I am still holding my ground against Ford Harding.  We have been debating the relative merits of raising FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in persuasive arguments, or GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory.)

For previous exchanges, please click on Fud, Gog, Ethics and Rhetoric and Fud in Public Speaking and Persuasion

Ford seems to think that GOG is better than FUD.  I think they work together, and that one is not better than the other.

I follow what the ancient Greeks taught.  Aristotle taught that speakers need to make three types of arguments in order to be persuasive.

The first is the ethical appeal:  you argue that you are a trustworthy source of information.  You do this by casually referencing your experience or expertise, and perhaps with some self-effacing humor.

The second is the intellectual appeal.  You argue by stating your point and then proving it with reasoning and facts, or you present your facts and reasoning and then conclude with your point.

The third type of argument is the emotional appeal.  You try, through stories, or humor, to arouse an emotion in your listeners.

Cicero, the great Roman statesman, thought the emotional appeal was the most important.  He said, “…tickling and soothing anxieties is the test of a speaker’s impact and technique.”

Ford, please note that he said, “..tickling AND soothing anxieties,” and Cicero was no slouch as a speaker.  He knew what he was talking about.  He seems to be saying that whenever we propose to an audience that they make a decision, we should bring up the pros and cons.

For instance, you might say that if the listeners don’t do what you recommend, A, B, C and D are the negative consequences they might expect.  However, if they decide to do what you suggest, you would argue that they could enjoy X, Y, and Z.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, or anyone, that your reasoning should be fair and balanced.  Using FUD or GOG is ethically neutral.  One is not more virtuous or ethical than the other.  It is not our technique that makes us unethical, but our intention.

And by the way, most speeches, articles, plays, novels, and movies are structured in the same way.  They single out a problem, consider its implications, and explore solutions.

Humans like problems because problems resemble puzzles, and we love puzzles.  We derive great pleasure from solving them, and grow as a result.

FUD gets our attention on the problem.  GOG drives us toward a solution.

They are the one-two punch of human growth and accomplishment.

Here’s the scenario. A bio-tech company will fly to Paris to convince influential French physicians to use their compound-in-development in clinical trials. The company has invited the French doctors to a nice meeting room in a nice hotel and plans to tell the doctors all about the compound.

When asked, “What is the purpose of the presentation?” they say, “To tell them about the drug.” I say I see it differently. I say it’s to help the French doctors come to the conclusion that the bio-tech company would be a great company to partner with, and that the drug is a versatile powerhouse that will almost certainly make it to market and get their names in the best peer-reviewed journals in the world.

When I lay out this plan, they say it is not scientific enough. I am sensitive to that. I like and respect the traditions of science. But I say, “This is not a scientific presentation. This is a business presentation. Science plays a part, but the goal is a business goal. You need these people to believe in your company and your compound. Our job is to induce belief in them, and raise that belief to the level of action.”

We take the scientific and corporate information they already have and restructure it to make a strong argument for partnership. There is some resistance holding out in the recesses of their scientific hearts.

I persist. This is a “decisional” presentation, I say. The French doctors will say, “Yes, No or Maybe.” There are risks for them. They could miss out on a good thing if they say no. They could miss out on better opportunities if they say yes. There are rational calculations to make, including the fact that they have practices to run, assistants to pay, and time to manage.

There are also non-rational issues. They would love to get their names on an important study. They would hate to work for years on a trial of a compound that never gets to market. Should they say no? Should they say yes?

In reality, I would guess their decision will hinge on what the most influential physician in the group decides.

This was a lesson in knowing the audience–in targeting their rational and non-rational needs. The bio-tech firm was relying on the science to do the job. It seemed to me the calculation was broader than that. For the doctors, the decision would be psychological as well as scientific.

Stay tuned.

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematical genius who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him.  This was a watershed moment, because for the first time humanity had a systematic way of thinking about the future.

Pascal was both a gambler and a religious zealot.  He wanted to know if God really exists, which is knowledge not easily acquired.  So the next question was, “Should I act as if God exists, or should I act as if He does not exist?”

Suppose, said Pascal, that we lead a life of virtue and self-restraint, and when the day of reckoning comes, we discover there is no God.  Well, life was not too bad being good.  Maybe  life could have been a little more fun, but …this is a consequence that most people could accept.

Suppose however,  we bet that God does not exist, and lead a life of lust, violence, and depravity, only to discover that God really does exist.  Suddenly we’re looking at some serious time in the furnace of the underworld.  Pascal was not willing to take this chance.

Pascal’s wager is helpful for speakers.  When recommending a course of action to an audience that seeks GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory) a speaker should spend time exploring the possible downsides.  Risk is always present, no matter how close the goal appears.

For instance, hedge fund managers often make a huge bet, and then borrow even more money to put down on the bet to increase their potential earnings.  They do this because their data tells them that it’s practically a sure thing.  The problem arises when their data, which is about the past, does not apply to the future.  And if they have borrowed more money than they can easily pay back, their creditors close them down, and their clients lose their money.

A persuasive speaker, when advocating for a course of action, will ask the question, “How will we deal with surprises?  What are the consequences if we are wrong in our assumptions? “  Risk is the eternal possibility of being wrong–not always in an adverse direction.  Sometimes you’re wrong and things turn out better than expected.

When recommending a decision to an audience, it is wise to explore the consequences of your being wrong.   Sometimes the consequences are trivial (lead a good life but get no prize in Heaven), and sometimes they are not (lead a bad life and cook slowly forever.)

Rather than let the audience try to poke holes in your argument, you should do it yourself.  Give your presentation a pressure test, and see if it holds up.

Effective persuasion starts with the recognition that any forecast can be wrong, then weighs the consequences of being wrong.   Even if success will lead to fame, wealth and glory, you will be more credible if you surface the negative possibilities, and can honestly dismiss them as trivial.

Ford Harding has lifted his pen to engage with me on a subject of profound importance to sales professionals, leaders, and anyone who seeks to influence others. That subject is the emotional sea on which all decisions float.

FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is one current in that sea. It drives most of us away from the shoals of risk, hardship, pain and loss.

GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory) is another current in the sea. Its siren song calls us to risk our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor in pursuit of objectives that may or may not work out.

I will address Ford’s recent comments in this posting, but first I must clarify my position and then I must make the case for the role of emotion in business decision making. I think Ford and I are using a kind of shorthand in discussing this topic, and some readers might be concerned about the difference between logical persuasion and emotional persuasion.

My position: I am not the champion of FUD and the enemy of GOG. I strive to be the wise master of both. However, I am of the opinion that mankind is more motivated by the fear of loss than the hope of gain. What gets our attention, on a daily basis, are problems. Most people and organizations will not change until the pain of change becomes less than the pain of the status quo. Alcoholics don’t stop drinking until they hit rock bottom. They do not get sober because they suddenly decide to be good little boys and girls. They get sober because they are avoiding the dire consequences of their drinking.

In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert writes the following:

“One of the most annoying songs in the often annoying history of popular music begins with this line: “Feelings, nothing more than feelings.” I wince when I hear it because it always strikes me as roughly equivalent to starting a hymn with “Jesus, nothing more than Jesus.” Nothing more than feelings? What could be more important than feelings? Sure, war and peace may come to mind, but are war and peace important for any reason other than the feelings they produce? If war didn’t cause pain and anguish, if peace didn’t provide for delights both transcendental and carnal, would either of them matter to us at all? War, peace, art, money, marriage, birth, death, disease, religion—these are just a few of the Really Big topics over which oceans of blood and ink have been spilled, but they are really big topics for one reason alone: Each is a powerful source of human emotion. If they didn’t make us feel uplifted, desperate, thankful, and hopeless, we would keep all that ink and blood to ourselves. As Plato asked, “Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?” Indeed, feelings don’t just matter—they are what mattering means. We would expect any creature that feels pain when burned and pleasure when fed to call burning and eating bad and good respectively, just as we would expect an asbestos creature with no digestive tract to find such designations arbitrary. Moral philosophers have tried for centuries to find some other way to define good and bad, but none has ever convinced the rest (or me). We cannot say that something is good unless we can say what it is good for, and if we examine all the many objects and experiences that our species calls good and ask what they are good for, the answer is clear: By and large, they are good for making us feel happy.”

_____

Ford, I take this to mean that our careful reasoning and efforts to be logical about any important decision –from making an investment, to building a bridge, to figuring out how to land a new client–is ultimately floating on a sea of feelings and emotions, and that we are constantly striving to minimize our FUD (negative emotions) and maximize our GOG (feelings of pleasure.)

If we are sales professionals, leaders, or public speakers, we need to consider all the tools of persuasion at our disposal. This consideration of tools and techniques makes us rhetoricians practicing the art of rhetoric. We are obliged to use the tools of rhetoric when considering a decision for which there is no clear answer–a decision about which reasonable men can disagree.

FUD and GOG are rhetorical tactics which we can use to persuade an audience. You write that fear tactics are despicable, and then wisely mention that GOG tactics can be equally deceptive. Let me remind you that the techniques of persuasion, like many other technologies, are neither inherently good nor evil. They can be used to advance noble or pernicious purposes. “What makes a man a sophist is not his faculty but his moral purpose.”

As for your Venn diagram example, in which you describe the two overlapping circles of FUD and GOG, and argue that where downside risk is high, the use of only FUD is appropriate, and where the upside is larger, it is only appropriate to use GOG, and only in the middle, where they both overlap, is it appropriate to use both, I have to disagree. All upsides have risk, and all downsides have solutions.

It seems to me that Plato, quoted above, is saying that we undertake projects in our lives to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In other words, to get rid of FUD and grab hold of GOG.

Furthermore, if we are successful business leaders, as soon as we make a decision to pursue GOG (greed, opportunity and glory), we have a whole new set of FUD calculations to make, such as, “What if I’m wrong? What if the future is not like the past? What if, what if, what if?”

It is up to the speaker, the salesman, and the leader to explore these what ifs, and thereby help his audience to the best decision for them. Reasoning and logic will play their parts in the drama, but FUD and GOG will always be the co-stars.

FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.  I first heard the term when consulting at Gartner.  I was working with the analysts in preparing for a Gartner Symposium, and several of them used FUD at the start of their talks to engage the listeners on an emotional level.

For instance, they might have said, “While e-mail may be the killer-app of first generation internet programs, it could very well become the mass murderer of the second generation as it hurls armies of hackers, worms, viruses and spam against the the gates of your corporate security infrastructure.”

I made that up.  But something like that.

Fear-based arguments are common and valid, in my experience.  Our lives are built around the fear of pain and the hope of gain.  Every story we have ever enjoyed in novel, play, film, or ballad is about a person who had a problem (and had FUD) and struggled to make it go away.

In fact, FUD is what makes drama dramatic.  If we dont’ have FUD when the pretty young thing all alone in the house on a dark and stormy night hears a sound downstairs and gets out of bed in her nightgown to see what’s happening, then the story doesn’t work.

We have to care about the girl, and we have to be afraid that something might jump out of the closet, hatchet raised.

What if a CIO heard a noise in the middle of the night, and it was her phone, and she heard that a hacker had broken through her security system at work, the one she touted and convinced the company to buy, and she had to get dressed and drive into headquarters and face the embarrassment of a crisis that higher-ups were likely to blame on her?

Those CIOs in the audience listening to the Gartner analysts are human beings motivated by the same things that everyone else is motivated by–the fear of loss, and the hope of gain.  I’m not a CIO, but if I were, I’d be worried about making bad decisions, not looking good when my systems aren’t successful, spending too much, spending too little, and taking too much time to get things done.

We know that humans are interested in their own problems.  We talk about our problems most of the time.  They’re  number one in the conversation hit parade.  If we talk to our listeners about their problems, they are much more likely to listen.  If we demonstrate a firm grasp of their problems, and the consequences for them if they don’t solve the problems, they are more likely to respect us and trust us.  So reminding them of their problems might not be a bad strategy.

There is evidence in social science that it is not wise to use FUD arguments on people who are already in a state of high anxiety.  But there is also evidence that we retain and value information when it is linked to our emotions–any emotions, positive or negative.

Consulting is based on problem solving (i.e., the removal of FUD.)  Philosophy is built around problem solving.   Politics likewise.  For the client, the voter, the audience, beyond the FUD is a vision of a new and better reality.  But our credibility as speakers depends largely on defining, in vivid and human terms, the problem that your content solves.

Let’s not be afraid of FUD.  Used appropriately, FUD can turn a dry information dump into a compelling story about a person, a product, a department, or a company that prevents disaster and saves the day.

Effective speaking has many enemies. A partial list would include a speaker’s lack of experience, stage fright, lack of training, no clear point, too much information, and finally, no clear flow, or structure.

We could go on. But the items on the list are only those enemies that hide within the speaker himself. What about the external enemies–the environmental obstacles, including those that hide within the audience?

Certainly one of the most stubborn opponents you can face as a speaker is an audience that has endured a morning’s worth of presentations, escaped into a lunch of heavy food and sweet desserts, only to be herded back into their seats to listen to you!

This is a test that separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. Such an audience can be somnolent, indifferent, and murderously hard on your ego.

What should you do?

1. Throw a match on them. Light them on fire. Henry Ward Beecher, one of the greatest preachers in American history, once found himself on a hot day in a town in West Virginia known to be Death Valley for speakers. Sure enough, that afternoon, as he was being introduced, he saw that half the town was already dozing. He rose from his chair and, wiping his brow with a large handkerchief, strode to the front of the platform.

“It’s a God-damned hot day,” the clergyman began.

A thousand pairs of eyes opened wide. An electrical shock straightened the crowd erect. Beecher paused and then, raising a finger of solemn reproof, went on, “That’s what I heard a man say here this afternoon.”

He proceeded into a stirring condemnation of blasphemy–and took his audience with him.

2. Keep it interactive. Ask the audience questions. Ask them to discuss something in small groups for a few minutes. I’ve seen speakers ask the audience to shout in unison a product name whenever he mentioned the name in his speech. They got into it and listened carefully in order to be part of the chorus.

3. Keep it short and sweet. This is true always, but especially true after lunch. Don’t try to take the audience on a death march through your comprehensive analysis of photosynthesis in the genus papaver somniferum.

4. Speak and move with energy and verve. You are the leader, and your followers need to be inspired. Breathe some life into them.

5. Tell stories. The Golden Rule of after-dinner speaking is to make a simple point by telling a whimsical but relevant story. The same rule should apply to after-lunch speaking, even though your audience is not seated at their lunch table but back in the conference hall.

6. Know your enemy. Your enemy is the food in their stomachs that demands their attention, even as you demand their attention from the lectern. You must be more compelling than the food that drags them into the arms of Morpheus. Your talk must be flavorful, adequately salted and spicy with a variety of fascinating facts, insights, and bold opinions that are sprinkled with a dash of style, passion and humor.

In other words, you’ve got to be well-prepared, well-rehearsed, and well-seasoned to capture and keep their attention.

For other highly challenging speaking environments, go to How to Give Good Webinar

I just returned from an engagement during which I was asked to give partners in a professional service firm 10 minutes to pitch the firm to a brand new prospect, played by another partner sitting across the table.

Most partner/presenters were tentative at the start. They began by asking the prospects what they wanted to get out of the meeting. Since the exercise was only ten minutes long, the prospects gave a 30-second overview of their needs and asked the sales person to, “Give us your pitch,” or said, “We use a lot of firms like yours. What makes you different.”

And that’s when the difficulty began. Few presenters were prepared with a brief, interesting headline focused on customer benefits. Most of them hemmed and hawed, drilled down into one particular feature of their services, or provided a summary statement that was fact-based and feature-based, not emotionally strong and benefit-driven.

