Lynn Espinoza is a broadcast news veteran with more than a decade of media, presentation and executive coaching experience. She has developed personal coaching sessions for Fortune 100 C-level executives, corporate communicators of all kinds, doctors, lawyers and leaders in non-profit.
When YOU should NOT be the spokesperson!
Posted on September 26, 2008. Filed under: Latest News
You’ve been tapped to be the speaker at an industry event. There is a nagging feeling deep inside your gut that you are being set up for failure. The content for the speech is not your own, and in fact this is not your area of expertise.
You feel like you’re over your head.
Guess what? You are.
Don’t take it personally. You have an area of expertise - this just isn’t it. You are smart and compelling and intimitely knowledgable about other things. Those are the things that you should be talking about, but at some other conference. Still, someone has decided that at this conference, you should carry the torch - represent the company - in front of an audience that probably knows more about the subject than you do.
You’re in trouble.
Politics entirely aside, we can look to the current election for a clear example of what happens when someone is competent in one arena, and drowining in doo-doo in another.
Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin is drowning. She should be on the bench of spokespeople for the Republican party. She clearly captivates and excites. But Sarah Palin should NOT have been tapped to be the spokesperson for the biggest political event of all - on the executive ticket.
An article today by conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker approaches this in a most articulate way. I hope you’ll take a moment to read it. It makes you realize that, as painful as Palin’s interviews are to watch, they must be excrutiating for the Governor herself. She knows she’s over her head. You can see it.
She could have said “Thanks, but no thanks” to more than the bridge to nowhere. She could have said “no” to the Republican party. She still could have had a big and positive impact during election season. She could have remained the most popular Governor in the country. Quite simply, she went WAY outside her area of expertise, and she can’t for the life of her find her way home.
So you’ve been tapped to deliver the next keynote. You’ve been given someone else’s PowerPoint deck, and the subject is entirely out of your area of expertise.
Be strong. You know what to say.
Thanks. But no thanks.
3 Responses to “When YOU should NOT be the spokesperson!”
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So true too bad she didn’t get the memo.
[…] Espinoza: When YOU should NOT be the spokesperson! – “You’ve been tapped to be the speaker at an industry event. There is a nagging […]
Palin has been over-coached and she was chosen for political expediency. SAD.
SAD. The thought that this candidate could become Leader of the Free World is frightening.
I’m not saying this as a journalist or a voter. It’s just clear fact— the Couric interviews have been devastating. DEVASTATING.