Persuading a National Audience: politicians, organizers, pundits, and purposeful communication
Glendower:
I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur:
Why so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?
“Do what you do best.
To the best of your ability.
For the good of others.”
Great leaders compel others to struggle together towards a shared vision.
Great leaders work for the good of others; mostly, for those who have the least power.
Therefore, great leaders must be great communicators.
Politicians and those in the public eye often have a team of advisors who prepare them for debates, press conferences, media interviews, and speeches. These advisors focus on things like strategy, speech writing, and talking points. When I work on such a team, my job is to make sure that the speaker’s message is congruent with the speaker’s delivery. I focus on how the content is performed through expression, gesture, body-language, and voice.
Any of you following this blog know that my work with clients is not prescriptive; rather, our work focuses on freeing the speaker to be their full selves—alive, powerful, at ease, appropriate, and riveting. Rather than using a list of rules (“stand like this,” “don’t do that,” “lean in here”), we work towards fluency of the material and context so that the performance is crafted yet open, rehearsed yet unexpected.
Those leading in public require the ability to work on the fly, in between meetings, during car rides, make sudden pivots, while surrounded by a flurry of people with a constant battery of demands. My job is to create a sense of spaciousness around the coaching process in those interstitial moments, to find stillness in the eye of the storm. In fact, great political communicators have that ability: to make the present moment the only thing that matters; to draw focus in chaos; to ground all of us with their gravitas.
When working with public figures, I focus on these three things:
In the case of public leaders, there must be a heightened purpose, a true North, a sense of clear direction that gets translated into action. Our intentions, our goals, our desired outcomes, determine the path. So it’s best to consciously choose an intention that is aspirational and for the good of others.
As my father, Warren Bennis, said, “Vision animates, inspires, transforms, purpose into action.”
Intentions are simply:
ACTION: An action, a verb (TO____)
FOR OTHERS: For the other/audience (the intention puts our attention on the other; if it puts the attention on ourselves, “to impress,” for example, it is not a good intention.)
POSITIVE: Framed in the positive (we can’t NOT do something)
CHOSEN: Consciously chosen (if we aren’t clear, we may default to intentions such as, “to get this over with,” “to not make a fool of myself,” “to remember my talk”)
PROACTIVE ANTICIPATION
In advance, we gather as much information as possible. Who, what, where, why, when, etc.
Who is the audience?
What is the context? Panel, talk, interview.
Where do we come in the order of events?
What is the space like?
What is the tech? Mic? Podium?
What questions may be asked?
What are the “worst fear” questions?
REHEARSAL OF TEXT AND CONTEXT
Then, we practice.
Create a rehearsal as close to the actual event as possible (podium, slides, space).
Say the text out-loud.
Invite in a small audience. It’s better to have an awkward run-through before the event, than to do it fully for the first time in public!
Ask for specific feedback from the audience, mostly, “Was there anything you didn’t understand?” This one question illuminates the most crucial things to work on.
Remember, for individuals in the public eye, the performance begins the minute we step out of the car.
Next week I will talk about low and high intentions. Great leaders must have high intentions.