Speak to Lead

Humor Trivializes Evil - NPR Treats ACORN Child Prostitution as a Joke

First of all, now that I have your attention, I want to make clear this is not an attack on National Public Radio.

But it was an NPR broadcast that sparked my thoughts about the power humor has to trivialize evil. How comedy can move the focus from the heinous to the humorous, and in the process blunt the evil at the core of the issue.

These ideas came about on Saturday as I was listening to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! WWDTM), NPR's "oddly informative news quiz." (Which, BTW, I generally find very entertaining.)

The topic: the ACORN sting, which documented the willingness of ACORN staff members to give advice on running a child prostitution brothel and other illegal activities. One staffer even volunteered to help smuggle the under-age girls into the U.S. from Mexico.

What I find particularly appalling is that none of the ACORN workers in the videos seemed the least bit bothered by helping enslave a dozen 12 to 15 year old girls as prostitutes. 

Unfortunately, the host and panel of WWDTM don't seem too appalled either. Here is the opening to the topic. (To hear this portion of the broadcast CLICK HERE and select "Panel II: ACORN And Fashion Week" in the right column.)

Humor for Speeches & Presentations: How to Find Original Humor to Use in Your Next Speech

Using humor--the right humor--in a speech makes you more likable and helps you connect with the audience.

But how do you find humor?

My friend Terri Langhans suggests we need to be actively looking for it. Terri delivers high-content presentations on marketing leavened with real-life humor. Reprinted below with her permission is her article describing what can happen when you actively seek to find humor.

Looking for Laughter in all the Wrong Places?

Recently, I decided to test my own advice,"You always find what you're looking for." If you look for a way to delight the customer, reduce waste, improve communication or market your business, you'll find it. If you look for three, you'll find them. Get everyone on the team looking for the same thing, and what you'll find is amazing. That advice. Don't get me wrong; I wasn't doubting myself. I know it works and have a boatload of on-the-job and off-the-job examples to prove it in my presentations.

I'm talking about consciously walking my talk under pressure. Looking for one of the hardest things to find--humor--in one of the worst settings I could think of--

Visuals & Whimsy-A Lesson from Whistler's Mother's Son & West Point

Here's a fun bit of trivia about American painter, James McNeill Whistler, perhaps best known for his painting commonly titled, "Whistler's Mother."

As you will see, it has little to do with leadership communication, the focus of Speak to Lead.  So I invite you to read the example and then figure out how it could be worked into a presentation about leaders and communication.

Here's the question, courtesy of today's 365 Amazing Trivia Facts Calendar.

Why was Whistler kicked out of West Point Military Academy?

Answer:

For misconduct. Assigned to draw a bridge in an engineering class, he drew two little boys fishing from it. Ordered to remove them, he drew the boys fishing from the riverbank. Again ordered to remove them, he drew two little headstones near the river.

Your turn: How can you "spin" this so it relates to leadership communication?

Presidential Leaders Speak Silently: Romney-Clinton Silent Debate Provides Relief for Weary Listeners

After last month's CNN-YouTube debates (not to mention the recent--and excruciatingly boring--presidential debates in Iowa), a new debate format has arisen: the SILENT debate.

No more three-minute answers to yes or no questions. No more long answers that start with drivers licenses and end with global warming. No more vocal attacks on opponents.

Just visceral responses to key issues.

Here Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton participate in the first silent presidential debate (following a brief trailer for Charlie Wilson's War). (Note Romney's coded message at the end.)

Corporate Communication: It's Not What the Speaker Says, But What the Listener Hears that Counts

In corporate communication, indeed in all communication, it's not what the speaker or writer says that's the ultimate communication. It's how the listener or reader interprets what was said that counts.

An obvious point, but one we need to remind ourselves of frequently.

This week the Plain English Campaign (PEC) issued it's annual Foot in the Mouth Awards. And while the statements that earned their creators the award are fun to read, I thought the most interesting part was having readers rewrite, in plain English, a response to a customer's question posted on Virgin Trains web site. Wonderful diversity of nuanced interpretation.

You'll find the original and the rewrites about half way through the BBC's Come Again? article.

Media Interviews: Sometimes a Simple Question Deserves a Simple Answer

Question: Yes or No, most politicians are unable to answer simple questions with yes or no?

During the recent Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, Barack Obama and John Edwards proved incapable of simple yes or no answers. Click here for their answers to "Do you support driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, yes or no?" (BTW, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden did limit their answers to "no.")

Tonight the Republicans debate in St. Petersburg, Florida. Will their front runners do any better?

But the all-time record for not answering the same question with a simple "yes or no" goes to Michael Howard, former Conservative party leader in the UK, in this BBC2 Newsnight interview.

 

Political Sound Bites--What the Candidates Say & What We Hear

Regardless of what we say, the ultimate communication is what our listeners hear.

This is a particular problem for political candidates when listeners aren't buying their spin.

Walt Handelsman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist for Newsday, lets us in on what potential voters are really hearing from current Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

Enjoy a refreshing look at political sound bites in Walt's animated cartoon, What they say, what we hear.

Newspaper Goof or Freudian Slip? Maybe the Interviewee Wasn't All that Sharp

"Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge." (Edwin Knolls)

Content errors have numerous causes. Perhaps the reporter heard incorrectly. Perhaps he or she had to simplify details so the story would interest the average reader. Perhaps an editor made cuts to fit the story into the available space. 

And then there are errors in production, such as this one recounted in today's The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said calendar entry. This goof is explained in a correction notice in the Alaskan Clarion-Dispatch:

CLARIFICATION: The phrase, "Dummy Head," which was accidentally printed beneath a photograph in Thursday's Clarion - Dispatch, was intended as a typographical notation for use in the production process. It was not intended to describe in any way the subject of the photograph."

Or, given the number of people giving interviews who've never been media trained, maybe it was a totally appropriate Freudian descriptor.

PowerPoint Presentations from Lincoln at Gettysburg to Today's Army Rangers

Here are links to 2 humorous PowerPoint presentations and a collection of 10 cartoons spoofing PP.

To see Peter Norvig's example of how Abe Lincoln could have "improved" his Gettysburg Address by using PowerPoint, click here.

To see the guidelines U.S. Army Rangers are to use in preparing PP slides, click here.

And to see cartoons PowerPoint creator Robert Gaskins has collected on his web site, click here.

Defuse Hostility, Bond with the Audience: An Example from President Gerald Ford

In March 1975, President Ford headed to the University of Notre Dame to deliver a speech on world hunger. With his pardoning of Richard Nixon still highly unpopular, especially on college campuses, aides were concerned students might demonstrate or otherwise disrupt his speech.

To defuse any potential hostility, Ford’s director of speechwriters, Bob Orben, set out to find some Notre Dame insider joke he could use to let the students see Ford as a down-to-earth guy, someone who could understand and connect to the students.

To succeed Orben knew he needed to find out