Below is my Australian Financial Review, Letter to the Editor this past Tuesday, on a video clip on ‘How we’re responding to AUSTRAC issues’, by Brian Hartzer, Westpac Banking Corporation CEO, who lost his job yesterday.
On reflection, Hartzer might still have his job if he understood that ‘what the customer perceives is what matters’. In this case the customer is the community.
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In today’s social media world, with people always having their smart device at the ready. Where you can easily communicate with someone by showing or sharing a photo or a video clip, or by sending them a text message. Where perishable pictures do the talking – why do you need to speak well – or speak at all?
Let me share my views on this matter and on learning.Continue reading
(7/5/1840) – this month’s theme will be on ‘composing’ your presentation.
What can you learn from musical composers, to help you compose your presentations?
More than you’d think.Continue readingThe measure of the impact of a speech or presentation must be viewed within the context in which that the speech is given.Continue reading
I gave Julia Gillard a 6/10 for her performance in her press conference last week, regarding her time at Slater & Gordon.Continue reading
While watching Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard present themselves over the last seven days, the words that come to mind are, for Rudd: ‘slippery, phoney, smug’ and for Gillard: ‘shaken, scripted, wooden, school-marm’.Continue reading
While Barack Obama’s political star has dimmed since his 2008 U.S. presidential election victory, his oratory and personal communication skill is still a benchmark of excellence, and one to aspire to.
Obama’s most enduring skill is how he takes time – through exploiting pauses when he speaks; through his body movement and gesture (smooth & coordinated); through tuning into the rhythm of a moment and choosing an apt action or non-action; through being ‘light’ about himself while taking his job seriously (in a group photo of leaders at the recent APEC meeting, Obama joked with Julia Gillard about her hair preening in preparation for the photo).
Obama delivered a workman-like (for him) performance in his address to the Australian Federal Parliament today. Before he started his address he demonstrated intelligent listening to Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s address, conveyed through his attentive eyes and face. His actual speech, like many of his set piece performance, is like a dance – where he starts with an easy light aside (eg. the joke about his prior mangling of Australian slang).
Following the opening he shifts his body much like a jazz musician who is getting into his rhythm and finding his groove. He starts extending final consonants in words a fraction longer and starts exploiting pauses for effect. He shifts up a gear in voice energy and acceleration for key parcels of speech, as demonstrated in his ‘We never forget’ repetitive phrasing during the speech.
He closed the speech with measure and certainty. I give him an 8/10 for the speech. By the way, Julia Gillard’s face and body language during Obama’s speech conveyed deep feeling and resonance for Obama – almost at the level of ‘hero worship’ status. Her numerous head nods during the speech were expressions of this deep feeling.
The ‘how to apply’ for this post: In your sales presentation meetings and interactions over the next seven days, in the manner of Obama, on purpose, intermittently ‘exploit a pause’ in your delivery for a ¼ or ½ a second, and note its impact on the certainty that you feel, and its impact on your listener.
p.s. Here’s a link from where you can download an Australian Financial Review article with my 2008 deconstruction of Obama’s speech communication, listening and body language:
http://www.kellyspeech.com.au/2008/10/measured-manner-a-winning-way-afr/
The emotion, waver in the voice and tears of Julia Gillard this week, were real. The episode with the Australian flag given to her by the helicopter pilots and the Jordan Rice matter touched her deeply. Her performance must be viewed with the backdrop and context of one of her first Queensland floods, media performances, and with the realities of politics.
Gillard’s political minders would have seen the condolence speech as a way to repair Gillard’s woodenness and tone deafness in her first Queensland floods press conference – where she came across, through her emotional tone, more like she was giving a litany of budget cuts versus expressing unvarnished, human compassion for the monumental losses of people.Continue reading
Leaving aside who won the battle of the ideas and focusing on the battle of the words, voice, body language, presence and feeling tone, consistent with those of a prime minister and leader – Julia Gillard won tonight’s debate.
Gillard confirmed her own deep, genuine belief in herself as a leader, and in a positive hope for the future of the country. Debates are about emotional identification with voters. They turn on the revealing of a candidate’s personality, character and temperament. With this template to judge Gillard on – many voters will find her personality, character and temperament appealing.Continue reading
In a clip where Margaret Thatcher was defending the sinking of an Argentinian ship, during the Falklands war. – here’s the link: http://margaretthatcher.magnify.net/video/Margaret-Thatcher-SE-ENOJA – you can see and hear Thatcher’s inner steel and ramrod confidence as she counters a persistent questioner. Julia Gillard in her first weeks as Prime Minister has shown similar shades of steel and confidence through her voice, face and body language.Continue reading