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Matt Latimer, a Republican speech writer for Bush and Rumsfeld, has written a very entertaining book called Speech*Less.

In it, he chronicles his misadventures as an idealist in a palace of racketeers.

Here he is describing the 2008 campaign from inside Washington.

…I was at a dinner party with four or five Republicans who’d been involved with every GOP election since 1976.  Without exception, they hated McCain.  ”He’s a lunatic,” said one.  Others attacked him from the right as a betrayer of the faith.  Another attacked McCain from the left, saying he was too quick to go to war.

Yet I was the only one of the entire group who balked at voting for him.  They’d all vote for someone whom they admitted was a “lunatic,” a “liar,” a “sellout,” and a “traitor” because, as one of them put it, “getting elected is the name of the game, right?”  To these people, politics was just a business.  They might have hated McCain, but Republicans gave them contracts and consulting fees.  They didn’t care who led them or what they stood for as long as they stayed in power.  I was reminded of what a philosopher said early in the twentieth century:  “Every great cause begins as a movement, degenerates into a business, and ends as a racket.”

Let’s not get partisan here.  The other side acts the same way.  The point being made is that idealistic institutions are founded on passionate idealism and end up running on dogged determination to keep the corpse of the original idea alive so that the people running the thing can have a job.

Ideals have a half-life.  It’s why Jefferson said that the “tree of democracy” needs to be watered now and then with “the blood of tyrants.”

Businesses have a half-life too, and need to be watered with new ideas, new products and new people.  Public speaking, likewise.  It needs to grow and change too.  It can’t stay antique, pompous, lousy with cliches.  As an institution and a craft, it needs to break new ground.  PowerPoint is new.  TEDTalks are new.  The rise of story vs. rational, analytical discourse represents at the very least a swing of the pendulum.

But where do we go from here.  Do we play music when we speak?  Do we waft scents into the room to manipulate the olfactory and emotional centers of the listeners’ brains, the way some realtors bake apple pies in Open Houses?  Does PowerPoint get replaced with a software that sends subliminal messages to the audience, bypassing their conscious awareness, and tipping them toward agreement with the ideas of the speaker?

Who knows?  Do we rehearse in front of hired audiences that wear electro-encephalograms on their heads in order to test the neuro-power of our phrases?  Or do we use robots as guinea pigs?

Will we learn how to build talks that are addictive, like the salty and fatty foods designed by food chemists and flavor engineers?

Can we create implants to help us remember all the facts we’d like to rattle off?  Microscopic chips planted just under the skin enabling us to forego the hard work of rehearsal?  Or do we hire avatars or holograms to speak on our behalf?

Stay tuned for a re-birth of the ancient art of rhetoric, persuasive speaking grounded in research, rooted in science, and capable of hitting the rational and emotional thought centers of decision makers, whether they are voters, customers, or senior executive decision-makers.

A few years ago I attended my aunt’s memorial service, where anyone was invited to say a few words.  I felt the need to tell a quick story that would remind everyone about her contagious enthusiasm for birds.  No matter the difficulties in her life, and there were many, she would practically burst with delight at the sight of a bird–any bird!

I am not in the habit of jumping up to speak extemporaneously to vast crowds of people, but I admired my aunt, and wanted to testify to the remarkable resilience of her character.

I might have spoken for 60 seconds, maybe 120, and I felt completely in control because I knew exactly what I was going to say, which was that she once went stratospheric over a wood thrush.

I think people appreciated it, and I certainly felt good that I had pitched in about what a great person my aunt was.

This is a long-winded way to say that, in my experience, extemporaneous speaking can be good if it’s short.  If it goes on too long, it tends to lack structure, and collapse in a maze of wandering thoughts.  (There are very few people who can make it up as they go along and hold the interest of an audience for an extended period of time.)

You’d think that because  we speak extemporaneously–in conversations–every day of our lives,  we could do it in front of a crowd, but we can’t.  In conversations, we speak in short bursts, and rely on others to help complete our thoughts.  But plop us down on stage in front of a hundred people, and we would struggle to be crisp and fluid in our remarks.

Somehow, an audience larger than a few people demands preparation, which almost always means that we will have to practice saying what we want to say.

Thus, we will call our remarks a “talk” or a “presentation” or a “speech” or a “lecture”, not a conversation, and it will come, to a certain extent, from memory.   And speech from memory sounds different, feels different, than speech that comes freshly minted from the mind.

Good extemporaneous speaking is a kind of deliberate dis-inhibition that brings a sense of spontaneity and expressiveness. It’s a form of play, of improvisation, as the speaker blazes a novel path through his synapses as he discovers, in real time, what he wants to say

Very few of us can read a speech and hold the attention of a crowd (to read a speech is to bleed a speech), and very few of us can speak extemporaneously for long and hold the attention of a crowd.

So what should we do?

1.  If speaking extemporaneously, keep it short and story-like in structure.

2.  If speaking at length, prepare a rigorous road map to follow, rehearse aloud until you can look at your audience most of the time, and give yourself license to improvise now and then.

Sims Wyeth & Co. coaches smart business people in the art and science of persuasion & influence.  Click to learn more about leadership skills, voice & speech training, and more!

You must know what TED Talks are.  If you do, skip the rest of this paragraph.  If you don’t, please go to www.ted.com and click on any one of the videos that you see.  Or go to one of my favorites, such as any talk given by Hans Rosling or Rory Sutherland.  I’m sure you’ll find your own favorites too if you wander around, watch, and listen.

TED talks are 18 minutes long.  Wisely, I think, because research suggests that 18 minutes is about the length of time that human attention can effectively sustain itself.

I have attached below the instructions that invited speakers receive from TED.  They are absolutely right on the money.

If you read nothing else to help you become a better speaker, read TED’s Ten Commandments.   Here they are, right here, right now!

The TED Commandments

These 10 tips are given to all TED Conference speakers as they prepare their TEDTalks. They will help your speakers craft talks that will have a profound impact on your audience.

1. Dream big. Strive to create the best talk you have ever given. Reveal something never seen before. Do something the audience will remember forever. Share an idea that could change the world.

2. Show us the real you. Share your passions, your dreams … and also your fears. Be vulnerable. Speak of failure as well as success.

3. Make the complex plain. Don’t try to dazzle intellectually. Don’t speak in abstractions. Explain! Give examples. Tell stories. Be specific.

4. Connect with people’s emotions. Make us laugh! Make us cry!

5. Don’t flaunt your ego. Don’t boast. It’s the surest way to switch everyone off.

6. No selling from the stage! Unless we have specifically asked you to, do not talk about your company or organization. And don’t even think about pitching your products or services or asking for funding from stage.

7. Feel free to comment on other speakers’ talks, to praise or to criticize. Controversy energizes! Enthusiastic endorsement is powerful!

8. Don’t read your talk. Notes are fine. But if the choice is between reading or rambling, then read!

9. End your talk on time. Doing otherwise is to steal time from the people that follow you. We won’t allow it.

10. Rehearse your talk in front of a trusted friend … for timing, for clarity, for impact.

The great thing about TED is its commitment to big ideas from people who speak well.  Public speaking has historically been the tool for men and women of greatness to spread big ideas.  Virtue, freedom, justice, holiness, compassion–all these have been trumpeted into the listening world through the channel of public speaking.  And these 10 items are basic and sound instruction for anyone who wants to be a highly effective speaker.

TED uses the power of public speaking to spread big ideas and light up the world.

Go to www.TED.com whenever you feel the need to feed your heart, mind, and spirit.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

1. Define a problem that your audience faces.  Then solve it.  The human mind tends to fixate on problems: rubber-necking is a case in point. Presentations about problems have both emotional and intellectual appeal.  The problem, well-defined, elicits our feelings; the solution elicits our thoughts.  Everyone has problems, so why not tickle, then soothe their anxieties.   Talk to them about what keeps them up at night.
2. Make the familiar, new, or the new, familiar.  Bring a new perspective to an old issue, or bring a new issue to the awareness of your audience.  Steve Jobs turned clunky IT devices into high status aesthetic objects, while JFK convinced us the moon was a place we could go.
3. Say or do something unexpected.  The mind of the listener is jolted awake by what it isn’t expecting.  The unexpected draws our attention. The predictable lulls us to sleep. .  When Barry Goldwater said, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight,” people listened…and remembered.  Say something unexpected.
4. Don’t mistake thoroughness for effectiveness. An audience is not a sponge, eager to soak up data and detail.  The more you talk, the less they listen.  Or, as the old saying goes, “The mind cannot absorb what the behind cannot endure.”
5. Avoid sameness of anything:  Sameness is the enemy of the speaker:  sameness of pitch, volume, and speed;  sameness of gesture;  sameness of stance; sameness of types of information, like all facts, all opinions, or nothing but stories.  Move adroitly back and forth between all these.  Every audience has quants, blue- sky thinkers, and visual thinkers.  Give each one a thought in her own language.
6. Be an edutainer.  Even the most professorial academic speakers win points for being fun to listen to.  Spice up your serious review of the issues with stories of your own experience that reveal who you are (an audience craves intimacy with the speaker), and stories that illustrate your points.
7. Be careful with PowerPoint.  The audience is there to hear your point of view. They are willing to look at PowerPoint to see evidence that your point of view is based on fact.  They do not need to see you using PowerPoint as a TelePrompter.  Visual displays should contain evidence that supports the speaker’s point.  However, please do not place large tracts of written text on your slides.
8. Begin and end well. Winston Churchill, no slouch as a speaker, said that in order to give a good talk, you should have a dynamic opening and a powerful closing, and you should put those two things as close together as possible.   Work on your opening and your closing. (PS. For the closing, I like to refer back to my attention-getting, problem-focused beginning.  Then I summarize my solutions in different words than I used at the start, and then urge the audience to take action.)
9. Stay close to home.  I’ve seen many people try to inflate their image at some big event by trying to tackle a topic beyond their professional reach.  I’ve done this myself, and fallen on my face.  Talk about what you know from your own experience. For instance, don’t base your talk on a magazine article you read in the dentist’s office, or a chapter from a book you read. Go with your own stuff.
10. View your speech as a chance to build trusting relationships:  When you open your Inbox, you click on messages from people you know or trust.  The same principle holds for speakers:  you listen and respond to talks delivered by people you know, have heard of, or have earned your trust by the way they present themselves and their ideas.  Speak to build trust with your audience.  When your speech is honest and sincere, spoken in the language of the audience, and about an issue that is important to them, you will succeed.  In the end, you do well by doing good.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

With the arrival and success of the TEDTalk, we are losing the distinction between a speech and a presentation. I’m not sure if anyone cares, but I have always felt that each is a separate tool designed for different jobs. So, if you are concerned about whether you should prepare a speech or a presentation, here is my take on how they differ and what the proper purpose of each should be.

We have records of speeches that date back to ancient Egypt.  We know what Pericles said in Athens, and we even know the date he said it.  We can read the screeds of Demosthenes, and the muscular barbs of Cicero.  The record of sermons and political speeches goes back centuries.   We relish what George Washington said when he bid farewell to the officers of the Continental Army, and we cherish the words of Abraham Lincoln who spoke at Gettysburg 150 years ago.

Speeches are part of the historical record.  Presentations are not.  They are working stiffs, anonymous lugs who labor in the shadows and are soon forgotten.

Speeches, on the other hand, are educated men of means, ladies of repute and virtue, serious and articulate, who hold forth on issues of the day, or on eternal questions, laden with importance.   Some are long remembered

Busy people at the very last minute throw presentations together like a deck of cards.  There’s no such thing as a PreezoWriter, but there sure are SpeechWriters.  They’ve been around for a long time, and some of them work for global leaders and have or will give them words that will resonate through the halls of the past and the malls of the future.

Presentations, on the other hand, aren’t really written at all.  In the real world, presenters create them on PowerPoint templates, assemble them from a library of previously used PowerPoint slides, or groups of people sequence slides and agree on what should go on them. Occasionally, someone uses the notes section of PowerPoint to write a spoken text, but if it’s used, it’s usually memorized, not read, and tends to composed in shorthand.

Speeches, on the other hand, are nothing but written.  No pictures.  No bullet points on a screen.  Just a person on a stage, mostly at a lectern, reading from a printed text, or from a teleprompter.

Because presenters are expected to speak without reading from a text, they need to internalize what they will say, which they accomplish by rehearsing early and often.

However, because they don’t want to go blank and embarrass themselves, they display on a white screen trigger words or phrases to help them remember what to say.  These they call bullet points.

Thus, while the speechmaker strives to sound conversational to disguise the fact that she is reading from a written text (or perhaps she is only trying to minimize the damage to her delivery caused by her need to read), the presenter confesses her need for written support by displaying what is essentially an outline of her remarks.

