3 Lessons Learned from a Painful Public Speaker

1. Match the speaker to the occasion. A rat-a-tat military man may not be the right choice for a roomful of benign trustees at the annual meeting of a co-operative organization.
2. If the bad match is a fait accompli, build a bridge. The speaker made no effort to localize, customize, or otherwise bridge his (supposedly) motivational presentation. No corporate storytelling. No mention of the org's 100+ years of company history and community support. I suspect this fellow didn't make even the most basic inquiries. 
3. Never, ever phone it in. Public speakers are actors, performers, professionals. When we step to the podium, it's show time, every time. A loud voice and speed do not equal energy. If we don't project true energy and interest, we shouldn't be speaking. Barreling through a PowerPoint doesn't cut it.

I won't name names because the evening was presented in good faith. But I felt pain as I watched fellow audience members wincing, feigning interest, or snoozing. Best I can say is that Mr. X provided a wake-up call for my next presentation and, I hope, for yours.

Real-Life Success Lessons

Here's a Q&A between CorporateHistory.net President Marian Calabro and Scott S. Smith, author of Extraordinary People: Real Life Lessons on What It Takes to Achieve Success.

Marian writes: Recently, I was contacted by a fellow member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, freelance business journalist Scott S. Smith, who has interviewed many top CEOs, including Bill Gates, Meg Whitman, Michael Dell, Lee Iacocca, Larry Ellison and dozens of others. He has had 1,200 articles published and has distilled what he’s learned in a new book, Extraordinary People: Real Life Lessons on What It Takes to Achieve Success (available on Amazon; sample chapter at www.ExtraordinaryPeopleBook.com). Since I’m a firm believer in viewing business history through the lens of leadership, I was eager to learn more about Scott’s venture.  

Marian: You mentioned that many executives you’ve interviewed don’t read business books anymore. What’s going on?            

Scott: One thing you learn from reading history is that Americans used to read a lot—books, newspapers, magazines—and it’s alarming how few currently read anything more substantial than emails or Facebook posts. Executives tell me that they scan business stories, but many I’ve interviewed can’t even name a business book they’ve recently read because they’re too busy. Our national attention span is shortening to the point that it really endangers society. A couple of decades ago I would get 5,000 word assignments; now, I’m really pushing the limit of readers’ interest at 1,250 words in my columns about leadership and success for Investor’s Business Daily.

Marian: The crux of your subject seems to be this: What do high-achievers have in common? Which of their attitudes and actions can be emulated to help any career? Your book addresses this in readably short chapters.

Scott: Yes, the chapters range from 1,800 to 3,500 words, and I think part of the interest in these figures comes from being able not just to learn useful lessons, but to gain an appreciation of someone they’ve heard of, but don’t really know much about.

Marian: The book includes both contemporary business leaders and famous people past and present in a wide variety of fields. Why include someone like Founding Father Gouverneur Morris? Most people don’t know who he was. Isn’t he far removed from today’s corporate challenges?

Scott: I’ve really become passionate about the importance of understanding American and world history—and I include corporate history for employees. First, there’s a reason medical doctors and other specialties have to get an undergraduate degree first: we don’t want citizens with such narrow technical education that they have no interest in the broader issues of society. Even those with advanced degrees often lack much understanding of what’s happening beyond their own field.

Marian: On the other hand, there has been a boomlet in the popularity of biographies, especially the Founders.

Scott: Indeed. It’s only when you really dig into our roots that you gain an awesome respect for what they did. Yes, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, all of them, were imperfect human beings, but that makes their achievement—the first enduring democracy in history—even more impressive. One of the great ones was Morris, who essentially wrote the Constitution. A successful democracy requires hard work from its citizens—and anyone who thinks politics is hopelessly corrupt isn’t aware of how many times the country has come back from the brink of what one party or another thought was disaster. You have a choice—you can become informed and get involved or you can let people who disagree with you have the advantage in the outcome. History puts everything today in perspective and no matter what aspect you want to study—last year’s annual report, the latest biography on Robert E. Lee, or the proclamations of Cyrus the Great—you have your mind expanded. So I’m on a mission to encourage people to read any kind of history—I think they’ll get hooked.

Marian: Amen to that. Let’s take someone else from the past, Simon Bolivar. What can leaders today learn from him?

