Life After PowerPoint!

There are three tasks that any leader takes on when giving a speech, and Obama addressed each one successfully in his commencement speech at Notre Dame on Sunday. (Read the text here.)

The first task is to define the identity of the audience — to tell them who they are or should be. To remind them of their history, their shared values, and their purpose. Obama addressed the audience’s dual identity, as Catholics and members of the Notre Dame community and as citizens of the United States.

The second task is to influence the audience — to shape how they think and feel, not just about specific issues, but about the larger scope of things. That’s why Obama enlarged the discussion, speaking not just about abortion but about how Americans deal with any issue that raises signficant differences.

And the third task of a leader is to inspire the audience — to touch their deepest held values, their emotions, and their imaginations in a way that rouses them to action. That’s why Obama ended his speech with a call: “Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived.”

I don’t want to turn this post into a political debate. I’m purposely not discussing what Obama said about the issues and whether I agree with him or not. I’m merely pointing out that he tackled the three tasks that leaders should address in their speeches: 1) to establish the identity of the audience, 2) to influence them, and 3) to inspire them.

(I develop each of those three tasks at greater length in my book, Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint.)

I’d love to hear what you think of his speech as a speech. Please no political rants.

A radio interviewer asked me yesterday what I thought of Obama’s State of the Union Address. “Was it a success?”

How do you decide if a speech – the president’s or your own — was a success or a flop? A hit or a miss?

Do you judge a speech by the applause? Obama was applauded 61 times during his speech (according to those who count these things) and got a standing ovation at the end. Does that mean it was a success?

Do you judge a speech by people’s comments afterwards? The pundits and talking heads seemed to agree it was a successful speech. (Their assessment varied, mind you, depending on their political leanings). Does that mean it was effective? If people tell you they liked what you said, does that mean your speech was effective?

No one passed out a speech evaluation form when Obama finished speaking, but they sometimes do at the end of a conference or seminar. If you score higher than a 4.0 on a 5.0 scale for speech effectiveness, does that prove anything?

How do you decide how effective Obama’s speech was? And, by extension, how do you know if your own speeches and presentations are effective?

I’d like to propose one criterion. It’s not the only one, but it’s the one that matters most. Did the speech achieve the speaker’s goal? Yes or no? Did it produce the results the speaker wanted? Yes or no. That’s it.

When Demosthenes, the greatest of Greek orators, was asked what the three tests of a great speech were, he answered, “Action. Action. Action.” For leaders today, the answer would be, “Results. Results. Results.”

According to a CBS poll, “Eighty percent of speech watchers approve of President Obama’s plans for dealing with the economic crisis. Before the speech, 63 percent approved.” If Obama’s intention was to gain support for his plan, I’d say he gave a very effective speech.

All the rules, principles, and guidelines of speaking are ways of helping you achieve your goal. Don’t get so fixated on them, that you lose sight of what you want to accomplish. And don’t even think of giving a speech without knowing exactly what you want to accomplish.

What did you think of his speech? Do you agree with my criterion? Would you suggest another?

Billboard designers know that they get about three seconds of people’s attention as they’re driving by at 65 miles an hour, listening to a CD, and drinking a latte. A billboard has to make its point — its one point — unambiguously and quickly.

The same is true with a speech.

Audiences may look like they’re giving you their undivided attention, but in their minds they’re speeding along multiple highways of thought, juggling innumerable tasks. They are not catching everything you’re saying.

So your speech has to make its point — its one point — unambiguously and quickly.

Don’t get me wrong. I love speeches that address complex subjects in a rich, sophisticated, and intellectually challenging way. I don’t want speakers to dumb down their material or to reduce it to a simplistic slogan. But the more complex the issue you’re addressing, the harder you have to work to clarify your message.

Imagine that people are speeding by your speech, not giving it the kind of attention you’d like. What can you do to get your point across?

P.S. The billboard above was designed by a friend of mine, Annika Nelson, whose lovely artwork can be seen in books, galleries, and public spaces. Check out her site here.

Everyone will tell you that to learn how to give a speech, you need to practice. Just get up there and speak. It makes sense. I say it myself. You learn by doing.

But what isn’t often said is this. One of the best ways to improve your speaking is to listen — and pay attention — to good speeches.

Along those lines, I offer this speech by Sir Ken Robinson at Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

It’s long (almost an hour), but it’s worth the time.

His talk is what I consider a hybrid. Half (college-level) lecture. Half speech. It could have been more tightly structured. He could have made his point a little more forcefully. And he could have addressed the question, “So what do we do now?”

But I love his use of stories and images. I love how chatty and personable he was while talking intelligently and passionately about important issues. And I love how thoughtful and thought-provoking he was. I favor speeches that challenge the way I think about issues worth caring about.

Any speeches you’d recommend?

Dale Carnegie started out teaching people how to give speeches. As a result of his teaching, he wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People, which may be the first self-help book ever published. (It’s still selling big time.) I just read a blog by Chris Brogan that made me think of Carnegie’s “Six Ways to Make People Like You.” They are:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in the terms of the other person’s interest.
6. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.

I always like Carnegie’s advice, and I highly recommend his book to many of my clients. I just wish it didn’t sound so manipulative to me. “I’ll make you feel important,” it seems to say, “and I’ll do it sincerely so you’ll like me.”

Brogan’s posting echoes Carnegie’s rules 1, 4, and 5. Like Carnegie Brogan makes a point about focusing more on the other person in a conversation than on yourself. But he does it without sounding calculating, which I like.

In situations where you’re talking with others, do your best to talk more about them. Learn about them. Ask questions. The smartest people are those who plumb the depths of the other person, and come away knowing them deeply. We seem to fear, as humans, that the other person in a situation won’t hear us. We get worried that we’ll leave a conversation somehow unequally.

Strangely, the most “important” people (in at least the public business sense) I have ever met in my life have all asked me more about myself, and even with me trying hard to turn it around, they were gracious and interesting and still worked hard to know more about me than themselves.

chrisbrogan.com

The same advice applies to giving a speech. Which sounds strange I know, because a speech seems to be more like a monologue than a conversation.

But here’s what’s important to remember about giving a speech: It isn’t about you. It isn’t even about your expertise. It’s about your audience and how they can benefit from what you say.

As you prepare you speech, you have to listen to your audience, doing as much research as possible about them. Who are they? What do they already know and feel about your topic? What are their problems, concerns, interests, goals? What do they have in common? What makes them different? Why are they gathering? What do they want? It’s hard, in my opinion to find out too much about your audience.

Before your speech begins, talk with individuals in the audience. Don’t just stand off to the side of the room or sit quietly somewhere. Shake people’s hands as they come in. Introduce yourself. Ask them about themselves.

And as you’re speaking, listen to their body language. Invite their questions and really listen to them. (Don’t simply use their questions as a jumping off point for what you what you wanted to say anyway.)

Make your speech as much like a conversation as possible, listening as deeply and authentically as you can to the people you’re addressing, and I guarantee you’ll give a better speech.

The goal of a speech isn’t — or shouldn’t be — to make your audience marvel at what a great speaker you are. The goal of a great speech is to make them marvel at what they’re capable of.

Who are the speakers you admire most? Why?

Here I am showing off my book, Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint: How to Sell Yourself and Your Ideas (Crown Business, 2009). I also sum it up in one sentence and describe some of the features of the book.

By the way, here’s my one sentence summation of the book: Leaders, aspiring leaders, and people who want their words to have more impact speak not to communicate information, but to influence and inspire their audiences, to shape the way they think and feel and act.

An emcee performs many functions throughout the event — from its beginning to its end.

In some cases, such as this one, an off-stage announcer will introduce the emcee, but the emcee is really the first person to address the audience.

The emcee’s opening remarks need to accomplish two primary goals:

1. To focus the audience’s attention. Most audiences haven’t been waiting as long as this one on inaugural day, but they have been waiting for some time. They may be distracted, checking out other people in the audience, reading the program, chatting on their cell phones, or texting someone. Someone other than the main speakers needs to get their attention, quiet them down, and draw their attention to the stage.
2. To frame the event. The emcee’s opening remarks set the stage for what is to follow, preparing the audience mentally and emotionally. In as few words as possible the emcee gives the audience a foretaste of what is going to happen and an undestanding of what it means.

The emcee’s opening remarks may address many issues, such as acknowledging dignitaries, listing the agenda, and making announcements (changes to the program, location of restrooms, etc.). But all of those other issues are subservient to the two main functions: focusing and framing.

The emcee’s remarks should be short. They should never call attention to the emcee. They should shine the spotlight on the main speakers.

I think Dianne Feinstein struck just the right note in her speech at Tuesday’s inauguration. In under two and half minutes, she stood up, demanded people’s attention without any fuss or bother, and gave a brief reflection on the meaning of the event.

She acknowedgled Bush and Cheney, Obama and Biden (by title, not by name), and launched right into her remarks. She situated the event both in time (”we come here every four years”) and in place (”here on the national mall”). She then briefly touched on a few themes — democracy, peaceful transition of power, change, and the fulfillment of the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of from the Lincoln monument — that others would develop later. (Emcees have to be careful not to steal the thunder from what the main speakers will say later in the program.)

Here’s the core of what she said:

The freedom of a people to choose its leaders is the root of liberty. In a world where political strife is too often settled with violence, we come here every four years to bestow the power of the presidency upon our democratically elected leader. Those who doubt the supremacy of the ballot over the bullet can never diminish the power engendered by nonviolent struggles for justice and equality, like the one that made this day possible. No triumph tainted by brutality could ever match the sweet victory of this hour and what it means to those who marched and died to make it a reality. Our work is not yet finished, but future generations will mark this morning as the turning point for real and necessary change in our nation. They will look back and remember that this was the moment when the dream that once echoed across history, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial finally reached the walls of the White House.

And then she got on with the matter at hand, introducing the next item on the agenda — the invocation.

A leader talks about things that matter.

By leader I mean — broadly — anyone, regardless of title or position, who influences or directs others to accomplish something worthwhile.

In troubling times, such as the ones we are in now, there’s all the more need for leaders to speak in a way that provides a sense of hope, of belonging, and of direction.

And yet in times like these there’s always the temptation to cop out. To deny reality. To confirm everyone’s worst fears. Or to offer false hope.

During the depression in Italy, when people were even more shaken by the economy that we are today, movie studios produced a slew of escapist films. They got titled telefono bianco or white-telephone movies. (White telephones were status symbols, something that only the rich could afford.) A white-telephone movie is a film about shallow rich people who have plenty of leisure time, doing trivial things in swank settings.

I learned about white-telephone movies in a film-appreciation class in college years ago. But I hadn’t thought of the term for decades, until it came back to me while I was watching the CEOs from automotive companies asking congress for money.

For an insightful analysis of the CEOs’ performance, see…

An open letter to GM, Ford and Chrysler (Mostly GM!)

Speechwriting and Professional Speaking.

If I can coin a term, I would say that a white-telephone speech is a presentation by people who are leaders in name only, talking about trivial matters in an inflated or pompous manner. White-telephone movies obviously served some need in the 1930s — for diversion, if nothing else — or there wouldn’t have been a market for them. But there is no need or justification for white-telephone speeches. Not now. Not ever.

Leaders speak — or should speak — to make a difference in the lives of the people they are addressing.

If you have an example of a white-telephone speech or of its opposite — a speech that matters — let me know.

Mark Sanborn, author and noted authority on leadership, offers a great little reflection on leaders and their obligation to provide hope. It’s especially pertinent in these days of economic gloom and doom:

John W. Gardner was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Lyndon Johnson. He was a great American, advocate for education and wise thinker. Gardner said, “The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.” His words couldn’t be timelier…

Our leaders today have the opportunity to tell us what they believe is happening and at the same time uncover reasons to be hopeful. Focusing only on what’s broke requires no insight or skill; presenting possible solutions is both an art and science.

I never advocate happy talk, denial or rationalization. I am, however, completely fed up with rampant negativity masquerading as factual reporting.

We need leaders, as John Garndner advocated, that will help keep hope alive.

2008 December | Sanborn and Associates

I believe that leaders speak — or should speak — primarily to influence and to inspire their audiences. To influence = to shape the way audiences think and feel. To inspire = to give them hope, confidence that their actions can change things for the better.

In an earlier post, I reflected on how Abraham Lincoln — in speaking to the alarmist bankers who thought he wasn’t taking the country’s economic crisis seriously enough – did exactly what Sanborn is talking about.

Be real. Acknowledge people’s fear and pain. Show then a different way of viewing the situation. (Telling stories and using images are the best ways to show people what you want them to see.) And give them reason to hope.