I once coached a woman who worked for UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. She was preparing a major speech to potential donors and talking about UNICEF’s life-changing work on the ground in conflict zones. At one point, she said, “We are repatriating children associated with armed groups back to their communities.”
I stopped her. “What does that mean?” I asked. She replied, “Well, basically we are sending child soldiers home to their families.” That second phrase was so much more powerful.
While the original sentence would have worked well for an internal UNICEF audience, this woman was speaking to individual donors who give out of a sense of personal connection to the mission. You don’t pull at someone’s heartstrings using jargon; you need to paint a vivid, emotional picture so that the audience can actually see the impact of your work. If they can see it, they are more likely to give money toward it.
What Does Your Audience Know About Your Subject?
One of my banking clients said to me: “Next week, I’m presenting to the CEO and CFO of a mid-sized company. The CEO thinks in big-picture terms, while the CFO wants the financial details. Basically, I have to speak two different languages at the same time.” We discussed ways she could explain the details and then step back to explain the implications. Another client at that same bank suggested: “Don’t just explain the numbers, explain what the numbers mean.”
When a graduate student and entrepreneur at MIT pitches her high-tech startup idea to investors, how does she describe complex, groundbreaking technology in clear, concise language? When a scientist at the US Food and Drug Administration describes new research affecting the health and safety of the American public, how can he use language that is clear and urgent for policymakers who don’t have the same scientific background? When the public affairs staffer at a country’s central bank wants to teach better spending habits to the general population, how can she explain micro- and macroeconomic factors in layman’s terms? Simply describing the speech in our own language is easy; describing it in a way that our audience will understand takes time and effort.
But the payoff is huge; our success depends on others taking action as a result of our speech. If you want the audience to take action, then you need to speak to them in their language. Certainly, we may be called on to speak at an academic conference where everyone speaks the same technical language, but we all appreciate hearing something described in clear, concise terms. I’m not talking about dumbing down your research; I’m talking about clearing away the excess descriptions that are clouding up your speech to arrive at the essence of what you want to say, so you can build a compelling case for it.
How Does Your Audience Feel About You and About Your Subject?
When you walk onstage or into a conference room, people are evaluating your credibility and authority as a speaker. Are you speaking to an audience that is already familiar with your background, or are you addressing a new audience with no idea of who you are? Are you speaking to friends, foes, or undecideds? This information will determine what you say, and how.
One female client I worked with was about to turn fifty. The good news and bad news was: she barely looked thirty. I don’t have to tell you why this was good news. Why was it bad news? Because the moment she walked into a room, people assumed she was a junior staffer. She came up with phrases she could put in her introduction that mentioned her “twenty-plus years of experience in this industry” and served as a signal to her audience that she had the credibility to speak to them.
When I wrote and delivered speeches for the Consulate General of Israel in Boston, it was essential to understand how my audience felt about the Middle East conflict. Were they pro-Israel or anti-Israel? Would I be walking into a room full of people who were going to welcome me or reject me before I even said a word? Understanding this would help me prepare for the kinds of questions they would ask and to frame my message in a more inclusive way. If I knew the audience could be hostile to my message, then I could phrase my arguments in a way that took their concerns into account; I could potentially neutralize some of their questions before we got to the Q&A, thereby making the Q&A session more productive. Chapter 10 will give us more tools for handling questions.
How Do You Research Your Audience?
There are numerous ways you can research your audience in advance of the speech. Talk to the event organizer to get a sense of why they invited you to speak. Talk to people who represent the audience. Before all our speeches and training programs, my team and I interview potential audience members to understand the organization’s culture, its expectations, and how it has reacted in the past to speakers. Spend time on their website and search for recent news about the organization and its industry.
If you’ve been invited to speak to a group at one of their regular meetings, attend a meeting in advance. That’s what I should have done with one particular speech. I was invited to speak at a monthly leadership meeting in the DC area. The organizer briefed me on his expectations: tell them your story, and focus on one particular topic. We agreed that I would talk for about twenty minutes and then make it interactive, even though I normally use interaction immediately in my speeches and workshops. During the speech, I could tell that I was losing people. They seemed distant, and I could feel them judging me while I spoke. In a survey afterward, people said, “You should make your speeches more interactive; that’s what we expect in these monthly meetings.” I was so frustrated. Had I attended even one of these meetings beforehand, I would have known the flow and format.
When you understand your audience, what language they speak, and how they feel about your subject, you can start to craft a message that will resonate with them and inspire them to take action. You will speak their language. And if they can understand you, then they are much more likely to listen to you.