Scott: There are a couple of reasons every American should know about him. First of all, he liberated six countries: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia, which is named after him. As citizens of the world in a country with 17% of the population that is Hispanic, we should know this. How would we feel if we went to Latin America and the people we were doing business with had never heard of George Washington? If you want to build rapport with your partners, you need to know the basics of their culture, including their history. Second, Bolivar is the absolute best example of someone who achieved great things against all odds by always bouncing back after disaster. He also shows what can be accomplished with boldness and imagination—his trek over the Andes in the middle of winter remains the greatest military surprise in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He was also an effective speaker and a writer, with public letters that were widely read. He wasn’t great at speaking at first, but he learned, as anyone can.

Marian:  Lest people get the wrong impression, you do write about a number of women.

Scott: A third are women and I would have included more, but ran out of space—I’m saving them for a sequel! One of my favorites is Martha Harper and almost no one has ever heard of her, but she invented franchising. She was born poor and became a domestic servant. Along the way, she learned about a special formula to make hair lush and dressed the hair of the woman she worked for. She told her friends and soon she had a thriving side business and opened the first beauty salon in Rochester, N.Y., in 1888. She realized she could help women become financially independent by letting them copy her first salon and eventually she had 500 under franchise terms.

Marian: So why haven’t we heard of her?

Scott: I write a lot of stories about leaders we should know, but our poor formal education and narrow reading habits deprive us of their inspiration. I come away from every profile just amazed at what I’ve learned. The bigger questions that are related are, why do most startups fail and why are most companies so poorly run, if we really know so much about good management? Within 10 years of opening, over 90% of businesses close. I think everyone who is a line employee or middle manager is painfully aware that corporate priorities are not really them or the customers—just look at the pay and perks for top management.

Marian: Jim Collins and others have written books on the difference between the No. 1 and the No. 2 companies in different industries. The difference rarely involves better technical skills. It comes down to the corporate culture.

Scott: Yes—there has to be a deeply embedded belief that the company has an important mission, and everyone has to be completely dedicated to that. It helps to look at the great companies of the past because you can learn from their example. I’d say it actually is better to look at those outside your industry because familiarity blinds us.

Marian: One of the recent top CEOs in your book is Reed Hastings of Netflix. What did you learn from him?

Scott: It’s easy to forget, with its recent success, that not long ago Netflix almost got killed by one of his strategic decisions. I talked with him in 2009 and by July of the next year the stock had hit $305. Then he announced in a blog that he was spinning off the DVD mail order service from the movie streaming business and customers would need to pay for separate subscriptions. By November, the stock was at $64. His blog got 39,000 comments, compared with the next most-discussed post that had 200. Over 800,000 cancelled their subscriptions. Few CEOs would survive that kind of disaster, but Netflix is thriving again. He is a great example of being able to recover by being genuinely humble and learning from mistakes. Even more interestingly, Netflix has an almost unique culture in which corporate employees—not those working at call centers—have a very flexible schedule. As long as they meet their goals, they can take as much personal or vacation time as they want.

Marian: Nice. Of course, it’s August and most of our counterparts in Europe are taking the whole month off, fully paid. But here we are in the United States, working. One last question: Why do a few leaders, who are otherwise successful, seem to sabotage themselves? Often they threaten their company’s success along the way.

Scott: Watching HBO’s recent series In Treatment can illuminate that point, as you see really smart people with big blinders fail to come to grips with their problems. You wonder why they can’t see themselves more objectively—as if we, the viewers, can really see ourselves. So biography and history let us see how someone great dealt with challenges—the enduring human, political, or business problems. We need inspirational role models and information to help us see our own situations more objectively and imagine better solutions.

Get Joan Detz in your corner

Joan Detz's "How to Write & Give a Speech" has been in print for 30 years, a miracle in the world of publishing. The new Third Edition, just issued by St. Martin's Press, is better than ever. Detz now addresses social media, of course, but the three sections I found most useful touch on old-fashioned communication problems that never go away:

How to Prepare the Room: Because A/V stands for Always Vexing! My favorite tip within this checklist: "Can you be heard without a microphone? If so, don't use one." 

How to Structure the Content of Your Talk: Chronological isn't the only choice, by far. How about cause-and-effect? Numerical order? Problem-solution? Geographical order? Psychological order (what matters most to your audience)? Even alphabetical? ("Why not? This certainly is easy for the audience to follow.") All are great twists on the usual approach to corporate storytelling. 

How to Handle Q&A Sessions: Among the 10 priceless tips is "Listen carefully ... don't nod your head enthusiastically to show you understand the question. The audience may think you automatically agree with the questioner."

