September 28th, 2010
Leadership Speech
It’s the job of a leader to inspire belief and confidence such that people are moved to follow the direction they set. The ability to lead and inspire is particularly important in these tough times, when people from all industries and sectors are feeling pressured, fearful and embattled.
How then did new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband do in inspiring? In his first conference speech, the stakes were high, it was his chance to create a first impression, to establish a reputation and set out his stall.
Generally commentators said the performance was lacklustre, “lacking the stage presence of a Blair or the force of personality of a Brown,” one correspondent said.
What were the elements that contributed to a competent but probably less than inspiring speech?
- It’s all about me!
As an introductory speech he could be forgiven for talking a bit about himself, but the speech had so many “I tell you’s.. and I say this and I say that, let me say that…” that it was easy to feel lectured at more than inspired. Whatever happened to audience centricity?
- The hectoring tone was exacerbated by a rhythmic, banging fist gesture that became quite repetitive.
- The structure the speech was almost too laden with somewhat clichéd pairs, contrasts and repetitions that were delivered with a cadence that lacked sufficient modulation.
- His teleprompter skills need work, he looked glazed and gave the impression of looking through, not at the audience
- His authenticity and congruence has been questioned by many as the speech made a big play of family virtues but he was then revealed to have been previously quoted saying he was” too busy” to marry his partner or to put his name on his son’s birth certificate! Doesn’t help the importance of family message ring true for him.
Perhaps if nothing else, Miliband Junior has given us some key” how not to” tips in leadership speeches!
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May 17th, 2010
Several days past the end of the election we do finally have a government, the Queen is no longer on standby, and she can relax having appointed her 12th PM!
But now the dust is settling and the campaign posters are filling the recycling bins, can students of communication and public speaking take anything from the election?
Was it just a big game show, where there was an eviction from the Big Ben house and Gordon Brown finally said “ I’m a politician get me out of here” and Nick Clegg won the show and became the Apprentice?
Actually No. The ancient Greeks knew rhetoric was a crucial skill especially in a democracy and I think this election highlighted that the importance of communication and public speaking, showing that it is as critical as ever in engaging and influencing people; whether it’s 20 people in a meeting room or an entire electorate.
You could argue that the TV debates were political theatre, long on sound bites short on policy but in reality they were 90 minutes of articulation of issues, views and ideas. The media storm around the impact of Nick Clegg’s stellar performance in the first debate drove further interest and upped the stakes for the other leaders in the last 2 debates. The debates were popular, attracting large audiences.
Compared to the dumbing down of politics to 9 second sound bites and 2 minute party political broadcasts, this surely has to be good for democracy. Some people think that serious subject matters by definition must mean dull. I don’t believe that’s true. People do need to be entertained if you are to capture their interest. If the style, the delivery and the format create enough interest for people to want to listen, and listen for a length of time, that’s better than disinterest and disengagement for any speaker and particularly for national politicians.
More than anything the C (Clegg) factor showed that speaking skills matter; (If Obama hadn’t already taught us that!)The power of speech can change hearts and minds, it can influence people to think and behave differently and hence it is a vital skill to be worked at, honed and refined, for anyone who needs to influence others.
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April 22nd, 2010
Yesterday I went to the hustings for my local constituency, a public meeting, hosted by a neutral body ( the local Abbey in this instance) where prospective MP’s answer the public’s questions.
Well this hustings was well attended and had air of a big occasion being held in the august surroundings of St Albans Abbey, but it struck me that actually it’s execution showed a fundamental lack of understanding of how to engage an audience.
The chairman, a church official started proceedings with a very dry introduction of the candidates. This was only lightened when he inadvertently said of the incumbent MP, (who has been embroiled in the expenses scandal with a second home in the constituency despite living less than 20 miles away and being within half an hour’s commute of London!) “This is Anne Main, who’s been the MP for 5 years and who has a house in the constituency” This drew some ironic laughter .
He went on to say that the debate was to be conducted by the rules of the TV debate, i.e. no audience reaction allowed, no clapping, cheering, booing or heckling, and the questions were to be put by the chairman from submitted written questions.
This put the audience in the role of completely passive observers, no interaction allowed. Unsurprisingly therefore it was quite a dull tone throughout. Some of the candidates, particularly the incumbent MP, exacerbated this by speaking in dry political terminology with a slightly lecturing tone that combine with the chairman’s instruction to sit down and be quiet, started to make me feel like I was back at school listening to a diatribe from the headmistress on noise in the corridors !
It was salvaged by some of the candidates. There were a few more exciting moments when there was disagreement and some feisty exchanges between them. The Libdem candidate, Sandy Walkington did a good job of bringing his messages to life with some punchy,very relevant stories. Some of them spoke with passion and conviction and in some instances were brave enough to forthrightly defend even the less popular policies of their party.
This was a welcome change from the evasive answers we are used to from our national politicians who just avoid the unpopular questions and come across as shifty as a result. George Osborne in last night’s chancellors debate, refused to even agree that he’s used the words “age of austerity” much less confirm the sentiment (because the phrase had polled badly!)
The good people of St Albans were compliant and they sat passively, quietly and obediently but after about an hour there started to be a fairly constant trail of people leaving.
The fundamentals are that even when there are serious topics being discussed it doesn’t mean it has to be dull.
Apparently the maximum adult attention span is 20 minutes and declining all the time. To keep an audience with you,you cannot expect them to sit quietly and passively for 2 hours. Surely contributions from the floor, live members of the public posing their questions, candidates having to interact with them directly, some cheering, would have livened this event up ? It can’t have been particularly great for the candidates getting no reaction; they must have felt like they were talking to themselves at some points!
It was ever thus but even more so in the interactive media world of the 21st century; Audiences need to be entertained and involved to remain engaged.
