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.

I’m not seeing enough of either - from anyone - and I’ve boarded the Straight Talk Depress.

In the corporate world, sometimes issues are such that the CEO doesn’t need to be the sole voice for the company. Sometimes a closer-to-the-ground worker is most appropriate to speak on behalf of the CEO.  And at times it’s even appropriate for a corporate mid-level to do some “dirty work” - addressing the competition in a way that minimizes the negative blowback on the CEO directly.  And that’s just what we’re seeing in this election season.  The respective armies Obama and McCain are out in force, digging and dishing - with the sole purpose of disemboweling the enemy.

But if ever there were a time to silence the armies and hear more directly from the “CEO” - this is it. This country is in a really dark place, and we need a leader.  The Daschles, Fiorinas, Pawlentys and Braziles can hurl memorable and witty insults back and forth until they’re blue. They have equal ability to bloviate hollow key messages and fail to answer questions.  They aren’t hurting each other so much as they are hurting us.

If the candidates themselves have something negative to say (and I don’t mean pithy stump lines, I mean the kind of bile that their surrogates spew) - let’s hear them say it. If they can sit under hot television lights and brutally disassemble the character of the other - let’s see it.  Then we can hold them accountable for it.

Why don’t they do it? Because it is conduct unbecoming a leader and, well, because so much of it is simply not true. Keep them from hiding behind their pitbulls (lipsticked or not) to the degree that they are, and I’m betting the campaign would take a dramatically more positive and issues-driven turn.  Stand down the surrogate armies, and turn up the substance.

Both campaigns need the right spokesperson.  The CEO.

All aboard!

The ads, you may have noticed, have gone crazy.

       “He called her a pig!”

Can we just stop for a moment? We all know that both campaigns were blowing smoke when they promised a higher campaign season. They’ve both gone for the juglar, and have their teeth in arteries instead of issues.

But there is a way to stop it.  OK, that’s too optimistic. But maybe there’s a way to cut down on the absurd rhetoric.  If reporters would ask the presidential candidates - to their FACES - if they stand behind the smear ads, I believe the answers would be different than what the ads would suggest.

Reporter to McCain: “Did you really think Senator Obama called Governor Palin a pig??”

Though he “approved this ad”, I don’t think he’d be so bold as to answer “yes, he called her a pig” in real time.  Obama is hiding behind some half-baked ad-accusations as well.

Reporters, I believe, are pandering. Not to the candidates as much as to their “base”. No news outlet wants the blogesphere to turn on them. So they’re going easy, and running the ads, and feeding this climate of passive-agression.

 ***UPDATE*****

Ah HA!  The AP asked the question, and the answer was as predicted:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—Did Barack Obama really call Sarah Palin a pig, as a John McCain ad leads people to believe? “No,” McCain said Monday. The Republican presidential nominee defended the ad anyway, saying Obama “chooses his words very carefully.”

So as the athletic Olympics close and the political Olympics begin, there are some similarities. The knowing and simultaneous unknowing. The things that no candidate can control: The protesters; the bloggers; the Clintons.

I’m a media and presentation coach. As such, the next two weeks are like the Olympics, the Superbowl, the Indy 500 and my birthday all at once.  I will be wallowing in this imperfect and marvelous process of ours.  And I’ll be watching and critiquing the speeches with an eye toward content and intent. Two weeks of fodder - and fun.

High stakes. High drama.  Delicous!!!

One year ago, Speak! Communications was launched. I never dreamed I would be so happy, work so hard, or enjoy life so immensely.  It’s scary leaving a safe, corporate job. Now I’m doing work that truly matters to me, but it’s far less predictable.  I had no clients one year ago. Today, I am fortunate to have worked with some of the most inspiring people and companies on the planet.  They include:

• Fluke Networks
• Safeco
• T-Mobile
• Bluetooth SIG
• Arcelor Mittal (through the great London-based Bladonmore Communications)
• Edelman
• Microsoft
• Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
• Individuals, authors, public speakers

I have met exciting people, traveled to exciting places and I’ve absolutely found my passion: Helping people who need to speak well to do well. I hope every day that my clients draw energy from me, as I’ve drawn energy from them.  

I can’t wait for year two!

I took the news personally. I had a successful career in broadcast news, and have spent my entire adult life speaking publicly. I have always said the seeds for my professional life were planted in my high school speech class. It was in that class that I learned that communications, not math or history, would be the right path for me in college and beyond. And I may not have taken the class if I didn’t have to. Throwing clay would have been more fun.