For instance, the firm is proud of their process, their results, and their willingness to measure and publish those results. But all of those are internal and ambiguous to the prospect. Clients care most about results, and are more than likely indifferent to the process, as long as it gets the job done without too much disruption to their own work flow.

Furthermore, in this case, while my client firm could report their own success metrics, they could not report those of their competitors, so the information was meaningless.

And when they did mention their success metrics, they often quoted a number–”82% of our engagements are successfully completed,”–leaving the prospect to wonder if that number is good or bad, what happens with the other 18% of engagements, what does success mean, and what is the likelihood that I will be one of the 18% who get screwed?

The best guy in the whole exercise opened with three crisp points: we have a transparent process, we complete more assignments than our competitors, and we complete them faster. But he failed to stick to that outline during the subsequent role-play.

I liked what he was trying to do. He made three bold points, or claims, at the start, and he was going to describe how and why those claims were true. But he got derailed by the back and forth, and lost control of the meeting.

He would have done better if his points had been benefit statements–if they had been about what the client gets, rather than about his firm’s attributes. His message was seller-centric (all about him!) instead of customer-centric (all about them!)

Moving to a listener-centric message would have required that he understand why his clients buy services such as his, what they like about such services, and what they dislike.

I asked the group if they had any market research, or any well-founded opinions, that could guide us in the exercise. They did, and we were able to suggest another set of headlines that, if used broadly throughout the firm’s selling efforts, could provide new language, and a greater return on new client interactions.

The bottom line is this: language shapes reality! Some cognitive scientists say that language creates reality for us–that it is generative. Effective presentation of intangible professional services depends on a highly-skilled use of language capable of inducing clarity and trust in the prospect.

It’s worth the time to find the right combination of words that resonate with the target audience.

What makes smart people dumb?

Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs.

Before the experiment began, the tappers were asked how often they believed that the listeners would name the songs correctly. On average, the tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. In the end, however, listeners guessed only 3 of 120 songs tapped out, or 2.5 percent.

The tappers were astounded. The song was so clear in their minds; how could the listeners not “hear” it in their taps?

That’s a common reaction when experts set out to share their ideas in the business world, too, says Chip Heath, who with his brother, Dan, was a co-author of the 2007 book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” It’s why engineers design products ultimately useful only to other engineers. It’s why managers have trouble convincing the rank and file to adopt new processes. It’s why the advertising world struggles to convey commercial messages to consumers. And it’s why many presenters struggle to plant their ideas deeply in the soil of the listeners’ mind.

Part of the problem for expert speakers is their expert language, the terms that their specialized disciplines develop to speak in short hand. These highly specialized languages confer an identity on the speaker, and many of them are reluctant to relinquish this hard-won identity when speaking to the uninitiated.

Another problem is simple over-familiarity with the terrain. Researchers have been over and over their data and their findings in preparing for publication. It’s hard for them to see it through the eyes of a child, or the eyes of someone new to the terrain.

A parallel from my own experience: I find it difficult to give new friends directions to my home, even though I’ve lived there for 15 years. I’m on automatic pilot everyday as I drive away from and then back toward my house. I don’t pay attention to the names of little roads, or make note of landmarks. I know where I am, but my knowledge is tacit–I struggle to make it explicit.

I often ask scientists I’m working with to prepare a talk explaining their work to 5th Graders. It’s a difficult exercise for them–they make so many assumptions, the most obvious being, “Why are you studying the P54 and why does it have that name?”

They forget they have to start at the beginning. I.e., “Once upon a time, there was a Daddy who got very, very sick. He went to the doctor and….”

And suddenly they’re following the Golden Rule: “Speak to the audience, in the language of the audience, about what’s most important to the audience.”

What could have been an incomprehensible talk in a foreign language has become a story about a heroic effort to save somebody’s Daddy.

Everybody can understand that!

And while this may seem overly simple for expert speakers addressing sophisticated adults, the core truth remains valid. An audience needs to know why they should care about the information they are about to hear–they need to have their emotions (or at least their curiosity) engaged in order to listen.