In anticipation of your upcoming speech or presentation, take time to analyze the audience and find out as much information as you can about their interests, needs, and goals.
2. WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?
In her book On Speaking Well, Peggy Noonan says that every speech has a job to do. “Figure out what the job of your speech is and go do it.”3
Have you ever sat through a boring presentation with no end in sight, wondering where it was going and how it was relevant to you? How many times have you sat through such a presentation? Through this book, we’ll make sure you’re not one of those speakers.
Every speech is an opportunity to touch people, to educate them, to inspire them, and to influence their behavior for the better. Before you start to write the speech, determine what you want its outcome to be. What do you want people to do after hearing you speak? Determine your intended outcome and build toward it in the speech.
Do you want constituents to vote for you?
Do you want venture capitalists to invest in your business?
Do you want prospective clients to buy from you?
Do you want funders to donate to your nonprofit and open doors to their wealthy friends?
Do you want people around the world to know what is going on in your country?
You might decide to start the speech with the goal in mind: “I’m standing before you today because I hope to earn your vote in November.” Or you might end your speech with a clear call to action: “And so, I ask for your vote at the polls in November. Tell your friends and family how important this election is to their future and the future of our country.”
I’ve judged a number of startup competitions and heard hundreds of business pitches. Excited entrepreneurs will stand up and make a persuasive case for a compelling business model based on groundbreaking new technology. But sometimes they will leave off the most important part: the “ask.” They fail to say exactly what they need and what they will do with it. The more precise you are with your ask, the easier you make it for people to give you what you want.
In addition to strengthening your opening and closing sentences, hav
ing a clear goal helps you determine the content you use in your speech.
If your goal is to build trust with the audience, then what information will demonstrate your ethics? You could include a personal story about a time you learned the value of integrity.
If your goal is to raise money from investors, then what information can you provide that highlights your early success and the promise of your product or service? Find those stories, anecdotes, or outcomes.
If your goal is to open people’s eyes to a business threat that no one has considered, what evidence should you provide that shows them that the signs are all around them? Look for statistics, trends, or predictions.
What Are the Audience’s Barriers to Action?
Professor Marshall Ganz of the Harvard Kennedy School teaches about the importance of understanding people’s barriers to action, especially when fostering social change. When you determine the goal of your speech, try to determine your audience’s barriers to action. What’s holding them back? Could it be politically risky to adopt this new policy? Are you asking people to do something that will make them look foolish in front of their friends and colleagues? Do people lack the money to give? Are you asking people to do something they simply don’t have the time to do? Understanding what is holding your audience back helps you come up with a realistic and actionable goal.
For instance, if you are speaking at a political rally, think of some easy steps your audience members can take. Instead of asking them to become full-time volunteers for your campaign, ask them to follow you on social media and share your content with their followers. Ask them to bring a friend to the next rally or make a small donation. The easier you make it for people to take action, the more likely they are to take that action.
How Do You Want People to Feel?
In thinking about the goal of your speech, ask yourself how you want people to feel at the end. Do you want them to feel inspired and uplifted? Challenged and determined? Knowledgeable and ready?
Nearly all my team’s workshops end with a survey requesting feedback from the audience. The most important question on that survey is: “How do you feel after this workshop?” The answers to that question help us gauge the success of that workshop. If people respond with: tired, overwhelmed, or hungry, then we have some work to do to make the workshop more engaging. Luckily, people usually respond with: confident, inspired, or empowered. Those responses remind me of the power of these workshops and reinforce my commitment to help others.
Where Can You “Give the Work Back”?
As speakers, we are tempted to walk into a room ready to present all the answers to a particular challenge. We sit in our office, think about the challenge, and develop a solution that we then present to our colleagues to take action. You feel this pressure especially when you’re presenting to people you lead. However, when the solution requires other people taking action, then the more you include those people in the solution, the more committed they will be.
I once worked with an executive who needed to address a core group of individuals within his organization. The head of the organization had just chastised this group, and now this executive was dealing with the aftermath. As we prepared the content of the speech, we realized that he couldn’t just walk in there and present a solution. The managers themselves probably had valuable ideas on how to find a solution. So instead of planning a formal speech to this group, we drafted a conversation starter that demonstrated his faith in those managers and his belief that they had all the tools they needed to find a solution. He then opened the meeting up for them to discuss ideas and together talk about how to move forward.
