CommLog

Last December I had a client come to me with this request: “I want to give the speech of my life.” He’s a CEO, the leader of an international company, and this March he was to give the keynote address at the convention celebrating the company’s 40th year in business. Last weekend he succeeded, delivering one of the most powerful and moving speeches I’ve had opportunity to see. What’s more, his #2 and #3 executives also gave powerful speeches, each in the unique style of the man doing the talking. Since then I’ve reflected on why this suite of speeches was so good, and why my client’s speech was so wonderful in particular. The answer is: “Practice.” I met with my client three months prior to the show date to discuss strategy for his address, to unpack his emotional and rational themes, to identify his headline and main message, and to discuss structure and length (20 minutes is my general counsel, by the way). He then wrote his own speech, taking time over the year-end holidays to do so. We then met twice before the show to run through the comments, hear the flow, and try on stories and metaphors; to hear the words come out of his mouth; to test where he could truly connect with this content and where the connection was forced. On the weekend of the show, he reserved not two run-throughs, not two hours, but two days of green room and stage time to practice. While he only went through the speech twice on stage, he practiced informally perhaps a dozen times, with me (at that point) simply coaching for confidence and connection. And then he knocked it out of the park. A standing ovation before he was finished; tears in his eyes and the eyes of the audience. There are only two reasons he was so good, and neither is me (as much as I’d like to take the credit). The first is that his speech was honest: he, not a speechwriter, wrote the first draft, and his content was totally honest as to what he thinks and how he feels. The second is that he practiced. And practiced. And practiced. I’ve posted before about the importance of practice for presentations and speeches, describing my time in a green room with Paul Newman before another client’s address (another client who also practiced—running through his speech perhaps 50 times over two months—and who also knocked it out of the park). Since then I’ve taken to telling that story and invoking what I now call “The Paul Newman Principle”:

He wasn’t practicing because he’s Paul Newman, he’s Paul Newman because he was practicing.

These are very busy executives. They both run international organizations of enormous scale. But they make the time to practice for their public appearances, and the more important the appearance, the more time they devote to practice. So, you, too, can give the speech of your life and enjoy a reputation for compelling communication that drives an organization forward. But it means practice, and if you want those kinds of results, you need to be honest with yourself about the time and practice you’re willing to commit. If you don’t invest the time, you won’t reap the value, plain and simple. Besides: if it’s good enough for Paul Newman, it’s good enough for you.