And then they need clear outlines and headers as they’re led through the material. They need all extraneous information eliminated. And they need a good story line, as the speaker brings drama and suspense to the struggle to overcome obstacles and capitalize on the opportunity.

Like that moment in bowling, when your ball leaves two pins standing far apart, there are times when your audience is divided into two camps.

One half is knowledgeable about your area of expertise, while the other half is green.  Or, one half is interested in the science, while the other half is preoccupied with its business application. Or one half of your audience is eager to hear your thoughts, while the other half is not only indifferent, but cynical and disengaged. Remarks you prepare all seem appropriate for one group, but not the other.

What’s the best solution?

First of all, an audience divided in two is probably overly simplistic.  There are those who care about the topic, those who couldn’t care less, and those who are neutral.

Furthermore, certain types of people are most interested in the speaker’s position on the topic and the reasoning supplied to support that position.  Others are more interested in how to execute the idea, and still others on the values and beliefs that are embedded in the stated position.

Generally, when making a proposal, a speaker can expect some listeners to be with him, some opposed, and some to be undecided. As in American politics, there are lefties, righties, and those who vote both ways.

Teachers often say, “Teach to the middle,” suggesting that you can reach the greatest number of students that way.  This also suggests that you are willing to lose the top performers as well as those at the bottom of the class.  It also implies that by appealing to the middle, you follow the Pareto Principle, which says you get 80% of your results from 20% of your effort.

However, I think we can devise a better solution.  I have worked with many medical researchers who are presenting to venture capitalists and Wall Street analysts in order to raise money for their projects.  The audience in these situations is all over the map in terms of expertise. Some know a little, and some alot.

In these situations, I have found that it is helpful to think of the problem of a split shot audience as a problem of attention, not comprehension .  And the way to keep attention is to tell a dramatic story and use all the tools available to a good storyteller.

The first step for the speaker is to set the stage.  The speaker needs to describe the current situation in the disease state, the current standard of care, and perhaps a dab of history to describe how the standard evolved.

Next, the speaker needs to describe the unmet medical need, and the suffering, or financial burden, that is the result.  This has to be emotional in tone.  The speaker needs to make the audience feel the suffering and demonstrate his real concern.

Then, the speaker needs to paint the picture of how patients, or providers, or payors would benefit if only this problem would go away.

And only then, after he has helped the audience to understand the general situation, the terrible problem facing patients and the medical establishment, and painted a picture of what life could be like if only these problems could be overcome–only then does he introduce his new product and tell the story of how it works its wonders in the human body.

In other words, the speaker uses the basic tools of story-telling to make his presentation dramatic.  The basic tools of story-telling are setting, hero, problem, solution, climax, and resolution.

In this way, the skilled speaker engages everyone in the audience because the human mind is hard-wired to think in stories.  We tend to dismiss facts, but we are willing to suspend our disbelief when we hear stories, especially when they resonate with our previously held beliefs.

Furthermore, in my example, the scientific speaker can go into considerable detail if he has set up the story so that his molecule is the hero, riding into town, taking on the bad guys, and putting things right.  Listeners will stay focused because they’re interested in the drama.

And if he is careful to use analogies and metaphors to introduce and sum up complex information, then he will keep the attention of both the experts and the neophytes.  Humor sprinkled throughout can also keep people attentive during the denser parts of the talk.

For example, when I think of a particular cytokine that triggers the cascade of chronic inflamation that we know as rheumatoid arthritis, I often think of Osama bin Laden.  Both remain hidden, unharmed–manipulating levers to cause harm all over the world.  If only we could isolate both of them and knock them out! Then all the misguided minions–men and molecules–would stop inflicting pain on the world, and peace and ease would return to our lives.

Hardly scientific, I know.  But with a vivid and detailed description of how the disease works, it’s ultimately a story about a no-good cytokine–the ring-leader of a violent gang causing pain and suffering, and a heroic little drug who has a plan to get close enough to knock him out once and for all.

