That kind of talk leaves a single impression. It is lucid, easy to listen to, easy to remember.

一天早晨，我去拜访一家公司的总经理，却发现门牌上写着陌生的名字。人事组长是我的老朋友，他说：“他的名字坑了他。”When I went to call one morning on a company president whom I know, I found a strange name on his door. The personnel director, an old friend of mine, told me why.

“他的名字？”我不明白，“他不是控制这家公司的董事之一吗？”His name caught up with him, my friend said. "His name?" I repeated. "He was one of the Joneses who control the company, wasn't he?"

“我说的是他的绰号，”朋友说，“他的绰号叫‘他现在在哪里’，人人都叫他‘他现在在哪里·钟斯’。于是他没撑多久，这个家族另换了一个亲戚取代了他的位置。因为他从来不肯花心思去了解公司整个业务的概况，于是用这里蹿一下，那边蹿一下，这样蹿来蹿去、满场乱跑的方式打发漫漫长日。他觉得看到船运部门的职员关掉一盏灯，或见到速记员拾起一张纸，要比他研究一桩大买卖更重要。他很少待在办公室，因此我们叫他‘他现在在哪里’。”I mean his nickname. my friend said. "It was 'Where-Is-He-Now?' Everyone called him 'Where-Is-He-Now' Jones. He didn't last long. The family put a cousin in his place. He never took the pains to know what this business is all about. He'd put in a good long day, all right, but doing what? Popping in here, popping in there, all over the place, all the time. Just sort of covering ground. He thought it was more important for him to see that a shipping clerk turned out an electric light or that a stenographer picked up a paper clip than it was for him to study a big sales campaign. He wasn't in his office much. That's why we called him 'Where-Is-He-Now'."

“他现在在哪里·钟斯”让我想起很多讲演者，他们之所以不能表现得更优秀一点儿，就是因为他们像钟斯先生一样，想去包揽太多的范围。你没有听过像这样的讲演吗？他们讲着讲着，会不会也让你有：“他现在在哪里？”的想法。Where-Is-He-Now Jones reminds me of many speakers who could do much better than they do. They don't do better because they won't discipline themselves. They are the ones who, like Mr. Jones, try to cover too much ground. Haven't you heard them? And in the midst of a talk, haven't you wondered, "Where is he now?"

一些经验丰富的演讲者，有时也犯这样的错误。也许是他们身具多方面的才华，以致看不到精力分散的危险。你不要像他们，应该紧扣主题。如果你让自己清楚明了，听众就会这么说：“我懂他说的，我知道他现在在哪里！”Even some experienced speakers are guilty of this fault. Perhaps the fact that they are capable in many other ways blinds them to the danger in dispersed effort. You need not be like them. Hold fast to your main theme. If you are to make yourself clear, your hearers must always be able to say, "I understand him.! know where he is now!"