She (the presenter) will have been told at some point that her bullet points are helpful to her listeners as well as to herself, but I have not seen any solid evidence such displays are helpful, and my experience leads me to believe that written words displayed for listeners cause them to be distracted.  After all, who can read and listen at the same time?

Speech-makers-and-writers need to appeal to the visual mind: they need to paint pictures that listeners can view on the inside of their eyelids.  They do this by telling stories.

Presenters need to do the same thing, but because they are often dealing with hard-nosed business issues, are creating their own content, and are more interested in getting out the facts than telling stories, they tend to replace stories with digital images that attempt to illustrate their points.  As we know from our childhood, images that arise in the mind through the power of storytelling are vivid and sometimes indelible.  I’ve spent more than twenty years helping people develop business presentations, and at this moment (on the train from Boston to Newark, NJ) I cannot think of a single PowerPoint slide that has stuck to the gray matter between my ears.

Speechmakers and writers have to stand more or less in one place, close to their text.  They can take a few tentative steps away from the lectern, but soon enough they will beat a path back to their security blanket–the written word.

Presenters—the good ones, anyway—use their freedom from the written word to strut their way across the stage.  Especially if they’ve given the same presentation many times.  Then with boisterous courage they stride toward the audience, look them in the eye, then move back toward the screen (to point out a word), and then, perhaps, sit jauntily on a stool to engage with their listeners.

This is not easy for a speechmaker to do. I think of speeches as more compressed and disciplined. Their transitions depend on careful word choice, and specific phrases, whereas presentations are more informal, interactive, and deliberative–the audience very often is interrupting the presenter, asking questions, even debating amongst themselves.

Both speeches and presentations can argue about what happened in the past, or what should be done in the future.  But anything ceremonial in nature, meant to praise or delight, I would call a speech.

Both are tools created by our amazing ancestors in order to accomplish important tasks—tasks that were, and are, important to the survival and well-being of human groups.

Speeches can remind us what we are fighting for and get us fired up for the battle.

Presentations can help us explain how an accident happened and who was at fault.

Speeches can quite literally confer on us an identity, membership in a group, a tribe, or a nation—and give us thereby a sense of meaning.

Presentations can help us pack the cargo hold so it will balance the plane, convince us to floss on a regular basis, or explain to a business owner who we are and why she should hire us.

Two tools, one more suited for  lifting us up, the other more suited for inching us forward.  One elegant, one practical.  One dressy, the other more casual.  One like a thoroughbred, the other, a mule.  One like a limo, the other, a truck.

Some of us are good at one and not the other.  Some are good at both.  And some are good at neither.

The world would be a better place if more were good at both.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been asked by two marketing support functions to help them deal more effectively with the people they serve and support.

One is a market research function, the other a business intelligence group.  Both report that confrontations and debates at meetings with product teams and other senior staff are difficult for them to handle.

What happens?

Some issues they report:

Higher ups try to take over the meeting, or they talk between themselves and may miss research details crucial to the business plan.

When they don’t hear what they expect, they question the research methods–or they disagree with what the data mean.

Why does it happen?

All of us struggle to take in new information and relate it to what we already know and believe.

The research functions have designed the studies, done the work, reviewed the data and drawn conclusions.  They’ve spent time with the data—gotten to know it.

On the other hand, the product teams and senior people are seeing it for the first time.  They may have had prior experiences that would cause them to expect something different.

They need time to get acclimated to the findings, and let’s face it, they may think they know better.  After all, when they came up through the ranks, perhaps through the same functions, they did things differently.  So it’s no wonder they push back.

Where is the battle line?

So the battle lines are drawn.  The product team and other senior people in attendance are trying to master new information, and come to the meeting with the responsibility for making an important decision.  They are going to pressure-test the speaker, the data, and what the data mean for the strategic brand plan.

The speaker, on the other hand, wants her methods and data respected, and her advice taken.  She wants to be seen as a trusted advisor to the making of strategic decisions.

She doesn’t mind a constructive dialogue, or a healthy exchange of views.  But she does not want to be embarrassed or made to look bad, challenged on her basic competence, and lose control of her meeting.

What can the support functions do?

So what can market research or BI do to prepare for these difficult meetings, handle the intellectual combat, and earn the respect of those who rely on the research to create business plans for billion dollar products.

1.  Have the courage of their convictions

Support functions need to cultivate and display a fundamental belief that what they have to offer is of strategic importance to the overall marketing effort.  As a group, they need to pressure-test their own conclusions and recommendations, and deliver their findings in a crisp and confident manner.

2.  Build trust with the product teams

Decision makers are less likely to accept advice from people they do not know or trust.  It would benefit both parties if they were to get to know one another, personally and professionally.  Support functions should keep the brand teams up to date on the progress of research projects, share the data and findings before the meeting, and demonstrate a concern for the interests of the people in charge of the brand.

3.  Trust is more than you think

According to Trusted Advisor Associates, the elements of being trusted go beyond your expertise, experience, and academic degrees, and include reliability and the capacity to create intimacy with business associates.  The use of the word intimacy is deliberately controversial, meant to draw attention to the importance of creating a sense of discretion and interpersonal safety when collaborating with internal clients.  Think of it as bedside manner.

4.  Give dispassionate opinions

Passion is usually a good thing in a presenter, but not so much when helping senior decision makers come to the best conclusion and make the wisest choice.  In fact, if you look at this short interview with Chief Justice John Roberts, you will hear him explain why it is best to give considered opinions, not passionate ones, to people who are saddled with making important decisions.

5.  Get the lay of the land

If, based on the pre-meeting intel, the speaker/facilitator anticipates considerable disagreement, it would be helpful to state at the beginning of the meeting where the parties agree and where they disagree, make the case for both sides, and be clear why the support function prefers one view over the other.  One can accept that there are alternative views, but then explain why those views should not be given too much weight.

6.  Prepare for Q&A

Part of preparing for the meeting should be a rehearsal in which the members of the MR/BI group help their speaker/facilitator anticipate difficult questions, develop responses, and practice delivering them.

This rehearsal should also include practice in the physical behaviors needed to effectively respond to tough questions.   Body language, facial expressions, and eye movements all play a part in establishing and communicating confidence and command of the room.

7.  Manage meeting dynamics

In addition to dealing with reasonable challenges to the data, the methods, and the recommendations, speakers must also manage the meeting dynamics, which includes encouraging healthy dialogue and debate, eliciting responses from many people, and confronting dominant personalities in a diplomatic way.

This is especially difficult when the boss, or the boss’s boss, is the dominant one trying to take over the meeting.   Or, even tougher, when two bosses get into a heated debate about a particular aspect of the decision.

The effective facilitator will wait for the right moment to jump in to the conversation, using a slightly louder voice and an assertive hand gesture , and remind the combatants that time is limited, and that the discussion can continue after the meeting ends.

8.  Create timed agenda items

Which brings us to timed agenda items.  Presenters should prepare a simple agenda with a specific amount of time for each item on the agenda.  It’s a good way to limit the amount of discussion, drive the audience toward a decision, and encourage a crisp march through the material.

9.  Build a parking lot

A Parking Lot is a flip chart or white board set up to capture topics or areas of concern that do not appear on the agenda.  By capturing these concerns, participants feel acknowledged and are more likely to bring their focus back to the item under discussion. The parking lot also serves as a reminder of issues that may have been left unexamined by the various parties.

10.  Prepare an action item list

An action item list is also a flip chart or white board where the speaker (or a colleague) can capture the tasks that need to be accomplished to move the project forward, including who will accomplish the task and by when. This allows attendees to pay attention during the meeting because they don’t have to write things down during discussion.

These 10 suggestions for better meetings between brand teams and support functions are directed at the support functions for two reasons.

First, the meetings belong to them.  They are in-house consultants hosting an event for their clients, selling their expertise, hoping to earn their keep and get their advice accepted.

Second, brand teams and senior executives may be responsible for the occasional adversarial tone of the meetings, but the tone is set at the top, debate is good as long as it remains civil, and the members of support functions can grow in confidence and stature by engaging in such debates.

I heard from several readers after my blog about vocal fry.  This response, from Eva in Portland, is a great rant–and, of course, I feel the same way. Anti-vocal-fry enthusiasts, take heart!  Our numbers are growing!

From Eva in Portland:

Thank you for your blog about Vocal Fry.  I found it via another one I visit from time to time about this very topic:
http://squibbage.blogspot.com/2009/07/creaky-voice-craze.html

Mostly I’m writing to vent to a like-minded individual.  You’re certainly not alone as evidenced by all the blogs online decrying this horrible malady.  But, alas, we’re in the minority:  no amount of justified outrage or desperate persuasion is going to change the fact that vocal fry is the new norm.  As much as I agree with you that “the Vocal Fry has to go,” I’m afraid you’re optimistic–the sad truth is that the only place the vocal fry is headed is forward.