I've had the privilege of studying speechwriting and presentation techniques with Joan Detz, and I've been delighted to appear on conference panels with her. When St. Martin's Press asked me to provide a recommendation for the book's opening page, I was happy to comply. Here's the nugget: "Joan Detz's guidance goes far beyond speechwriting. The practical wisdom in these pages will help you communicate your best in every business situation." 
 

Fed Reserve Timeline: 11,000 Artifacts, 100 Years

Drawing on 100 years of history, The Federal Reserve has organized some 11,000 facts, biographies, images, and essays into a single timeline. I find it well-written but sprawling. Your perception will depend on whether you want to read fairly long pieces on key events such as the financial crisis of 2008, complete with bibliographies and endnotes (I do), and whether you feel that such factoids as Ben Bernanke's service as a Board of Education volunteer in Montgomery Township, New Jersey, seem relevant or extraneous to his Fed chairmanship (a bit much, but it humanizes him). Of course, that's just a postscript to his biography. 

The home page, shown here, is deceptively simple. Top-level navigation includes Events, People, and Purpose; there's also a search box and a drop-down menu for "Trending Searches," which today includes Janet Yellen (no surprise). Interior pages can be maze-like.

All in all, it's a valuable corporate history timeline model for long-standing organizations with reams of material to showcase. And for anyone researching or writing speeches in the financial services realm, the essays will be useful. 

Kudos to The Fed for organizing its history at all. "Looking back at our historical experience provides important insights to economists, historians, and policymakers about how the Fed can best meet its objectives, today and in the future, to promote a healthy economy and stable financial system," Bernanke said in a press release. The announcement says that Fed also plans to update the site regularly. It's "part of a broader effort by the Fed to mark its anniversary year of the centennial," and it will be interesting to see how that unfolds.

Cue the tears for oral history?

What do you think of Story Corps, the nonprofit oral history program that turns 10 years old this week? Do you cry, laugh, or change the station when NPR airs a segment on Friday mornings? If you didn't catch Steve Inskeep's feature on Story Corps today, check it out here. The online comments are as fascinating as the coverage, ranging from timfxf11's slam ("Everybody has a sad story. Everybody has a blog too. That doesn't mean I want to hear it or read it. It reminds me of the old TV show Queen for a Day.") to SpanishPipeDream's praise ("There seems to always be a lot of grace, compassion, forgiveness, love, commitment and atonement in the stories. And, with the news the way it is today, it is a welcome reminder of the other side of humanity.").

Oral histories are the backbone of the business history work we do here at CorporateHistory.net ... but we try not to turn them into "Queen for a Day" (a show that actually predates yours truly, but I get the drift). In the Story Corps model, friends or family interview each other. That's perfect for highly personal  remembrances, but in business history an informed third-party interviewer can make a big difference. 

Glad to see that Story Corps opted for a book for its 10th anniversary!

Why Pay Lots for Little?

A solicitation to advertise in the "Milestones" edition of a regional business journal crossed my desk. If you run a business, you know the drill: the magazine will do a 2-page advertorial spread to celebrate your upcoming business anniversary. They'll take a photo, write a few paragraphs, and send you 100 reprints to share with customers and friends. Oh, and you get a link in the magazine's digital edition. 

All well and good, but it's amazing to see the price tag: $5,000?! 

Even if you negotiate down a bit, that's a big chunk of change for a single new photo (albeit by a pro) and one page of copy that is likely to rely heavily on the "About Us" page already on your own website. Fellow business owners, put the money toward a real business history. It won't buy a book but it'll go far toward a new set of "About Us" pages (when was the last time you updated them?), a keynote speech or company history PowerPoint at your next company dinner, or a podcast of interviews with employees -- things you can re-purpose on your website. 

Marian Calabro to appear on "Mysteries at the Museum" in May (say it 5X fast)

Tune into the Travel Channel next week to see me on “Mysteries at the Museum." The subject is the Donner Party, that intrepid band of emigrants who were trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47. You probably know that in addition to my corporate history career, I'm the author of The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party (published by Clarion/Houghton Mifflin, and I'm thrilled to note that it's been in print continuously for 13 years). I sometimes joke that writing this book was excellent preparation for writing organizational histories.

Here are the airtimes according to http://www.travelchannel.com/schedule:

Tuesday, May 1: 8pm E/P

Wednesday, May 2: midnight and 3am

Sunday, May 6: 8am and 11am

The program is not viewable online, at least not yet.

Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested!

A tip (and a scholarship) for aspiring and professional writers...

Invest in yourself by attending the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I attended my first ASJA conference in the 1990s, and then joined the group. I can attest that membership in this organization is a definite career-booster. This year's conference takes place on April 27-28 at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, and as usual there's a superb mix of nonfiction writers, editors, and agents to hear and network with. I'm honored to lead the “Conquering Corporate Markets” panel at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday the 27th. The session will feature Rod Thorn, director of corporate communications at Pepsico; public speaking expert Joan Detz; Barbara Krasner, author and executive at Lexis-Nexis; and yours truly (Marian Calabro), president of CorporateHistory.net. For full info, visit http://www.asja.org/wc/.

Late-breaking news! Thanks to a generous grant from Amazon, The ASJA Foundation is offering conference scholarships to writers who are serious about starting or continuing a nonfiction freelance writing career. See the Conference website for full details and to apply.

Would Abe Lincoln Have Tweeted?

Seven score and eight years ago, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his famed Gettysburg Address. It ran just 271 words, amazingly short now for a speech and even more so in 1863, when people had delightfully long attention spans. There’s a great story behind it.

Lincoln was second on the bill. The key speaker, Edward Everett, orated for more than two hours. The crowd of 15,000 loved Everett and wept as he waxed poetic about the bloody Battle of Gettysburg, which had taken place on the site less than five months earlier.

Then Lincoln spoke his 10 sentences:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Speechwriters will note the ample use of triplets, the lyrical parallelism, the alternation of short and long sentences, and the chilling personification of the world (“it can never forget what they did here”).

Long-winded Everett later told Lincoln, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

I’d like to think that Lincoln would have considered Twitter too short a medium for serious thoughts, but who knows? It is something to think about next time you visit the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA.

How Not to Engage an Audience

“Stand up so we can embarrass you,” the keynote speaker said with a booming laugh as he approached a table of business owners. I shook my head and thought: “Did he really say that?” This took place at a networking breakfast sponsored by a large company with which CorporateHistory.net does business.

Obviously the speaker was trying hard to engage a fairly sleepy audience, something his wordy PowerPoint slides hadn’t done. He did get people to stand up and talk. I found him heavy-handed, but then I always prefer an appeal to the brain rather than an elbow in the ribs; give me Monty Python over Mel Brooks any day. Seeking a reality check, I turned to public speaking expert and speechwriting teacher Joan Detz. Here’s her reply:

“'Stand up so we can embarrass you!’ Well, Marian, if I had been there to hear it, I’d have slunk to the back door and disappeared! My guess is: Even though a few people stood up and participated, many more were sitting there uncomfortable –- feeling ‘relieved’ only when that portion of the presentation was over with.”

Thank you, Joan! P.S. A few days after the breakfast, a participant emailed the rest of us to voice his disappointment. He wished that the speaker’s time had been devoted to meeting other participants. In short, a subpar speaker dragged down an otherwise useful event.

Brava Judi Dench

“What is the percentage of people doing the job they absolutely love in this world?” she asked. “Two percent? Three? Surely not more...."

No doubt this great quote from a New York Times interview with the spendidly candid actress Judi Dench will make its way into a workplace-related speech or two. It's certainly going into the speechwriting quotables file at CorporateHistory.net. Apropros, yesterday at a client's industrial plant I met people who do absolutely love their work. It's not a glamorous work site, certainly not a stage or movie set. Yet these folks -- who handle quality control in a complex technical process -- exhibited the kind of pride that can't be faked. Bravo and brava to them too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/books/15dench.html

3 Minutes, 3 Cards, 3 Fewer Things to Worry About

In public speaking, a little preparation goes such a long way. I'm looking forward to three holiday get-togethers where guests may be asked to "say a few words." I've prepared by spending three minutes with Joan Detz's invaluable book entitled (what else) Can You Say a Few Words? Now I have three sets of notes ready, each on the back of a business card. Sure, I'll improvise, but the notes will keep me on track. Short and sweet is how I like my speeches, whether I'm the speaker or the audience.

Almost everything I know about speechwriting, in short or long form, I learned from Joan. Her seminars in Philadelphia are well worth attending. They've helped me not just with writing and speaking but with presenting and listening. Joan's 2011 schedule is at http://www.joandetz.com/.