I’ve spent the last ten years offering communications coaching to executives at some of the world’s leading companies. One thing that seperates the superstars from the perrenial mid-levels is the ability to speak well. You’re familiar with the statistic - the one that shows more people fear public speaking over death. That means that those who can masterfully communicate ideas have a better chance of inspiring the rest, turning ideas into action and succeeding personally. There might be many who are good at the numbers or the theories. Precious few are good at making sense of them, and communicating their meaning. I’m betting a fair number of those corporate superstars owe something to their high school speech teacher.

Speech is still an elective at the local high school, but as the speech teacher said, “Given the choice of a speech class - when public speaking terrifies them, or Beginning Pottery, which do you think they’ll choose?” Yep. Throwing clay still sounds like more fun. Not likely to help much as one tries to ascend the executive ladder, don’t you think?

 Mr. Gordon drives home the importance of peppering a speech with anecdotes.  Not off-the-shelf, often heard anecdotes (Tip: don’t use any Chicken Soup for the (whatever) as a resource for speech anecdotes. Trite). He’s talking about personal stories that give the speech meaning, and which give the audience a glimpse of who the speaker is - genuinely.

Here are a few more tips on the effective use of stories and anecdotes:

• If you are a funny person, go ahead and use humorous stories - but sparingly.  If you keep them laughing for an hour, they will remember that you’re funny. They may not remember the important content of your speech.  Too much humor can also erode your perception as a leader.
• If you are not funny, don’t try to be.  Nothing makes a speech go KLUNK faster than a poorly placed pun.
• It’s OK to use a story from another source, if it means something to you.  If you find meaning in the story of a historical figure, for instance, that story could be appropriate. Make sure, though, to tie it directly to the content of your speech.
• If you are truly passionate about the content of the speech, chances are great that there are many “back stories” behind the topic. Tell them!  Your passion will not be in question if you are telling stories that mean a great deal to you.

As Hal Gordon puts it so well: If your story is personal and true, you can not be insincere.  The audience knows that, and will respond in a positive way.

A lot has changed since 1960 - the last time a party acceptance speech was delivered from an outdoor stadium. Then it was John F. Kennedy. The stadium was Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. “The New Frontier” speech was surely stirring for those who were there, but television wasn’t such a factor for those who weren’t.  Most viewers didn’t see the grainy, distant film until well after the fact. Print media was much more important in 1960.

In 2008, cable news and the Internet have changed the game.

We all expect that Barack Obama will deliver a superior speech - that’s what he does. He will fire up the stadium. The cheering throngs will jump to their feet. They’ll cry. There will probably be a fainter or two. But here’s the risk: the millions of viewers outside the stadium are more important than are the 75,000 inside the stadium. This is more than a fact of mass. The undecideds, the middle-Americans, the Republicans will be watching from elsewhere - and Senator Obama needs them.

Barack Obama will need to connect intimately with the TV and Internet viewers, or risk making them feel like they weren’t invited to the party.  He needs to be large enough to fire up the stadium (big voice, big gestures, big pauses to soak up the cheering), yet subdued enough that the rest of us feel he’s talking to us. 

He runs the risk of turning his historic speech into something like a Broncos pre-Superbowl rally. Maybe he’s a mile too high?

Particularly problematic is that Jackson is a democratic firebrand, and the insult was picked up by a Fox News microphone.  You would think that after decades of media exposure, and dozens of caught-on-tape Jesse Jackson faux paus, that he would know better. 

This post serves as my formal invitation to Reverend Jackson to attend my next Speak! Communications Media Training session. He will learn:

 Media Training Tip #1 - You are NEVER off the record!

• If you are dealing with broadcast, consider the camera ON and the microphone HOT until you see the reporter and crew leave the building.
• If you are dealing with print, you are on the record until the reporter is well out of earshot. I mean unquestionably out of earshot. (Another tip: Reporters tend to have exceptional hearing).
• As too many executives and other interviewees have learned - even if you ask to be off the record, that doesn’t guarantee you will be.
• When the reporter is ‘warming you up’ with casual conversation and niceties - consider that you are on the record. This can be the most dangerous part of the encounter, because you are more relaxed and your guard is down.  Reporters know that.
• When the reporter says, “that’s the end of our interview”, that doesn’t mean the reporter won’t print anything you say after that.  Again, your guard is down.  

Whether or not Jackson’s guard was down, or he intended to do collatoral damage, will be debated for a few more news cycles. Regardless, don’t let it happen to you.

 I have a call into Jackson’s “people” to see about scheduling that training session.