This thing drives me absolutely insane.  For me, it’s worse than nails on a chalkboard. Plus, it’s everywhere–you cannot get away from it!  It’s like a relentless assault that can’t be blocked out. The entire world is like a minefield. I’m safe in my car (as long as I don’t turn on the radio), but as soon as I step outside, I know it’s just a matter of time: walking down the street, going into a coffee shop, calling customer service, working at my job–it makes me tense because I know it’s coming, and it can happen any time.  When it does, it gives me this awful, panicky feeling of wanting to jump out of my skin.

I have read everything I can get my eyeballs on about this thing, and at this point I consider myself a reluctant expert on its various manifestations (there are actually many, many variations of it.)  I was actually thinking of starting my own blog or writing a book–but how can I interview fryers without insulting them?  I even contacted a local voice institute to talk about it with someone there, but never got a call back. I read the study done last year at LIU about vocal fry (the one that caused all the media buzz for a few weeks), and I corresponded with one of the researchers to get clarification on some of the points (for some reason, she was convinced that vocal fry does not happen on NPR, which I found astonishing.)  In fact, I wrote a long and heart-felt letter to NPR, pleading with them to do corrective training with their reporters (99% of their female reporters are creakers), but they obviously don’t think it’s a problem, even though the station did two segments about it–go figure!  I corresponded with another blogger (http://nowthedetails.blogspot.ca/search?q=fry) on how awful vocal fry is on radio stations. He suggested I write a letter to the local paper, but at this point, I don’t see the point.

And that’s about it. There is no remedy, there is no solution. The only therapy we have against it is to vent to kindred spirits, just to release the pressure.  It’s like some horrible air-borne virus.  Once it starts, it’s going to win, and nothing we can do is going to stop it.  All we can do–those of us who can’t stand it–is to look at one another and repeat, like Marlon Brando, “the horror, the horror.”

Thank you for your blog–it’s a small comfort in the face of the relentless juggernaut of creakdom.

P.S.  Here are two perfect examples of this irritating affectation; take a moment and have a listen, but be prepared to jam your fingers into your ears to keep from bursting a blood vessel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlh8gSF_hhE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMC_b0dsXQc

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I have a client—let’s call him Drew—who is a successful consultant.  He works with small companies to improve their sales results, but he’d like to move up in the world, work with larger companies, and speak at more prestigious events. His message is good, and his slides are effective.  He has a sense of humor and a no-holds-barred attitude about the best way to develop new business.  His only concern is his voice.  He thinks he sounds squeaky, and he thinks this squeakiness will hold him back.

He’s wrong–I’ve told him he’s wrong.  People can still love him and his message when he speaks with a squeaky voice.  Nevertheless, we continue to work together because there are consequences when you have a squeaky voice.  For example, your voice gets tired, and when your voice gets tired, you sound less lively (which can make you less engaging).  Also, if you keep on talking in a squeaky manner, you get laryngitis.  And that could spell the end of a speaking career.

So what are we doing together to fix the problem? I am teaching him how to breathe, how to open his throat, and how to project from his abdomen rather than from his larynx.  In his seminars, he occasionally likes to talk like Burgess Meredith in Rocky 3. He uses his voice in a gravelly, growly kind of way.  Unfortunately, within 10 seconds of speaking that way, his throat is killing him.

Slowly but surely, we are replacing old habits with new ones.  He imagines that his mouth is located by his solar plexus.  He jumps up and down like a baby in a crib saying “Mama, Dada, Mama, Dada.”  He punches the air with his fists and lets out a wide open vowel sound so he gets accustomed to making noise in a different way.  Not in his old way, by squeezing his vocal chords together, but rather by creating a strong breath stream that finds its strength in the muscles of his abdomen and rib cage.  This allows the voice to be supported by the breath like a bird that floats on a current of warm, rising air.

Your voice is your calling card, no matter if it’s squeaky or not.  Squeaky can be appealing.  But when poor vocal production begins to damage your voice, you’re in trouble.  And the way to keep the voice going is to change the means of vocal production.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I recently spoke at an industry event on the subject of differentiating your message.  I was invited to speak by someone who knows my work as a communication coach who told me that there would be a variety of people from the industry there; those who call on large organizations, and those who meet with smaller clients—two very different sales processes.

