Thursday, November 6, 2008

Retirement Speech - How to Make Great One

A retirement speech can be your one opportunity to deliver best wishes or congratulations to a retiring colleague, or your only opportunity to express your feelings about a potentially lifelong career.  Either way, it is the last moment in your career, and one of the most important.  Do not leave a retirement speech to the last minute.  A long and fruitful career deserves an equally well planned retirement speech.  Although public speaking can induce some feelings of anxiety, it is certainly not a time to become too anxious.

Make the most out of your retirement speech by doing a little planning beforehand.  Excessive detail and notecards are definitely not a requirement, but it does pay to do a bit of planning before heading into the speech.  The most crucial part of any speech, especially a retirement speech, is that you appear relaxed and act yourself.  This can be made all the more simple by a little advance planning.  Heading into a retirement speech, have some idea of the structure you will follow. This will keep the speech concise and effective.

One of the best methods for any retirement speech is the selection of one incident.  Although you might be speaking of a long career, look to the past for a memorable moment that really reflects that career.  This is an excellent way to demonstrate the integrity of those that you work with.  A single well chosen incident can do more to illustrate your experiences than an hours worth of aimless rambling.

A touch of a bit of humor can also go a long way in a retirement speech.  The humor doesn't have to be as though you're a comedian, but should simply reflect the circumstances and relax everybody up a little.  With just a touch of humor, you can get everybody ready for the speech, capturing their attention.  Sprinkling small touches of humor throughout the speech makes it more memorable.  Humor in a retirement speech should not stray toward the tasteless, nor does it need to be astounding.  If you have a hard time coming up with anything, the internet is a great resource for topical jokes. 

There are entire retirement speeches online, sometimes free and sometimes sold for a fee.  If you are very pressed for time, purchasing one of these as a template might be an option.  You should always try to give a retirement speech as personal a touch as possible.

For more great information about Retirement please visit http://all-about-retirement.info/blog/.


No comments: