Life After PowerPoint!

When I help clients create their speeches and presentations, I find myself spending quite a bit of time helping them think through what they want to say. As far as I’m concerned, a speech is only as good as the idea it sets forth.

If the speech’s idea is feeble, misguided or misleading, illogical, false, or trite, nothing else — words and phrases, visual aids, delivery — nothing can save it. Even if it meets with the audience’s wild approval — a standing ovation and 5’s on the evaluation sheet — it is still a bad speech.

A good speech sets forth one — and only one — idea.

You can develop a complex idea with several interconnected elements, if you have a mind to and if it suits your purpose and the needs of the audience. But it still has to be a single, unified idea. It helps, of course, if the idea is worthy of being talked about, if it is insightful, provocative, helpful, or entertaining.

So how do you come up with such an idea? Or how do you test your idea to make sure it’s a good idea?

You ask questions. Lots and lots of questions.

I always like starting off with the basics: who? what? where? when? why? how? But don’t stop there. (This web page categorizes any number of questions you might want to ask.)

But here’s the thing to keep in mind. The questions you ask shape the answers you get. Ask what the problem is, for example, and you’ll learn about problems. You may not hear about progress that has already been made or about unheralded successes or about people’s attachment to the way things are.

The more questions you ask and the greater variety of questions you ask, the better. They’ll keep you from narrowing the scope of your thinking too early.

It helps, too, to have a variety of people asking questions. Like-minded people tend to ask the same type of questions. Bring in outsiders. Give them permission to ask questions, even if they don’t seem to make sense to you. It’s hard to see your own blind spots and biases.

And question your own questions. What assumptions are you making? Are you assuming, for example, that there is a problem? Why are you making that assumption? Is it a fair assumption to make? What are the questions you most frequently ask? Why? What questions do you shy away from asking? Why?

What are your favorite questions to ask, when you’re thinking through an idea?

Academy Award acceptance speeches tie with a president’s State of the Union address (any president’s State of the Union address) for boredom-inducing silliness and lack of purpose. Every so often, of course, there are exceptions in both categories, but they are rare and they only highlight how pointless all the other ones are.

(For a delightfully wicked and profoundly cynical take on these speeches, go to the “Academy Award Acceptance Speech Generator.”)

Still, it’s hard to blame the Oscar winners. (I was going to write that theirs is a thankless task, but it seems that giving thanks is all they do.) The winners are, after all, set up to fail. For any number of reasons.

First, the pressure is on. Even the calmest, most restrained and balanced person–is anyone in the movie industry calm, restrained, or balanced?–would have a hard time keeping his or emotions in check. Yes, it’s a good thing to be passionate when you’re speaking, but there is such a thing as too much passion. At least, for a speaker. (If you doubt me, watch Gwyneth Paltrow’s speech as she gasped and wept her way through her acceptance speech for her role in Shakespeare In Love.)

Second, there’s the time limit. Short speeches are the hardest ones to pull off–especially when the pressure is on and your emotions are running riot. And these speeches are or are meant to be very short.

Third, the event itself is an unholy mess. It’s long, disjointed, and uneven. And that’s not even taking the commercial breaks into account. How do you get people’s attention, establish rapport, and be in the moment, when the entire event conspires against you?

But I think there’s another reason why the vast majority of Oscar speeches are so painful to watch. And it’s this: they’re pointless. They serve no purpose.

Under normal circumstances, when you’re given an award and asked to say a few words, that’s exactly what you do. You say a few words. You thank people for recognizing your accomplishment or contribution. You thank those who helped you. And you leave the stage or sit down. Your goal is simply to be gracious in response to other people’s and the audience’s kindness.

But that’s not the purpose of an Academy Award acceptance speech. And that’s not what the winners do. The ceremony would be even more boring than it invariably is–imagine such a possibility–if winner after winner simply followed that formula.

Every speech is or should be driven by a goal–what the speaker wants to accomplish. And that goal, in some way, has to address the audience’s needs. And that’s where I think these speeches fail. Most winners haven’t figured out or haven’t even tried to figure out how to say something that will have some effect on the audience.

The purpose of these speeches is not to thank everyone who has ever been kind or helpful to you. It is, I think, to be entertaining. People are watching and listening in the hope that someone in an entirely too long evening will say something that engages their hearts and minds.

These speeches don’t have to be comical or clever. Heartfelt is fine. So is witty. Self-deprecating humor would be nice. Insightful or intellectually penetrating would be a bonus.

Your thoughts? Did any speech or any moment stand out for you?

Usually talking back to the boss is a career-limiting move. But there are times and situations when it’s not only called for, but necessary and beneficial.

I don’t call it talking back, mind you. I call it reporting back. Here’s when and how to do it.

Say your boss tells you or the team you’re leading to do something. He wants you, maybe, to make an improvement in a product or a process. He’s pretty firm about it, but he’s not real specific.

Ask him questions. Listen. Take notes. Instead of immediately working on a solution, think about what you think he’s thinking. Ask yourself or yourselves questions.

I suggest, for starters, working through the basics:

• Who? Who else is involved in this project? Who is in charge? Who is affected by it? Who knows the most about it?
• What? What is the current situation? What about it does the boss find unsatisfactory? What does the boss want changed or improved? What is the extent of the change? What is the desired outcome? What is the level of effort to be invested?
• Where? Where will the work be done? Where are the people or resources located? Where will the product be produced?
• When? When is deadline or expected delivery date? When is the start date?
• Why? Why does the boss want this change? Why did he put you in charge?
• How? How will he judge the finished product or project? How will you know what you’re doing meets with his approval?

Be especially clear about the assumptions you’re making. For example, you might be assuming from the way he talked about the project that it’s high priority and that you’re to drop everything and get right on it.

You don’t have to answer all these questions in detail or in writing. But you do have to surface issues that need clarification.

Then, go back to your boss and tell him you’ve thought about the project and you’d like to make sure you’ve understood what he wants. Give him a brief, but detailed summary. And state your assumptions. Ask, “Is that what you want?”

It’s surprising how often your boss will make modifications to what you’ve said, even if you’re simply echoing back what he just recently said.

This process — reporting back — will save you all a lot of grief. It will help you understand more precisely what you’re being asked to do. And it may even help your boss think through what he wants.

What do you think of this process?

A speech should be built around one, and only one, idea. But it has to be a big idea. Something that engages the imagination, the intellect, and the emotions. Something that illuminates complexity without being complicated or confusing. Something that causes people to wonder, to speculate, and ask more and better questions.

Here are three ideas for generating big ideas:

Read a Book

Reading a book — as opposed to browsing a summary, an article, or a website that has been optimized for mobile devices — requires attention, concentration, and sustained thinking. Books don’t just contain big ideas, they also train our minds to think big — to think long and hard and deep.

Nicholas Carr at Rough Type cites three quotations from Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, which show a progression in how he thinks the net affects the way we read as well as the way we think.

“The one thing that I do worry about is the question of ‘deep reading.’ As the world looks to these instantaneous devices … you spend less time reading all forms of literature, books, magazines and so forth. That probably has an effect on cognition, probably has an effect on reading.” 

Take a Hike

Hiking has at least two benefits.

First, hiking make us smarter. It’s a form of aerobic exercise, and as John Medina shows in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School exercise increases our brain power.

Second, hiking gets us out in fresh air, sunshine, and nature. Which are all good things, not just for the body but for the soul. William Wordsworth, the great English romantic poet, said, “Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” When I hike, alone or with others, I find myself thinking of things I hadn’t considered before. I wonder as I wonder. And wondering is a doorway into thinking big.

Just Don’t Do Something, Sit There

Silence and the willingness to sit in stillness are probably the greatest counter-cultural “activities” you can engage in. When everything urges you to just do it, it takes moxie not to do it or anything else. Stop cruising the internet. Turn off the TV. Take out the earbuds. Stop going to meetings. Spend less time responding to email. Be quiet and allow — don’t force — ideas to percolate up to your awareness. If you tune out or turn down the volume of all the noise around you, who knows what you might hear?

Where do your best ideas come from?

In the United States today is Presidents Day, a national holiday honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Washington was not as well known for his oratorical skills as Lincoln. His best known speech, simply called “His Farewell,” was more of a letter to the American people at the end of his second and final term as president, which he read.

But before he was president, Washington gave a speech that had far greater impact.

In 1783 officers of the revolutionary army were hatching a plot. They’d heard that the fledgling government was broke and unable to pay them for their past services.

Washington knew that their insurrection would mean the end of the new republic. He walked uninvited into their angry gathering and for nearly half an hour pled for their loyalty. With little success.

At the end of his speech, he opened a letter from a member of congress, which detailed the efforts being made to pay the nation’s debts in full. Washington squinted, held the letter at arm’s length, and then fell silent. The officers looked at one another, puzzled.

Finally, the general reached into his coat and took out a pair of glasses. The officers had never seen their physically formidable commander with glasses. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

His humbling admission achieved what his rhetoric had not. Some of the officers wept, and in the words of his biographer, “From behind the shining drops, their heads looked with love at the commander who had led them all so far and long.” Talk of rebellion ended on the spot.

Sometimes it’s not our words, no matter how well chosen, but our relationship with our listeners — our mutual affection, trust, and respect — that carry the day.

Many speeches fail because the speaker simply fails to define his or her terms.

One of the problems of being an expert, of being immersed in your subject, is that you take certain key concepts or terms for granted. You know them so well that you assume other people know them too. And since you don’t want to insult your audience’s intelligence by explaining the obvious, you skip right over the most important part of your speech.

Always define or describe or illustrate your central idea, the most important terms, the key words.

There’s a great rhetorical device for doing so. It’s a form of contrast. You explain or illustrate or magnify something by setting it in opposition to what it isn’t.

So, for example, I recently listened to an hour-long corporate presentation about diversity. It was, on the whole, an excellent presentation, but the speaker failed to clarify what she meant by diversity. Finally, in the last five minutes during the Q&A she said, “Diversity isn’t about gender, ethnicity, race, or religion. It’s about attracting, hiring, and retaining the best people for the job.” Aha.

Not this…that. Or not this…but that.

“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” (Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 3)

Here’s another example from a book I’m reading (Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot by Peter Dunne): “The only thing that can defeat fear is that thing which is the opposite of fear, and bravery is not the opposite of fear. The opposite of fear is faith.”

Do you have any other examples?

I’ve written earlier about Erroneous Assumptions #1, #2, and #3 that derail speeches and presentations. Today I’d like to look at the Fourth Erroneous Assumption: “People should be fair and reasonable.”

We assume that if people were fair and reasonable as they should be the best ideas (i.e. ours) would win out. Or we assume that our ideas (the best ones) get shot down or passed over or ignored because people aren’t being fair and reasonable as they should be.

The assumption that people are or should be fair and reasonable is a delusion, “a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea held in the face of evidence to the contrary.” And it keeps us from being as effective as we could be.

People aren’t fair and reasonable, at least not consistently. We — I’m including you and me in this — act out of thousands of motives. Some are contradictory. Some are unconscious. Some are noble. Some are self-serving. Some are frightening. Sometimes the results are wonderful to behold. Sometimes they make the angels weep. Put us in groups — families, neighborhoods, political parties, countries, religious communities, companies, work teams — and the motivations become all the more complicated and inconsistent, marvelous and deplorable.

OK, so people aren’t fair and reasonable. Don’t we have the right to think that they should be? Maybe so. But what good does that do?

“Should” is a denial of reality, of the way things are.

The world and the people who inhabit it aren’t perfect. Maybe they should be. But they aren’t. And expecting perfection is a trap.

What good does it do to protest that people should be fair and reasonable? Or that bad things shouldn’t happen to good people? Or that people shouldn’t lie, cheat, and steal? Or that people should be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent? (That’s from the Boy Scout Law, in case you missed it.)

I’m not against moral standards, mind you, or opposed to striving to be better people. On the contrary, I think we got ourselves into the current economic and political mess because a lot — and I mean a lot — of people acted shamefully.

When we talk to people — either individually or in groups — we’ll have a better chance of winning them to our side, if we get beyond thinking that they’ll always and everywhere be fair and reasonable.

People often say — because there’s some truth in it — that a speech or presentation is like a conversation. It should be immediate, direct, and — whether formal or informal — unadorned. It has to be immediately understood, and it should create the sense of a give and take, an interchange of ideas and emotions.

Ronald Reagan told his speechwriters that he never wanted to say anything in a speech that he wouldn’t say in conversation with his barber in Santa Barbara. (His speeches, mind you, might have had more memorable passages, if he hadn’t imposed such a restraint on them.)

But every time you say something is like something else, you always have to acknowledge that the two things are also unalike.

Listen closely to a conversation or read the word-for-word transcription of one, and you’ll realize that most conversations don’t deserve to be emulated. Our day-to-day conversations are laced with ums and ers and you knows and it’s likes. Run-on or incomplete sentences are common. And changing subject mid-sentence is not uncommon. So in some ways you don’t want your speech or someone else’s speech to be exactly like a conversation.

(Max Atkinson has a great chapter in Lend Me Your Ears, titled “Speaking in Private and Speaking in Public,” that bears directly upon this topic.)

I think a speech or presentation should be like the conversation people have not in real life but in well-written books or movies.

Apply Mark Twain’s advice about creating dialogue for fictional characters to your speeches, and you’ll get a sense of what I’m talking about:

When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the circumstances, and have a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevance, and remain in the neighborhood of the the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

A college teacher wrote to tell me that she and her students were enjoying the “listening quiz” that’s posted on my website here.

In the intro to the quiz I stated, “80% (give or take 5%) of effective communication involves listening.” Because she’s an academic, she asked me where I got that statistic. What studies had I based that statement on? Sadly, I had to admit I made it up based on my experience.

I’m not going to die defending the 80% number, but I do firmly believe that effective communication depends much more on listening than on speaking.

And when it comes to promoting civil public discourse–as I’m trying to do in reaction all the very uncivil discourse out there–you can’t go wrong by listening. The various parties involved in what amounts to hate speech are always shouting at, talking over, or waving signs at other people. They never listen.

(You might want to check out the International Listening Association for its resources.)

Do you agree that listening is more important than speaking? What’s the percentage you’d assign to listening?

Image courtesy of Dave Fayram at Flickr.

Continuing my theme of promoting civil public discourse (as opposed to so much of the uncivil public discourse that’s out there), I’d like to promote a blog on honesty that Mark Sanborn has recently posted: Absolute Honesty: Avoiding Dishonesty Traps.

He lists five dishonesty traps. (Read them in their entirety here.)

1. Over-promising
2. Vagueness
3. Lies of omission
4. Lying to ourselves
5. Failing to take action

I would add the dishonesty of mislabeling something so it sounds more attractive than it actually is. (Politicians, their advisors, and representatives are masters at this.)

What would you add?