I worked hard on the talk trying to balance the needs of the two groups, but after speaking with my contact a second time, he assured me that anything I had to say would be equally applicable to both parties.  So I concentrated on the part of the industry that I knew best—selling to the smaller clients.

On the big day, I arrived at the venue to discover that the audience was almost 100% large organization people.  I was quite sure that much of my presentation was not going to be relevant to them, but I determined that I had no choice.  It was too late to change anything.  I had to dance with the girl I brought, deliver the presentation I wrote, and, as musicians say, “be wrong strong.”

I did well.  I was able to execute my plan.  And I had seven or eight people ask for my business card, which is a good thing.  But I also learned a lesson.

The lesson is this:  talk to more than one person about the nature of the audience you’ll face.  Ask for several names of attendees, and the names of several of the organizers.  Call them all and ask them to tell you about the event.  Ask, “Who will be there?  What are their needs and interests?  What should I avoid?”

I don’t blame my client for giving me wrong advice.  She was telling me what she believed to be true.  I blame myself for not being more curious, not gathering more intel, not looking under every stone to get a clear and comprehensive picture of the audience I was addressing.

Clichés are cliché because they’re so often true.  Know your audience is an old bromide that anyone can blurt out when asked, “What’s the most important thing in public speaking?”

But how???  One answer is, “Get your intel from more than one source.”

Hire Sims Wyeth & Co. to improve your team’s leadership skills, presentation skills, voice, speech, and speech writing.  We’ll help with stage fright, body language, presentation structure & strategy, persuasive speaking, and PowerPoint so you’ll look and sound your best.

Over forty years ago, drifting through my undergraduate years in my ratty easy chair, I came across three words that lifted the veil from my eyes.  Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, the Three Musketeers of rhetoric, seemed to me to be so comprehensive, so simple yet so profound, that I literally had a physical sensation as though the top of my head was coming off.

Sam Leith has written a timely book with a nifty title on the subject of rhetoric.  Words like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama is an accessible and engaging book on one of the oldest and most important disciplines in the world, namely how to use language to get people to do or think what you want them to do or think. 

It starts by demonstrating that, far from being a creature from cloud-cuckoo land, rhetoric is in the very air that we breathe.  Here is a snippet from The Simpsons.

Marge [sings].  How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man? 

Homer:  Seven

Lisa:  No, Dad, it’s a rhetorical question.

Homer:  Okay, eight.

Lisa:  Dad, do you even know what “rhetorical” means?

Homer:  Do I know what “rhetorical” means?

The point is, if Homer (the Simpson, not the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey) is learning about rhetoric, then we can too.  Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, the attempt of one human being to influence another in words.  As the subtitle of the book suggests, rhetoric has been around since the ancient Greeks, who used the art of influence to create the first democracy  (you can’t use force in rhetoric.  Only words.)   It’s also used by priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, pastors, and reverends to get us to give up our evil ways and walk the straight and narrow.  And every advertisement you see, essay you read, or speech you listen to is almost certainly designed and built according to the ancient principles and practices of rhetoric.

Did you know, for instance, that there are three kinds of rhetoric?  Forensic, Deliberative, and Epideictic.  Before you gag on those words, let me put you at ease.  Forensic rhetoric is what lawyers do at a murder trial: they argue about what happened in the past.  Deliberative rhetoric is what politicians use:  they argue about what they can do for you in the future.  And Epideictic rhetoric attempts to delight and educate the audience in the present, as in after-dinner speaking, commencement addresses, and other ceremonial forms of speaking.

The five parts of any ancient speech are consistent with our own methods:  invention (you think up what you want to say), arrangement (put your content in order), style (are you speaking in a locker room or at a funeral?), memory (get it into your head), and delivery (let it rip.)

Aristotle identified three lines of argument that help make you persuasive, and he put them in the Invention part of the rhetorical system.  Ethos is your ethical appeal, and it needs to come at the start of the speech.  You need to establish your credentials, your credibility, and your character, so that you can be seen as a reliable, trustworthy source of information.  Who wants to take a ski lesson from someone who’s never worn a parka?

Pathos is your emotional appeal.  A speaker has to convince an audience that the topic is meaningful to them, that they will gain something by listening, or lose something if they don’t.

