Simon Maier - Speak Like a President: How to Inspire and Engage People with Your Words

Speak Like a President

Speak Like a President

How to Inspire and Engage
People with Your Words

Simon Maier

A & C Black London

First published in Great Britain 2010
This electronic edition published 2010

A & C Black Publishers Ltd
36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
www.acblack.com

Copyright Simon Maier, 2010

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organisation acting or refraining
from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by A & C
Black Publishers Ltd or the author.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN: 978-1-40813-439-9

For David L. Maier

Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?

He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee.

Margaret Courtney (18221862)

Contents

Wednesday Morning, New York

The roar of the crowd could be heard despite the fact that the audience was at least two hundred yards away. He guessed that the stadium was full. Maybe a hundred thousand this time? Perhaps more. He exhaled, shrugged his shoulders, and fingered his tie. The light in the narrow corridor deep below the stage area was dim, and the small LED lamps glowed quite prettily, he thought, from floor installationsstrangely elaborate for what was little more than a very large cellar. The three Secret Service agents looked as if they were auditioning for a low-key horror movie; apart from their well-lit chins, they were making him feel a little claustrophobic now by standing too close. Two wore sunglasses, and the one who didnt was staring above the senators head. He seemed to be listening.

The senators make-up artist had just left, and his scriptwriter was following her, walking down the corridor twirling his car keys and whistling a Green Day song. He snapped open his cell phone to call his friend (not a girlfriend, as he kept telling people) Sally Shoesmith, a mainstream ad agency business development manager in London. He knew that Sally wanted to know how the tour was going. She also had to do something about her Wednesday morning sales meetings, and she wanted some help from the young scriptwriter. One of the agents looked at the receding back of the jaunty figure and then at his watch. He put up a hand and showed four fingers to the senator. The noise from the crowd dulled a little while someone made a muffled announcement. There was a slight pause, a receding sea, a heartbeat, and then a huge welling up of a tsunami roar. The senator wondered if theyd still cheer like this after his first year in office. Maybe. Maybe not. He stopped pacing, shrugged his shoulders again, sipped water from a plastic cup, glanced up at the bright blue and red water pipes, and then focused straight ahead. The agents formed a phalanx around him. He put the cup down, shot his cuffs, smiled to no one (just giving his facial muscles a run, he thought), and they all began walking as one along the corridor toward the open door.

Showtime, said the scriptwriter, who was waiting for the senator at the edge of the bright light. The wordsmith had failed to get hold of Sally Shoesmith, although hed forgotten to turn his phone off. The roar was now huge and the sun blinding. The senator heard the beginning of his introduction. He looked into the eyes of the scriptwriter and smiled genuinely while patting the young mans back twice. The young man returned the smile and felt happy. Its all good, sir. Good to go. A pause and then he shouted over the noise, Speak like a president!

If I could just find the right words...

Barack Obama,Dreams from My Father, 1995

Barack Obama was thirty-four in 1995 when he wrote Dreams fromMy Father. He had only recently completed his law degree and, as a result of becoming the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, had been invited to write a memoir. The book was modest in its ambition and published to soft, if not effusive, reviews. Who knows if anyone had thought that this young man would become famous? The book sold in reasonable numbers and then more or less disappeared, although obviously that position has changed considerably since. Its a personal and seemingly unguarded book. After all, at the time, the young lawyer had no idea what was to happen thirteen years later. In the book he describes his memories of the month he had spent, as a schoolboy, with the father who had lived for most of his life on another continent. The main thing that struck the boy was the way his father talked: Whenever he spoke... his large hands outstretched to direct or deflect attention, his voice deep and sure, cajoling and laughingI would see a sudden change take place in the family...It was as if his presence had summoned the spirit of earlier times. His fathers voice had a strong influence on the future president.

Obama made his first political speech while still in college. He was asked to introduce a small anti-apartheid rally. The audience numbers were modest. He describes it as a crowd of a few hundred restless after lunch. As he waited to speak, Obama recalled the power of my fathers words to transform. If I could just find the right words, I had thought to myself. With the right words everything could changeSouth Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world. He went up to the stage, he writes, in a trancelike state. Afterward, people came up to Obama and said that there were lines and messages in his speech that they would always remember.

What great speakers say is remembered. Good or bad. When, in January 2009, Obama spoke for the first time as the 44th president of the United States of America, billions of people listened and watched as he asked for, and offered, change. Well, the jurys out on the politics and the change he demanded, then offered. Some claim to be disappointed; others comment that what he inherited will take time to repair. Still others say that his inaugural wasnt his best speech, and that may be so, but listen to or indeed read any of his speeches and you will find the ebb and flow of fluent language along with the presentation and reiteration of messages vital, striking, and memorable. Speaking in public is clearly a political necessity for Obama, as it is for many in business, education, and politics (although, by the results, sometimes you really wouldnt think so). For Obama it seems also to be a personal need. Hes a superb orator, and he also consciously puts oratory and rhetoric right at the heart of his political being and, in so doing, will embed himself in a vital American tradition. But, of course, throughout the worldincluding on occasion in the USmany politicians and business leaders are woefully clumsy in the answers to specific questions, and awkward and unclear in their explanations. Their grammar is usually all over the place and, while that may not matter elsewhere and in a social setting, it does matter if the result is meant to aid understanding and clarity. Or to get the viewer or listener to buy into their argument or proposition. The rhetoric, the way with words, the persuasive languageare often missing.

The history of the American republic is one that can be traced through its rhetoric: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, Ask not what your country can do for you, Ich bin ein Berliner, I have a dream, Its morning in America. We can all recite one or two famous lines of American rhetoric and that must indicate something. And, similarly, we all know one or two lines from Churchill and just maybe some of you may know a few lines from the likes of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Nehru, Ghandi (Mahatma and Indira, although no relation), Pericles, Aristotle, Mao, Cicero or perhaps even Hitler. Great speeches are memorable as are the phrases and repetitions that populate them. And the fact is that with practice and rehearsal, its not just presidents who can make a great speech, so can you.