In their book Leadership on the Line, my professor Ronald Heifetz from the Harvard Kennedy School and his co-author, Marty Linsky, call this “giving the work back.”4 Instead of the stoic leader trying to come up with the perfect solution to a challenge facing an organization or community, they talk about including the community itself in finding the solution. You give the work—finding a solution—back to the people who are most likely to have the best answers. This strategy helps you solicit ideas from people on the ground, receive critical feedback, empower others to speak up, and gain valuable buy-in. As we discussed earlier, giving a speech is not just to impart information; it’s to empower people to work together to solve a challenge. Before you speak, look at ways to bring others into your leadership strategy to make your message more impactful.
In anticipation of your upcoming speech, think about the goal of the speech. What do you want people to do and feel? How can you bring them into the solution? Write that down.
3. WHY YOU?
What gets you out of bed in the morning? What made you choose your line of work? What made you volunteer for this particular cause? Why do you do what you do? In other words, Why you?
Why you? is the single most powerful question you can ask yourself when preparing a speech or presentation. This is where you put aside the bureaucracy of your job, the politics of your cause, or the dysfunction of your office, and determine the sense of purpose that guides your actions.
It’s not “So I can make more money” or “So I can get promoted” or “So I can look good in front of my boss.” It’s deeper than that. And you might have to ask yourself this question repeatedly to get the underlying answer.
In one of our leadership communication training programs, my team and I coach the sales managers of a financial institution. I was helping one particular mid-level manager prepare for an upcoming sales call. I asked her, “Why you? Why do you do what you do?”
She responded, “Well, I like serving others.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe in service.”
“Why?”
“Because service is important to me.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what my parents taught me.”
“Tell me more.”
“Growing up, my parents ran their own business. Every single day, I saw them get up early to serve their customers, putting others’ needs before their own. I think about that experience every day when I wake up, and I want to teach that to my children as well. That’s why I do what I do.” A-hah!
Do you see how we had to dig down a few layers there? We had to get past the generic answer to arrive at the underlying drivers of her behavior.
In another training program, one woman got straight to the point when she said, “My father sold insurance, and every day he came home happy. When it was time to choose a career, I chose to follow in his footsteps. That’s why I do what I do.”
You’ll notice a lot of the Why you? comes back to family and early childhood. You might think it’s unprofessional to share a personal story in a business setting. But we are not robots; we are human beings doing business with other human beings. We are driven by personal motivations, and we have values that guide our actions. When you share those motivations with others, even in a business setting, you connect on a personal level and you build trust.
One of the best places to include your Why you? is in the beginning of your speech or presentation. Imagine using the story about growing up in a family-owned business when you are pitching a small business prospect. Using that story, the prospect might think, “Yes, this person understands where I am coming from. I can trust this person.”
There are many different advantages to having a Why you?
It helps you choose language that is authentic to you. It’s hard to sound authentic when you are parroting corporate jargon. Why you? brings out your natural language and makes your speech more genuine.
It animates your body and voice. In Chapter 6, we will learn how body language and vocal tone can complement your message. When you truly believe in your message, that sense of purpose animates your body and voice naturally.
It builds your confidence. Both young professionals and seasoned executives will confess to a lack of confidence when speaking. What if others in the room know more than I do? What if the audience is
questioning my authority to speak? Connecting with your Why you? reinforces your credibility and your authority.
I remember a young woman from Egypt in one of my workshops at Harvard. She had written a very general speech about the dangers of revolutions. She was too nervous to speak, and finally asked me in front of the class: “Why would anybody want to listen to me? I’m only nineteen years old.”
I responded to her: “You have lived through a revolution. You have more personal credibility than someone with a PhD in the subject.” She thought about that for a moment, then stood up and gave one of the most passionate, personal speeches I have ever heard, telling her own story. She had to give herself permission to speak.
Why you? is the most powerful question you can ask when preparing a speech, presentation, or conversation. It centers you, calms you, and helps you connect with a sense of purpose.
Sometimes Why you? can be hard to find.
I remember coaching a man who worked in real estate development. I knew this was an engaged, passionate individual with a fabulous sense of humor. But as he stood up to practice a presentation to a community board, he changed completely. His shoulders slumped, his smile drooped into a grimace, and he sighed loudly while leaning on one hip and weakly gesturing at the slides behind him. He was afraid that he was a boring speaker. And actually, he was. So we worked through the Three Questions, and when we arrived at Why you? he came to a startling realization. I asked him why he was passionate about his work. It turns out, he wasn’t. He hated his job. He mistrusted his boss. He didn’t like the industry. He wasn’t a boring speaker, he was just bored.
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