Who knows, it might inspire the venture capitalists to remember the pitch, and fund the effort to help the hero.

Derrick called and spoke a mile a minute. His boss, the founder of a new hedge fund and the primary money runner had to speak at a capital intro in a week. Could I come and help?

I asked if the boss knew what he wanted to say, and Derrick said yes, but the talk was not developed yet and he (the boss) wouldn’t have time to devote to it until the weekend.

I asked about the boss. Derrick said he was really smart but not all that experienced speaking to large groups and hard to pin down because he was so busy keeping his eye on the markets.

We set up two meetings. The first to hammer out what the message would be; the second to practice saying it. I asked for a general summary of what would be said. Derrick replied, “He’s going to talk about distressed securities.”

“Is he going to say something unusual about them, or is he going to say something predictable but try to say it well?” I asked.

“By that question, I can tell that you are going to be helpful,” said Derrick, assuring me that I would not see any drafts until I arrived.

When I walked in the door, the receptionist seemed to be expecting me. She jumped up and escorted me into a meeting room off the lobby.

Derrick arrived like clock-work. He handed me his business card, made from the thickest card stock I’ve ever felt. I enthused over the feel of his card. He seemed to enjoy that. It broke the ice.

He briefed me on the status of the script and slides (a work in progress) and then in came his boss, backing into the room as he spoke to an assistant down the hall.

Peter was small and intense, with long hair and granny glasses. If Derrick was natty and professional, Peter was rumpled and professorial. Derrick excused himself immediately and closed the door as he left.

Peter had a handful of wrinkled papers in his hand. They were his notes. He did not know how to connect his computer to the projector, or how to use PowerPoint well enough to re-sequence the slides.

However, his knowledge of distressed securities was encyclopedic and his speech was supersonic. He had so many thoughts stampeding from his mind to his mouth that they got stuck on his tongue and toppled over each other.

Hummingbirds beat their wings 15 to 80 times per second, depending on the species. If a hummingbird could speak, that’s how fast Peter talked.

When I asked questions about his meaning to help him clarify what he wanted to say and in what order, he was wonderfully patient with my modest understanding of his discipline, and used analogies and metaphors to explain his point—a sign, I think, of a good communicator.

In addition to speaking like a hummingbird, he did not look me in the eye, and did not relate what he said to the bar charts on the screen. But he spoke with visceral passion and emphatic verve about the coming crisis in corporate debt—and that made up for his other sins as a speaker. He could lift up his whole body and jump into a key word with both feet–giving it real meaning and significance.

When our rehearsal led him to a new thought, he leaned over the conference table, pawing through his wrinkled pages, and jotted  words on a spare corner of the paper.

He was trying to say that the imminent credit crunch would not be like past credit crunches, due to recent care-free lending practices. In fact, due to covenant-light loans, and CCC loans, he argued, we would not get early warning signs of trouble: we would be in the middle of the crisis all at once.

The challenge was to build the story so that the audience would think they were hearing a standard pitch about the potential attractive opportunities in distressed debt, and then yank the tablecloth out from under the meal spread before them to reveal something entirely new and terrifying.

After two meetings, we had cut the slides down to six and the timing down to less than ten minutes. He had no time to rehearse. He promised he would work on it in his hotel room when he arrived at the capital intro. I continued to e-mail suggestions to his Blackberry over the weekend.

I learned from Peter that he did not rehearse until he was on the plane, and then he stayed up most of the night in a panic working on it.

Two days after the event, he called to say it went well, and that my messages had helped. I called Derrick to get his assessment, who said it was a little short—much shorter than the presentations made by other speakers. I pointed out that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As Mrs. Hubert Humphrey said to her husband after a particularly long stem-winder, “Hubert, for a speech to be immortal, it need not be interminable.”

The question will be whether Peter can:
1. Get attention at capital intros.
2. Keep attention
3. Make a clear point in a memorable way
4. Stand out in a crowded field
5. Move people to come talk with him.

That’s it. He doesn’t have to sell the fund, or close the deal. His job is to generate trust and curiosity.