Speak to Lead

Persuasive Messages: Advice from Confucius on communicating in troubled times

Given the uncertainty of the times, it would be good if more of our political and business leaders followed this advice from Confucius:

If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone....Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.

Persuasive Speaking: Sound Bite Rescue - moving your speech from obscurity to front page, a lesson from Eric Holder

In the previous post, I noted how the wrong sound bite can destroy your intended message. Here is a prime example of the sound bite saving the speech.

Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke to Justice Department employees as part of Black History Month. As Holder is the first African-American to serve as attorney general, the speech would have received some mention in larger papers, although likely tucked away where few would read it. 

Enter the well-planned sound bite: "...in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards."

That one provocative sound bite moved the speech from obscurity to page one.

Lesson: If you want your speech to be remembered, if you want your listeners to talk about it for days after you deliver it, you need to use at least one well-crafted, on-message sound bite that engages the listener's emotions and thoughts. Most business speeches fail this lesson.

Persuasive Speaking: Sound Bite Suicide - killing your message with a powerful quote

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."

So advised President Obama in meeting with Republicans at the White House in late January in an attempt to demonstrate a desire to work together in a bipartisan manner. 

Unfortunately, that one sound bite shifted the focus away from the message of bipartisanship to an attack on Rush Limbaugh. 

Lesson: For your message to be heard and believed, you must be consistent. Screen your prepared remarks for any highly quotable, but off-message sound bite, and get rid of it!