In a prior blog, you read the infamous advice about handling tough questions offered by Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the controversial Vietnam War:

Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you. And quite frankly, I follow that rule. It's a very good rule.

But it’s only a good rule for government officials and politicians. While the public has come to tolerate non-answers from such individuals, most other people, in most other walks of life—particularly business men and women—can never get away with ducking questions.

Except for sports figures. Most press conferences in the sports arena are never more than an exchange of innocuous answers to innocuous questions for one very simple reason: all that matters in sports is what happens on the playing field. Talking about a game in advance or after the fact devolves into either meaningless conjecture or equally meaningless rehash.

Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the Super Bowl-bound San Francisco Forty-niners, understands the rules of the press conference game, but he makes his non-answers a form of art. In anticipation of this Sunday’s big game, Mr. Harbaugh’s artful style was captured by Kevin Clark, a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal, in this clever article.

Enjoy.

Breaking into Jail

The Elephant IS in the Room

Jail break films have long been a staple offering of Hollywood but, in a real life reversal of form, the Los Angeles Times reported that a former prisoner of the California State Prison in Sacramento, one Marvin Ussery, attempted to break into the jail. Although Mr. Ussery claimed that he was only “reminiscing,” prison authorities suspected that he was trying to smuggle in drugs, tobacco, or mobile phones to sell to the inmates. However, a search didn’t find any contraband on him, so his motive remains a mystery.

In business, “breaking into jail” has a different connotation: offering negative information voluntarily.  Revealing a liability raises doubts in the audience’s minds about a company’s viability. However, there is a very good reason for such revelations: accountability. In presentations, unlike awkward social situations: the elephant in the room cannot and must not be ignored.

In some cases, accountability is mandatory. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires that a company selling stock to the public for the first time must include a “Risk Factors” section in the Prospectus for their Initial Public Offering.  But the road show presentation of the offering isn’t required to use the Draconian language of the prospectus. Nor is there such a requirement for countless other routine types of business presentations. Yet all presentations must be forthcoming about bad news, or the presenter will be perceived of as having something to hide.

The challenge is when and how to handle the revelation. The “when” has two options:

• Be preemptive: Include the negative information in the body of your presentation
• Be reactive: Wait until a question comes from the audience and have a prepared response ready.

Each option has a risk. Offering negative information is “breaking into jail,” or admitting guilt, and raises an issue that the audience may not have considered. Waiting until a question is asked can appear evasive or concealing.

Regardless of which option you choose—the choice is a judgment call dependent on the situation, the audience, and/or the presenter—you must then make full disclosure by acknowledging the negative. But, as soon as you do, follow up immediately with the actions that you and your company are taking to rectify the problem or to prevent its recurrence. 

If your bad news is about:

• a down quarter, describe your extra efforts to stimulate new sales
• the loss of a key customer, explain your efforts to win a new customer
• the resignation of a key executive, talk about your search outreach
• a delayed product release, lay out your accelerated production schedule
• a failed product trial, list the corrections you are making
• a critical comment by an important thought leader, find a more positive opinion and quote that person.

This strategy is a variation of the correct method for handling the ritual “What keeps you up at night?” question. Be candid about what keeps you up at night, but immediately follow up with what you are doing about it. