Great series on public speaking by Aliza Sherman!

Part 1: Public Speaking to Market Your Business
Part 2: Finding Gigs.

Hard-nosed executives think ‘storytelling’ dilutes their message. They see it as ‘acting’, as being somehow less than authentic with an audience.

Nothing is further from the truth.

So gather round people wherever you roam; draw closer; are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. This is a tale of a filmmaker, Peter Gruber, whose really good article in the December Harvard Business Review reveals the Four Truths of the Storyteller.

Obviously, the corporate storyteller has nothing to do with the Gandalf figure above, or the ‘nighty-night’ bedtime stories we tell our children when they go Up The Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire. No. But there’s a lot of this cultural baggage around ‘telling stories’ that the executive communicator needs to overcome.

Gruber is an experienced executive and filmmaker (he produced The Color Purple and Midnight Express) ideally situated to distill the essence of good storytelling into a business setting. His HBR article does this by discussing Four Truths.

One: Truth to the Teller

Authenticity is crucial for the storyteller. His story must be congruent with his tongue, feet and wallet. He must show and share emotion. This requires vulnerability, or what my friend Lee Glickstein calls relational presence. The good news is you can practice being in relationship just like you practice your golf swing. And people on a podium who don’t practice this as often as they should are as embarrassing as any duffer on the green.

Gruber tells us that the main challenge for the corporate storyteller is to appeal to the listener’s emotions as well as their logical minds:

He must enter the hearts of his listeners, where their emotions live, even as the information he seeks to convey rents space in their brains.

One way to connect is to use what ad-meister Roy H. Williams calls Magic Words:

Learn to choose words whose unconscious associations will accelerate your message: “I stepped into lemon sunshine that was vivid, startling and bright.” In that short sentence, one tart word, “lemon,” added the sparkle. Had I written, “I stepped into the bright yellow sunshine of a summer’s day,” the oatmeal droning of an unthinking writer would have only just begun.

Two: Truth to the Audience

Gruber counsels executives to research the audience and understand what his listeners know about, care about, and want to hear. Beyond presenting facts that will satisfy the intellectual needs of a particular crowd, the speaker must, again, get the emotional arc right. One way to do this is tell the story in an interactive fashion helping people see themselves as the hero of the story. Make the ‘I’ in your story become the ‘we’.

Three: Truth to the Moment

This moment is different from any before and this
moment is different it’s now.
The Incredible String Band – This Moment

Never tell a story the same way twice. The context is always part of the story. The challenge, especially for a CEO, is to tell the same story over and over again and make it sound fresh each time.

Jack Welch does not mince words when recalling what a challenge this is:

Like every goal and initiative we’ve ever launched, I repeated the No. 1 or No. 2 message over and over again until I nearly gagged on the words. I tried to sell both the intellectual and emotional cases for doing it. (Jack: Straight from the Gut, p. 109)

Four: Truth to the Mission

The job of the corporate storyteller is to capture the mission in a story that evokes powerful emotions and wins the assent and support of his listeners.

In Summary

What makes a good presentation? It’s something beyond the PowerPoint your graphics wizards can cook up. It’s beyond the facts your investor relations and corporate communications department can load you up with. It’s beyond the supporting videos and carefully orchestrated cameo appearances your marketing and PR guys fund.

At the end of the day it’s as simple as your ability to tell a story.

Are you sitting comfortably?

There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Winston Churchill

Rebecca Knight, writing on modern philanthropy in the Weekend Financial Times, highlights Gilbert Maurer, the former Hearst Corporation COO who noticed something odd about bright college graduates he encountered:

They could write okay, but they couldn’t articulate,� he recalls. “If ever they had to give a presentation, it was ‘like’ this, and ‘you know’ that. I called it verbal landfill.

His response was to fund the Maurer Professorship, an endowed chair of speech and rhetoric, at his alma mater, St Lawrence University, a small, private liberal arts college in upstate New York.

“Even if a St Lawrence graduate – whether an economics major, a biologist or a philosopher – is able to express himself just 10 per cent better [than his peers] it will be a worthwhile endeavour,� he says.

The St. Lawrence School for Communication Arts offers classes in Advanced Public Speaking; Argumentation and Debate; Interpersonal Communication; Gender and Communication; Communication Theory; Native American Oral Traditions; American Public Address; Rhetoric of Social Movements; Ritual Studies and Presidential Campaign Rhetoric. (There’s no apparent connection between the last two courses – although Presidential campaigns are as filled with ritual as any shamanic rite.)