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April 20th, 2010
Cleggmania! Apparently the outcome of the UK’s first ever potential PM’s debate was an outright victory for Nick Clegg. Allegedly he’s as popular as Blair in his heyday, as popular as Churchill even,a 6 point bounce in the polls and a potential candidate for PM.
I love some of the headlines, “Nick Clegg-Politics Idol” and clear winner of “Britain’s Got Politics”! (Although Piers Morgan was quick to point out his show got 2 million more viewers !) ” Cleggerella, you shall go to the ball” and Britian first X-factor politician.
Nick Clegg did indeed do a good job. Despite the pressure, despite the day long rehearsal he managed to look relaxed and relatively spontaneous.He gave the other candidates the courtesy of actually looking at them while they were talking. He interacted with the audience well talking them to as individuals and using their names.Strategically he positioned himself as the outsider and there he potentially can tap a rich vein of disillusionment with the main parties. Admittedly, it is somewhat easy to posture about “frankly that’s not good enough” when your party hasn’t held any reponsibility for the last 70 years ! That having been said he did a great job of seizing his moment and looking and sounding fresh,earnest and eminently reasonable.
Which contrasted well with Brown’s formulaic reiteration of tired policy-speak and recitation of meaningless, spun stats. He persisted in his strenuous but ineffective attempts to portray himself as a jolly soul.Brown’s incongruent smiles were present thoughout, several times he realised he was sporting his chracteristic scowl and suddenly and rather disturbingly, he flashed a incongruent smile that came across as plain sinister. “Be yourself Gordon”, at least you’ll be authentic, trying to be something you’re not never works, especially over 90 minutes.
Cameron was stiff and struggling to find any sparkle. In trying not to offend and alienate any possible voters he came off as a bit bland and a bit “me too”. He didn’t look at Clegg or Brown much when they spoke, instead he had his head down in the lectern making notes, creating a stressed and disengaged impression. He didn’t make any huge gaffes but he was the front runner and had everything to lose and he looked like it
More than anything else it shows again the power and importance of speaking skill. It’s not just a modern media phenomenon. The Greeks knew it.Obama proved it. Clegg has demonstrated it here in the UK.
Ignore at your peril.
Roll on Debate 2..
Shall we see the established empire strikes back ?
Revenge of the Stiffs?
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April 7th, 2010
Channel 4′s “Ask the Chancellors” was the first shot in the 2010 election, fired before yesterday’s Official announcement that the election would be the 6th of May.
What did this programme show that we can expect from the standard of oratory from the class of 2010 politicians?
It was a pretty dour viewing experience! You only had to check out the faces of the audience to see that whatever any of them were saying it wasn’t sparking much emotional reaction be it anger, shock,scorn or enthusiasm!
George Osborne got off to a reasonable start with, “5 more years of what got us into this is not what will get us out of it,” A nice sound bite. George was plagiarising a great quote from Einstein, “Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created”
One thing they need to learn is to look at the other debater rather than the camera when reply to each other’s comments or questions. This is supposed to be about interaction between real people. Ignoring the colleague who made the point and looking instead at the camera portrays a lack of authenticity that’s uncomfortable to watch.
Personally,I wish that we could see some real hand gestures. The politician’s open handed, “I’m -an-approachable-easy-going- kinda-guy” gesture was being used to exhaustion and just doesn’t sit naturally with some of them; can’t we see the occasional finger pointing or even a passionate fist?!
The debate did warm up a bit as it progressed, reaching almost tepid in the last 10 minutes but inspiration was in short supply. On change and improvement in the future, Alistair Darling managed,
“I’m optimistic we can do it but we can’t leave it to chance”, Optimism is good but don’t we want a little more conviction from our leaders??
Vince Cable won the sound bite competition with a couple of colourful, memorable and popular analogies on bankers.
“We need to be less dependent on a few financial prima donnas”
“In the 80’s this country was held to ransom by Scargil, now we’re being held to ransom by pin-striped Scargils”
However, altogether it was an uninspiring start.To make the democratic process work in the 21st century, our politicians need to learn from Obama and be able to do a better job using the media and speaking opportunities to inspire. Bland,vanilla politics causes disengagement and low turn-out, we can but hope the class of 2010 understands this and works harder at engaging and inspiring the electorate.
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October 6th, 2009
So how was Gordon Brown’s “speech of his life” for you? Was it just an absurdly unrealistic shopping list of nice-to-do’s? Or was it bold, creative new responses to the post- credit crunch world? I guess much of that is in the eye of the beholder, but what Gordon did do well was deliver a speech that came across as intense, committed and passionate. It was congruent with Gordon. There were no attempts at the false smiles that he tried in the past to disastrous effect. His repetition of the key themes of change and choice was skilled, managing to fit those words in upwards of 60 times! What was not so good was that were many occasions where he used 4’s rather than 3’s to hammer home his points; such his finishing remarks
“Never stop believing in the good sense of the British people. Never stop believing we can move forward to a fairer, more responsible, more prosperous Britain. Never stop believing we can make a Britain equal to its best ideals. Never, never stop believing.”
In addition to sounding a bit like a track from boy-band album, this seemed to me to be labouring the point (no pun intended!) and lost some impact of the sharper’ threes. There was an interesting repetition of phrases like “I tell you this” and “I say to you”. I imagine this phraseology was designed to portray a strong individual leader but ended up sounding a bit like a hectoring politician. In total it wasn’t an epic political speech but it may well have been Gordon’s personal best.
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April 27th, 2009
Alaistair Darling did his best to cover up the worst of the budget news by being so staggeringly boring in his delivery that he drove any listeners into an immediate trance. Meanwhile, the sound bite machine at Tory Central Office was working overtime to provide David Cameron with his response to last week’s budget.
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