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You Are the Message

Page 18

by Roger Ailes


  THE PILL

  A large number of people come to me and say that when they first stand up to speak, they’re frightened. One of my clients said, “I’ve tried everything and I’m still petrified.” A week later he was having a physical, and he told his doctor about his stage fright and its accompanying symptoms, including heart palpitations and sweating. His doctor prescribed a drug called propranolol, used to treat patients suffering from hypertension, migraine headaches, and various heart ailments. Propranolol is classified as a “beta blocker” drug. It generally lowers hyper-stimulation of the cardiovascular system.

  My client pronounced propranolol his “magic potion.” It at least relieved him of his anxiety symptoms. Eventually, with the skills learned in my training course, he was able to stop taking the drug.

  I relate his experience in the interest of sharing information and not to recommend taking propranolol or any other drug (including alcohol) to calm fright symptoms.

  According to medical authorities, propranolol is not a narcotic or a sedative. Therefore, it is said to be nonaddictive and won’t make you sleepy. Some professional performers, including musicians and actors, use propranolol to combat stage fright.

  If you wish to learn more about propranolol, you must consult with a doctor. The drug reportedly is dangerous for certain people, including those who suffer from diabetes, asthma, or hay fever. It may also cause side effects, such as light-headedness, nausea, and insomnia.

  Despite my client’s enthusiasm, propranolol is not a “magic potion.” It may be a short-term tool. But the real “magic” to effective communication is found inside of you.

  THE BIG RED ARROW

  When some of us stand up in front of an audience, we have a tendency to feel that this big red arrow is pointing at us. In other words, we’ve lost all perspective. We don’t see the audience. We don’t focus on our topic. This huge arrow has a sign on it saying, “Ah, get him! Get him!” We think the whole world is looking at us and judging us. If we can psychologically turn the arrow around and aim it toward the audience, we can take the pressure off ourselves, because the longer we think the arrow’s pointing at us, the more the pressure builds.

  There are simple techniques to get over this. One is breath control. As the anxiety increases in a speech situation, your chest and throat muscles tighten and your breathing gets constricted. It’s a vicious cycle. As you start gasping for breath, you get more frightened. When this happens, calm yourself by breathing deeply just before you move to the lectern. Inhale deeply through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Inhale again, not as deeply, exhale again. Then start speaking.

  HEY BARNEY!

  The fear of speaking in front of an audience must date back to early civilization, when the cavemen used to sit around the campfire at night and say, “Hey, what did you do today?” As long as they were in conversation, everyone was comfortable. But as soon as someone clanged his bone on his stone cup and said, “Barney, you get up and tell us what you did today,” the rest of the people hushed up. There’s Barney wearing his bearskin, standing before his peers cast in the light of a roaring fire. He’s no longer part of the group. He’s separated from the pack, and he has a different feeling. He feels anxious because he’s now being judged by others. So, to the extent that we can make ourselves feel a part of the group, we can continue the relaxed, secure feeling and the confidence that we have in conversation. That goes to the heart of what we discussed earlier, that good speech is really nothing more than good conversation on your feet.

  THE PERFECTION BLOCK

  The one way to fail in a public speech situation is to try to be perfect. Perfection is the sure route to failure, because it complicates your life and creates so much more stress.

  Many “how to speak” books suggest that you can make a speech perfectly and, with practice, can be so skilled that you will never make a mistake. But I say it’s okay if you make a mistake. I tell our clients to put a speech into the category of human activity as opposed to computer activity or precision activity.

  Of course, you should have your facts straight. You should not be sloppy. You cannot be unprepared. But you shouldn’t believe you’ve failed if you didn’t do everything perfectly. And unfortunately, many businesspeople are trained to be perfect and that’s why they’re not good public speakers.

  OVERDRIVE

  I see the perfection block very often among senior executives. They are driven people.

  Drive played a major part in their success and, along with that, the desire to be perfect. The perfection syndrome is especially true of those who come from engineering, finance, or science, where precision is absolutely necessary for their success. So they apply the same standards to communications. The trouble is, their version of “perfection” when speaking translates to an overcontrolled delivery that is stilted, dull, mechanical, and boring.

  It’s tough to convince people that they shouldn’t worry about being perfect in oral communications. One reason they set such a high standard for themselves is that they’re afraid of becoming public targets. Remember, most businessmen got where they are in private rooms. They were very good, very skilled, and persuasive. But they didn’t do it in public. Today, there’s much more pressure on people in business to be public figures. The news media and the community expect more openness from executives today. Therefore, executives spend a great deal of time trying to appear as if they’re not vulnerable, when in fact, if they appeared more human, more vulnerable, and didn’t try to be perfect, they’d do a much better job at communications. I’ve seen people who are technically very good at speech and the audience goes out of the room yawning. I’ve seen people who don’t have great voices, who even fumble a bit, but because they’re committed to what they’re saying and they’re interesting, the audience goes out happy, saying, “I could have listened longer.” Given a choice, the audience will always opt for the interesting but technically imperfect speaker over the one who’s technically near perfect but boring.