Specific course descriptions show the depth of the studies:

211. Advanced Public Speaking.
Intensive study of the principles and practices of researching, organizing, writing, delivering and criticizing persuasive speeches. Students employ contemporary theories of persuasion to analyze a variety of rhetorical situations. Students construct persuasive speeches for different speaking situations in order to develop critical and practical skills.

326. American Public Address
A study of American history through examination of the speeches of spokespersons for social, political, legal and religious institutions and movements. From Thomas Jefferson to George Bush, from Susan B. Anthony to Phyllis Schlafly, from George Wallace to Martin Luther King Jr.: a study of the impact of rhetorical strategies upon ideas and events and of ideas and events upon rhetorical strategies.

The school website also references a fascinating resource: the Silva Rhetoricae guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric.

Congratulations to the Maurer family for this much needed correction to the, you know, persuasiveness of American youth, like.

Scott Hammond, the founder of Momentum Creation, is a professional speaker, and a businessman with 30 years of marketing experience.

Scott was born in Emmitsburg, Iowa and grew up in San Diego before moving to Humboldt County, California.

As a father of nine children with a 30-year, award-winning background in radio, newsprint and television medias, Scott is uniquely qualified to offer a balanced perspective on family and career achievement.

Scott uses a comfortable, personal speaking style to motivate, inspire, and train people toward positive personal change.

Scott resides in McKinleyville, California with his wonderful wife Joni and seven of their children.

Scott’s blog Father Speak focuses on Fathering and the Family. I missed the opportunity to interview Scott at one of the Pro-Track meetings. So I employed my new handy-dandy telephone microphone and talked to Scott on the phone at his home in Eureka. To hear our conversation, click on the podcast icon below.

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I spent the weekend at the annual ‘Camp NSA’ training program held at the headquarters of the National Speakers Association in Tempe, Arizona. This workshop takes future Presidents of the regional Chapters in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia through an intensive consideration of what’s involved in serving as President of the Board of Directors of a Chapter. I’ll be the 2008-09 President of the Northern California Chapter. It’s been fascinating to hear discussions on subjects such as financial planning; fundraising; program development; membership building and retention; conflict resolution and the mechanics of holding successful Board meetings.

One of the skills a good Chapter President cultivates is communicating the value of joining this organization to potential members interested in the business of speaking.

I realized I had a unique opportunity to ask my fellow Chapter Presidents-in-waiting at the event what attracted them to NSA, what’s the value in being a member and why, in fact, someone who is involved in the speaking, training, workshop facilitation or speechwriting business should consider joining the National Speakers Association.

The voices on the podcast are, in order, those of Naomi Rhode, CSP, CPAE who is the Chair of the Camp NSA program and a past National President of NSA; Manny Diotte, NSA Heart of Texas; Jennifer Powers, NSA Oregon; Glenn Ray, NSA Ohio; Ria Botzler, NSA New Mexico; Steve Mertz, NSA Colorado; Jeanette Nyden, NSA Northwest; Alex Ramsey, NSA North Texas; Myra Corrello, NSA New Orleans; Debra Burrell, NSA New York City; Ted Rogers, NSA Phoenix and – last but not least – the irrepressible Vinny Verelli, NSA Georgia.

To hear their comments, click on the podcast icon below.

If you’re inspired to join the National Speakers Association, or just want to find out more, contact your local Chapter or click here.

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Writing in the UK Guardian, speechwriter Philip Collins argues that there is a lack of “grand causes” in developed nations to match those which formed the backdrop to the oratory of Churchill, King, Havel and Mandela. A drab political landscape gives rise to dull speeches. The lack of commonly accepted touchstones such as the Bible or Dickens limits the ability of British politicians to match the assumptions of their audience to the language of their speeches.

Collins’s challenge to speechwriters is to not let this become an insurmountable obstacle:

But, for all that, it is still possible to write well rather than badly. Some things are axiomatic no matter what the countervailing forces: strive to be clear, avoid anything you suspect of being a cliché. Don’t use the phrases community, fast-changing world, agenda, stakeholders, hard-working families, unless you really do have a gun to your head. Remember that you have to answer why they should care before you regale them with a list of your achievements. Don’t write for yourself and people like you; they already agree. Don’t caricature the opposing view: the audience can tell.

Solid advice.

And as the wheel of life turns, coming crises will undoubtedly become grist for the mill for stirring speeches of the near future. All change!

National Speakers Association of Northern California – September Meeting

Brand-meister Dick Bruso came to town on Saturday and worked his magic with the 60 members and guests at the NSA/NC September meeting. He aims to help professional speakers develop their distinctive brand and focus on their uniqueness to successfully reach their target markets.

Bruso uses aspects of his own life – such as being the eldest of a family of nine – to develop his brand as someone who is “heard above the noise” in the marketplace. He demonstrated how independent speakers and entrepreneurs of all kinds can profit from a deep dive into our lives to develop a unique brand.

Effective communications often uses the rule of three (as in Father, Son and Holy Ghost; Beginning, Middle and End; Left, Right and Center. Just so, Bruso recommended a number of tripartites:

Three great books on branding

• David Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
• Harry Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible
• Milo Frank’s How To Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less

The tripod of success for developing your unique brand

• Follow your passion – speak from the heart
• Create your distinctive brand to appeal to your target market
• Use your talents, gifts and abilities serve others

Three brand workshop volunteers

Dick took these willing participants through a powerful half-hour workshop process where he gently delved into their unique bio’s to find clues about their authentic selves which could be used to re-cast their brand. In the same way that speaking out a dinner table with six sisters and two brothers to contend with led Dick to choose the moniker Heard Above the Noise, he revealed how an honest appraisal of our own lives can be a touchpoint for a valid brand.

It’s no different for large corporations. Hewlett-Packard honor their origins in Bill & Dave’s garage and, true to their past, use the word ‘Invent’ in their logo. And don’t even think Coca-Cola would change from their red and white cans or do something as silly as try and introduce a New Coke…

• Jeannine Kay – Giving Voice

…considered how to tune her current tagline Communicate confidently and creatively with aspects of her life story which point to the importance of encouraging women to move beyond the role of silent cheerleader who lip-sync their way through life.

• Linda Lenor – Green Chi Designs

…acknowledged that her company name might be confused with Green Tea or even Green Cheese. Her current tagline Individuals improving space for vitality and prosperity was considerably more diffused than alternatives the workshop session surfaced. These included Lifelong designs for extraordinary living and Master designs for life.

• Connie Clark – JoyWorks

…found echo’s of her early love of Mexican culture in Si, Yourself and celebration of the fulfillment and success of Women in Uncork your champagne bath.

These sessions were a small taste of his genius at work. Dick conducts full-blown branding sessions for anyone who would like to re-focus the message they take to the marketplace.

Blogging for Fun and Profit

In a reprise of the workshop we held in San Diego, Rebecca Morgan and I discussed the business benefits of blogging in a lunch-time panel hosted by Michael Soon Lee. Here’s the article I wrote on blogging in SPEAKER magazine which I forgot to bring as a hand-out.

Most of the audience seemed to see blogging in their future.

Anyone who is interested really should check out the NSA Blogger Yahoo Group:

Click to join nsa_bloggers

Disability Awareness expert Gary Karp is an internationally recognized author, keynote speaker, trainer, and facilitator.

Gary injured his spinal cord in a fall from a tree in 1973 at the age of eighteen, paralyzing him from the hips down. He has lived a full personal and professional life since his injury. Having earned a graduate degree in architecture, Gary worked for eleven years in the presentation graphics industry as a designer and production manager. In 1993 he began providing ergonomics training and consultation services to companies in the San Francisco Bay Area where he lives with his wife Paula.

He is the author of four books: Life On Wheels: For the Active Wheelchair User, Choosing A Wheelchair: A Guide For Optimal Independence, From Here to There: Stories of Adjustment to Spinal Cord Injury and Disability & the Art of Kissing: Questions and Answers on the True Nature of Intimacy. All four are widely-reviewed as definitive guides for people with disabilities.

I caught up with Gary during a break at the September NSA/NC Pro-Track program and we discussed how Pro-Track has focused his career as well as the plans he has for October, which is National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

To listen to the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

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Originally from New York, Howard has lived in the Bay Area for over 20 years. After spending many years in the corporate world, as a trainer, consultant and project manager, Howard opened his own company, Fulcrum Point.

Howard’s talks emphasize how the strength of a company, team or department starts within each person. Each person has the power to shift their negative beliefs to positive, resulting in challenges being turned into opportunities. Howard uses personal stories as well as professional successes to emphasize the challenge.

In this interview Howard discusses his experience of the NSA/NC Pro-Track program and previews his upcoming book Your Full of Shift, which demonstrates the power of shifting our attitudes and how any moment a negative experience can be turned into a miraculous one.

To listen to the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

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