And Logos is your intellectual appeal, your facts and figures, and the reasoning you deploy to make sense of those facts.

The author supplies a simple encapsulation.  Ethos: “Buy my old car because I’m an ex-NFL star.”  Logos: “Buy my old car because yours is broken and mine is the only one on sale.”  Pathos:  “Buy my old car because this cute little kitty will expire from a rare degenerative disease if I don’t sell my car and get the money to pay for kitty’s medical treatment.”

The book will also give you a chance to understand what you may be doing on your own—using certain forms of speech to make your message POP!  For instance, chiasmus, which puts  four terms in a crisscrossed relation to each other.  “Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country,” said JFK.  “Your manuscript is both good and original, but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good,” Dr. Johnson told an aspiring author.  And Theodore Roosevelt characterized as the central condition of human progress “conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess.”

The book is Words like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama by Sam Leith, published by Basic Books.  Reading it, you will comprehend how rhetoric is everywhere—in our ears on the radio, in our eyes on TV, and in our minds constantly through print and electronic media.  You would be wise to learn how it works on you, and how you can make it work on others.

Hire Sims Wyeth & Co. to improve your team’s leadership skills, presentation skills, voice, speech, and speech writing.  We’ll help with stage fright, body language, presentation structure & strategy, persuasive speaking, and PowerPoint so you’ll look and sound your best.

The President needs a good second half.  He was kind of half-whooped in the first half of his presidency, but if he comes out of the inauguration like Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens came out of the locker room at half-time yesterday, he may do okay.

James Taylor was too brief and crunchy for my taste (I wanted something a little more martial), but the President’s speech held my attention, although the ending wasn’t as rousing as I would have liked.  Why do they all have to end the same way, “And God bless these United States of America”?  It’s time for a change.

A few notable moments:

They decided not to wave the red flag of the President’s middle name in front of the birthers. At his first inauguration, the President was sworn in as Barack Hussein Obama.  Today, he was Barack H. Obama.

The speech immediately confirmed the strength of our democracy, and reminded us that we do not have to be divided by the origin of our names.  Yet the President’s name has been a source of divisiveness, and I have to assume his middle Islamic-sounding name was withheld so it wouldn’t divide.

We were reminded that to be an American, all you have to do is pledge your allegiance to an idea,  and then live your life accordingly.  Well, live your life and do the work, because the President was adamant about citizens working to make the ideals manifest, to bring the self-evident truths into reality.  “We must secure these gifts,” he said, ever the community organizer.

He acknowledged our cultural bias against central authority, but then warned us that our ancestors did not “Trade the tyranny of a king for the privileges of a few.”

And then he sang of the great accomplishments of the central authority in America—the Federal Government: railroads, highways, schools, Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and laws that make competition thrive and help protect the vulnerable. These things do not weaken us, he said.  They free us to take risk.

He did say that government is not a panacea, but then insisted that it is only through collective action that we can form a more perfect Union.

I liked the refrain—the subtle refrain—of We the People, implying that we are part of a collective.  We are not all stand-alone heroes, he was saying. We need to make decisions and take action as a group.  It’s the Democratic message:   You’re not on your own.  We’re in this together.

In fact, inclusiveness was a major theme.  He used metonymy when he spoke of Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall, each symbolic of an expanding circle of inclusion.

By the way, I had to look up Seneca Falls.  At first I thought it might have referred to an event that symbolized the inclusion of Native Americans into the American family, but no, that’s not what it meant. Seneca Falls was the town in upstate New York where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first Womens’ Rights Convention in 1848.

I like the section where he said we don’t have to argue about the role of government for all time; we only need to decide how Government should act in our time.

He was in good voice.  He paused between thoughts and phrases—he’s the master of the pause.  His voice is a flexible instrument, capable of solemnity, humor, anger, and emphasis: he knows how to punctuate spoken words.

He spoke to Congress and those citizens who have been passionate supporters.  To Congress he said, “My oath is the same as yours, and we don’t take oaths to fight for party and faction.”

To the citizens who support his agenda, he said, “Raise up your voices, gin up the airwaves, the Internet, and the Social Media.  We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

And then came the ending that failed to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, that failed to invoke his established theme, that We the People are one body; that out of many, we become one; that we are not individual grains of wheat, but rather a whole loaf, inseparable, one from the other, leavened by our faith, our reason, and our deeds.