Not Getting It

From today's New York Times:

And the day offered a perfect opportunity for the campaign, with a potentially embarrassing mini-scandal: a waitress’s report that Mrs. Clinton had failed to tip after eating at a Maid-Rite diner in central Iowa, an assertion that ricocheted around the Internet on Thursday.

Reached at her home in Iowa, the waitress, Anita Esterday, said that neither she nor a colleague who helped serve Mrs. Clinton recalled seeing any tip.

She said a local staff member of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was in the restaurant on Thursday to tell them that the campaign had left a tip.

She said that when she and her colleague said they had not seen a tip, the staff member gave each of them $20.

Ms. Esterday said she did not understand what all the commotion was about.

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

This is not a commentary about the Clinton campaign/candidacy or whether or not a tip was actually left or whether a staffer paid up the next day.

This is about how we in communications – and I risk journalists’ ire for lumping them with copy writers and speech writers – miss the boat. We think we know what people want to hear – what will rock their worlds. And we’re often wrong.

Ms. Esterday’s quote should be printed, framed, and sitting on the desks of everyone who writes for others—okay, I’ll limit it to speech writers.

This arrogance of message-control knows no limits – in other words, it’s not just attributable to those inside the Beltway or wrapped up in politics. It can be found in equal measures inside CEO corner offices across America.

We’re so busy crafting message we forget to listen. It takes time – it takes time to call a conference organizer, to speak with key stakeholders, to reach out to people in the community. But the ROI is enormous: a speech that touches people—that motivates them into action because it’s real versus a speech that means little to almost everybody listening and is forgotten by the time they pull out of the parking lot.

That’s the best tip I’ve gotten all year.

Two Types of Speeches - Two Approaches to the Audience

IdeaBank, an online reference tool for quotes, history, and trivia – http://www.idea-bank.com/ib/html/ – sends subscribers a monthly email newsletter each month. The new editor, Tom Daly, is also the longstanding editor of Vital Speeches of the Day. In May’s edition, he made an interesting observation:

“There are only two types of speeches, informative or persuasive; that's it. Your speech will either be one that informs your audience about a topic or tries to persuade them to accept or adopt a particular position.”

I’ve been thinking about that – looking at past speeches I’ve written for clients, considering remarks I read, and evaluating presentations as I listen. I’m beginning to think he’s absolutely right – every speech is one or the other. Those that aren’t easily identifiable, most likely also fail as speeches, with each lacking a unified theme or message, taking the audience all over the place (though in reality the audience won’t “go” with that type of speaker anywhere but will mentally disengage to think about a to do list, what to pick up at the store, the next day’s meeting, the hairstyle of the person three rows down and two over, etc.)

A couple of weeks after reading this, I met Andy Gilman, President and CEO of CommCore Consulting Group – www.commcoreconsulting.com – and read his book, Get to the Point, co-authored with Karen Berg. (Highly recommend it for its great tips on preparing and delivering the type of presentations that occur in most companies – ISBN 0-7872-2232-1.)

First chapter, first critical success factor: know your audience. They write: “There is a distinction between ‘speaker-centered’ and ‘audience-centered’ messages.” Which made me reflect on another two buckets every speech can be put into: either it’s all about the speaker or it connects to the audience. But unlike the informative/persuasive division, this one makes or breaks the event.

To be successful, regardless of the topic or the purpose, a speech needs to answer the number one question of the audience: “How does this affect me?” Gilman and Berg refer to it as “What’s in it for me?” or WIIFM (pronounced “wiffum”). An informative speech becomes a long-winded lecture if that connection to the audience is not made. A persuasive speech will not inspire action, get people to donate money, or change anyone’s mind. This is a critical point that is too often overlooked by the speaker pushing his or her agenda, feeling he or she knows best ... after all, the speaker may say, have they not come to hear me? Am not I the boss/ the celebrity/ the VIP/ the leading candidate in the race?

Opportunity lost. The speaker may not even realize it as. thankfully, good manners still prevail and audiences will applaud and at least one or two will politely say it was a good speech. But I’d bet no one was moved (persuasive) ... no light bulbs went off in someone’s head (informative) ... and an hour later, no one could tell you what the speech was really about.

Identify the purpose: informative or persuasive. Then make sure it’s connected clearly to the audience.