  VULNERABILITY

  Ironically, strength comes from vulnerability. This is true in public speech as well as in interpersonal communications. In business, we’re taught not to be vulnerable. We go in with a poker face, we sit a certain way, we have a so-called command presence. We have learned to be the leader in the rigid militaristic sense of the word. But imagine, as an alternative, that you toss a certain amount of your own vulnerability on the table. You’re not frightened that you’re going to be exposed or ruined or used unfairly. You choose instead to be open and candid. Because of your openness, other players feel more relaxed. Let me give you an example.

  HIZZONER

  In 1980, New York City Mayor Ed Koch appeared on one of those Sunday “newsmaker” programs in the aftermath of the city’s financial crisis. Koch had spent three hundred thousand dollars to put up bike lanes in Manhattan. As it turned out, cars were driving in the bike lanes, endangering the bikers. Meanwhile, some bikers were running over pedestrians because the pedestrians didn’t know the bike lanes were there or didn’t understand how they worked. It was a mess. The mayor was coming up for reelection, and four or five journalists now had Koch cornered on this talk show. The whole purpose was to rip the mayor’s skin off for the bike lanes and for spending money foolishly when the city was nearly broke. The trap was set. One reporter led off with “Mayor Koch, in light of the financial difficulties in New York City, how could you possibly justify wasting three hundred thousand dollars on bike lanes?” Cut to Koch. Tight close-up. Everybody was expecting a half-hour disaster. Koch smiled and he said, “You’re right. It was a terrible idea.” He went on, “I thought it would work. It didn’t. It was one of the worst mistakes I ever made.” And he stopped. Now nobody knew what to do. They had another twenty-six minutes of the program left. They all had prepared questions about the bike lanes, and so the next person feebly asked, “But, Mayor Koch, how could you do this?” And Mayor Koch said, “I already told you, it was stupid. I did a dumb thing. It d
idn’t work.” And he stopped again. Now there were twenty-five minutes left and nothing to ask him. It was brilliant.

  Sometimes candor and vulnerability are the best answers. I thought to myself at the time, “This guy’s going to get a heck of a lot of votes from doing this, because they’re trying to beat him up and he’s already admitted he blew it.” Mayor Koch went on to receive both the Democratic and Republican endorsements for reelection.

  ENERGY

  In addition to showing a little vulnerability, using some energy can help you overcome fear, too. If you’re energized and your heart’s pumping a little bit, you won’t black out. Gesturing helps to keep your energy up because physical movement burns off anxiety and helps pump the blood to the brain. When I work with clients, I try to get them to move a little when they speak, to gesture naturally. Not only does it counteract their fear, it also makes them look more dynamic. Just imagine our caveman friend Barney describing the hunt without gesturing. That would ruin a good story. Yet the modern “caveman,” in his three-piece suit, has turned many an exciting report about a “hunt” for new business into a dull paper chase because he reads without energy from a text.

  ROOTING FOR YOU

  Audiences generally want the speaker to succeed. Part of the reason is that we can picture ourselves in the speaker’s place, so we sympathize. Also, we don’t want to be bored. Therefore, most audiences want to make the speaker comfortable in the hope that it will help the speaker perform better. We’ve all been in an audience when a speaker starts to wander, or his voice starts to quiver, or he forgets what to say and panics. It’s clear he’s in trouble and you pray that a trapdoor will open up and swallow him. Then you realize that he’s got twenty minutes more of this agony to go through. When this happens, the audience begins to reflect the speaker. They begin to grip the arms of their chairs, clear their throats, look at the ceiling, and slide lower in their seats.

  On the other hand, if the speaker gets up and appears to really know what he’s doing—he’s in charge, he’s relaxed, he’s comfortable—the audience begins to reflect that, too, and enjoys the speech. To a large extent, the first thing a speaker has to do is get all the attention off himself and deal with his topic. This helps make the audience comfortable. The comfort level of the audience begins with the speaker.

  IF YOU FUMBLE

  If you do goof up, which we all do, don’t get worried. I once saw Walter Cronkite in person and he blew a few lines in his speech. He stopped, smiled, picked it up, and pulled out of it beautifully. It’s important to have good grammar, but if we were to transcribe each word, some sentences would be grammatically correct and some wouldn’t. That’s okay as long as the audience understands what you mean. After all, if a guy comes up to you and says, “Stick ’em up,” you don’t look for the subject and the predicate. You look for your wallet.

  A GOOD TRIP

  The most dramatic example I ever saw of speaker comfort was what happened to one of my friends who was running for governor. He’s a very nice, easygoing guy with a good sense of humor. His campaign was lagging and he was not getting much press coverage. He was set to speak at a legislative-correspondents dinner. The whole audience was made up of tough, professional reporters. On the way to the lectern, going up the stairs to the stage, he tripped and fell clear to his hands. He just got up, dusted himself off, and joked about it.

  He said, “It’s been so long since a reporter has listened to me, I got a little overanxious.” The audience laughed and then applauded.

  I later asked a newspaper reporter how the candidate did in his remarks. The reporter was somebody who didn’t like his politics. She said, “On a one to ten, he got a ten.” Then I asked another reporter. He said, “He got a nine.”

  Very few people literally “fall on their face” in front of a potentially hostile audience. This man did. But with his confident attitude and good humor, he ended up with rave reviews because he was able to relax the audience.

  Some of the greatest communications challenges are faced when we are put in a position of leadership. In the next two chapters, we’ll examine a critical aspect of leadership communication: dealing with the news media.

  14

  “MAKING IT” IN GRANDMA’S EYES

  My grandmother was a sweet lady who loved me but could never figure out why, after I studied radio and TV in college, I couldn’t fix her TV set. The guy down the street never went to college, but he fixed her set and charged her fifty dollars. I suspect that until she died in her eighties she figured I would eventually “make it” if I could just learn to fix her set. She never really knew what a producer did and she vaguely suspected I didn’t have a real job. I had a lot of illness as a child, and my mother had to work to help support the family, which was unusual back in the 1940s and 1950s. Therefore I spent a great deal of time with my grandmother. Every Saturday we would go to the movies, and I think that gave me great interest in show business and the arts.

  Grandma was a simple woman with little education but a strong sense of values. She was born before the turn of the century, and even though there were many advances in science, technology, and household conveniences during her lifetime, the greatest miracle in her life was television. She couldn’t understand how all those people could get into that one little box. She watched Lawrence Welk religiously and knew about all of the families of the people on the show. The concept of television technology evaded her, though. She was lonely in her later years, and it really didn’t matter about the technology as long as her friends were there when she pushed the button.

  In 1964, I remember she was adamantly opposed to Barry Goldwater for president because she had heard that he was against TV. I never understood this but eventually questioned her at great length. She swore that she read in the paper that he was against television. I think she thought Barry Goldwater, if elected president, would personally come up on her porch and take her TV set away. I found out later that Barry Goldwater had said he was against TVA—Tennessee Valley Authority. Grandma never heard the A and disliked Goldwater until she died.

  THE MIRACLE

  I once knew a television sales manager who couldn’t describe the miracle of television, either. So when people asked him what he did for a living, he said, “I sell pictures that fly through the air.” That may be the best description I’ve ever heard. Actually, because television is a miracle, we act the way we do in the presence of all miracles—we change our behavior. Because there is something mysterious about it, it’s intimidating. And consequently, we often act unlike ourselves when a television camera is present. I still can’t repair a TV set, but I often think television has done so much good for people that I hope they have television in heaven. And I hope to God that at least one TV repairman led a good enough life to make it up there, too, so he can fix Grandma’s TV set.

  GUILTY TILL PROVEN INNOCENT

  Today, people come to me for a different type of TV repair. I often “fix” the programs themselves or the people who are going to appear on them.

  The typical situation involves a company about to be featured on a TV news program. Since nobody ever wins a journalism award for reporting on the good things companies do, the chances are that my client is facing allegations that will ultimately prove to be somewhere between the truth and a hysterical rumor. In the interest of fair play and equal time, the journalist on the story has offered to interview a company spokesperson. The interview will take two hours and will be edited down to thirty seconds or less (although the interviewer doesn’t tell him that). Unfortunately, in today’s world of media, if you get a negative story, many people assume you must be guilty of something. That’s what so many companies fear—and with good reason.

  Mark Twain said it best: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

  GIRDING FOR BATTLE

  The chairman of the company is sitting in my New York studio. He’s asking me where to begin when Geraldo Rivera or his regi
onal equivalent comes crashing into the boardroom with his kamikaze camera crew, equipped with zoom lenses, glaring lights, and microphones. The reporter, of course, wants an explanation—preferably a confession of guilt—in time for the six o’clock news.

  The fact that the executive is in my office says a lot about the communication requirements of a business leader. Today, executives had better be prepared to meet the press, especially if a crisis catapults their company onto the front page or the evening news. Years ago, Ralph Nader came out with his first book, Unsafe at Any Speed, an attack on American cars, including the Corvair. I scheduled Nader for a TV appearance. It seemed only fair to get somebody from General Motors to refute Nader’s allegations. I called the company and asked for an executive spokesperson. The company wouldn’t even send someone from the public relations department. It played ostrich, refusing to acknowledge that I, Nader, or the book even existed.

  Businesses today may be as wary as ever of the news media, but most companies understand that if they remain silent during a controversy, they will be presumed guilty by the press and, probably, by the public. Although some companies (such as Mobil Oil) believed early on in the value of actively engaging their critics, many people in business still wait until news coverage escalates to kangaroo-court proportions before they finally defend themselves.

 

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