If you are mulling over how important it is to improve your public speaking abilities, consider the arc of President Obama’s political career. It illustrates how skillful speaking can be an overwhelmingly powerful tool for advancement.
Background
In 2004, while working in the Chicago area, I sometimes saw on the local Phil Ponce show a young, unknown state senator named Barack Obama. Obama had a penetrating, elegant way of expressing himself. I was impressed but did not think too much of it.
That same year, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry decided that the obscure senator would give the Democratic National Convention keynote speech. Obama’s speech electrified the crowd and national political pundits. They anointed him a political star and speculated on his bright future. “We’ve just seen the first black president,” television commentator Chris Matthews predicted. A rather conservative lawyer at work told me that the speech made him proud to be an American.
By 2005, Obama was a US senator. By 2008, he was president. Regardless of your opinion of him, his speech undisputably revolutionized his career and the course of American politics.
This was not a speech drafted on a living room floor on the spur of the moment: Obama had clearly studied and thought about the techniques for effective public speaking. As a constitutional law professor and state senator, he had had prior experience with public discourse. But his previous words had been cerebral and measured. Influenced by Frederick Douglass, his 2004 speech replaced caution with soaring rhetoric.
Obama’s rhetorical techniques can work for you too, even if you are giving a corporate speech. For example, if you are enunciating a vision for your team or company, you must communicate, captivate, and command, just like Obama did in 2004.
Let us examine some of Obama’s rhetorical devices he used, focusing on synecdoche, antithesis, and ethos.
Excerpt from the Obama speech:
Now don’t get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn. They know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things. People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice… For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.
Rhetorical Techniques
Synecdoche:
This occurs when a part is substituted for the whole. Notice in the second sentence, Obama says:
The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems.
He did not say, “People in different parts of the United States agree that the government can’t solve all their problems.” Instead, he referenced “small towns” and “big cities”. And he even broke those down into “diners and office parks.”
Through the synecdoche, he moved us into sensory detail that we can envision. You can envision the steel painted diner in a small town and the large suburban concrete office park in a suburb or exurb. Had he used the banal “people in different parts of the United States”, the visceral, sensory imagery would have been lost.
Antithesis:
Antithesis occurs when we put two contrasting ideas close together. Obama continually juxtaposed opposites: small town residents in diners, and suburban residents in office buildings; people in suburban “collar counties” and in inner city neighborhoods.
He cleverly noted that despite being in differing environments, Americans as a whole shared the same concerns. In other words, he resolved the seeming polarity in unity, a concept of inordinate political attractiveness.
Ethos and Credibility:
Obama was doing something else by creating antithesis around different socio-economic areas of the United States: he was establishing his credibility to deliver this message. Implicitly, he said that he talked to a vast range of Americans to hear their concerns, and that he was bringing us a first-hand account of what he had heard.
Also, remember that Obama was not just nominating Kerry – he was having his own political coming of age party. Presenting himself in the ceremony, Obama implied that he had some innate quality – maybe ethnic and racial identity – that allowed him to move fluidly within different socio-economic circles to hear the concerns of a range of Americans in a way that perhaps others could not. He brought that carefully collated information to the DNC. Considering this oblique but clear reference to his own singularity, is it any wonder that people began to talk excitedly about his political career after this speech?
Audience Awareness
In the Ethics, Aristotle considers that different audience will be convinced by different kinds of discourse. Consider that convention-goers were likely older and more prosperous. Obama was packaging the field reports from other socio-economic groups in a way that they would be willing to hear– not through colloquialism and idioms, but through a graceful but accessible vocabulary. Consider that the very same message would have to have been made differently to 20-something campaign workers in the field or to 60-something Democratic political operatives.
Take Away
If you think that these are arcane points that are useless in the business world, you are seriously mistaken. Obama had to command the attention of a national audience. As a businessman, you must command and persuade also, often to induce people to participate in your vision. Persuasion at this level cannot simply be based in frozen appeals to reason – it involves rhetoric too.
Suppose that you want to motivate your employees to help the company grow so that earnings go up. You also want to instill a sense of common purpose. You could say, “We need to work together as a team, all of us, to see that the company grows. We will all benefit.” Or could you try this, pointing to different members of the audience as you speak:
“I know you, and from the small copy room with prefabricated desk to the large board room with oak tables, our success allows him to purchase his first home and her to plan her investment portfolio; her ability to begin a family and his ability to have a comfortable and happy retirement. Wherever you are in your journey with us, realize that my success and all our success is always your success. And your success is ours too.
In the above, I used all the rhetorical techniques we discussed. And such a speech would appeal to a range of employees – from the 30-something looking at a first home to the 60-something anticipating retirement. You would get your employees and colleagues to see your vision as aligning with their ideals and interests; just like Obama did in 2004.
Of course, much depends on the delivery. But I can also help you modulate your voice appropriately to express the right amount of emotion at the right time.
I repeat that great speaking ability is not innate – it can be learned. In ancient Athens, leading citizens and politicians hired rhetoric teachers to help them when they gave important public speeches. You should do the same. I can help you.
Is the above example atypical and dramatic? It sure is. But can you improve your business just by being typical?
If you are ready to communicate with command and control, work with me.
