CEO, Hayslett Group
I actually
remember the first time I saw Bill Clinton give a speech. It was in late 1991 or early ‘92 and I was
working for BellSouth Corporation. At
the time, I was managing one of the company’s communications organizations, but
my first assignment, nearly 10 years earlier, had been as its senior
speechwriter. It was work I enjoyed and
seemed to have a fair knack for, and it had left me with a deep appreciation
for good speechwriting and speechmakers.
So it was, that after tossing and
turning and unable to sleep in a hotel room in Birmingham, Ala., where I had
gone for a meeting with some South Central Bell colleagues, I finally turned on
the TV and began scanning the channels until I came, believe it or not, to
C-SPAN and a rerun of a speech by this young governor (and presidential
hopeful) from Arkansas to a business group somewhere in Ohio.
Now I don’t know what this says
about me, but I was almost immediately captivated – by a C-SPAN rerun of a
speech at two o’clock in the morning by a small-state governor whom I had heard
of but didn’t know much about.
Did I mention that the speech was
about Medicaid?
That recollection came back to me last
Wednesday night as I watched now former President Clinton deliver the
nominating speech for President Obama at the 2012 Democratic National
Convention in Charlotte. Politics aside,
I think even Clinton’s harshest critics would agree that he is one of the
premier political orators of this or any other era.
Obviously, the Clinton I watched at
the DNC was older, thinner and grayer than the pudgy Southern governor I first
noticed in the wee hours of a Birmingham morning 20 years ago. But elements of his Medicaid talk to that
group of Ohio business people two decades past echoed in the Charlotte
convention hall Wednesday night, and I found myself thinking about lessons we
could draw from Clinton’s speechifying.
True enough, Clinton comes to every
podium with a level of natural oratorical talent that few can ever hope to
match. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t
had to work at it, or that more mortal speakers can’t draw useful lessons from
the master. I point to three.
Know your stuff. The thing that really captivated me early
that morning in Birmingham was Clinton’s command of his subject matter. He was speaking without either a TelePrompTer
or a printed text. I couldn’t even see
evidence of a stray envelope with notes scribbled on the back. (Old speechwriters learn to look for these
kinds of things.) Yet he worked his way
deliberately and energetically through what we would all come to recognize as
one of his patented multi-point policy speeches (and, yes, he could go on too
long at times; I didn’t say he was perfect).
Who knew Medicaid could be interesting at 2 a.m.?
That same ability was on display
Wednesday night in Charlotte. I know he
was working from a TelePrompTer this time around, but after a few minutes I
realized I couldn’t tell that he was using it (you usually can, and I could
with most other speakers). What’s more,
he clearly ad libbed at several points in the speech – and sometimes at
length. But because he knew the subject
matter, he could make it work.
Draw power from your audience. As a newspaper reporter covering politics
many years ago, time and again I covered campaign events where candidates were
able to establish a visceral connection with their audiences that had a
literally energizing effect on the speaker; I’ve seen political candidates who
I knew were bone-tired grow stronger and stronger as their speech went on. That may be easier to do in a friendly
political setting than, say, a corporate business forum – but it needn’t
be. Good speakers understand – whether
naturally or through experience – that part of their responsibility is to
engage their audience on a human level.
That’s easier to do, obviously, if they’re not having to pour all of
their mental energy into reading a speech or presenting a text-heavy PowerPoint
presentation; to the degree that they “know their stuff,” they’ve got that much
extra psychic energy to put into establishing a human connection with their
audience – to talk not just to them, but with them. Clinton managed that at several points
Wednesday night; at moments it seemed he wasn’t just delivering a speech to the
thousands of people in the convention hall, he was having a personal conversation
with each and every one of them.
Then give some of that power back. This is probably the hardest of the three
Clintonian lessons to learn and apply. I
know it’s the most difficult to articulate and explain, and maybe you’ve got to
see it to believe it. But the best
speakers understand that generating energy in an audience – and then absorbing
it in ways that strengthen the speaker and elevate the speech – is just the
first part of the deal. The real payoff
comes when a speaker learns how to return a measure of that power and energy –
to engage and motivate the audience in ways that make them participants in a
conversation rather than mere listeners.
For Bill Clinton and a handful of other great orators, that ability may
be a natural part of their DNA. But even
they have to work on it.
Most of us may have to work on it a
little more. My hunch is you’ll find
it’s worth it the first time you leave a podium to the loud applause that lets
you know you really got your message across.
Then and only then will you understand that speechmaking is a uniquely powerful
means of communication that no other tactic or channel can quite match.
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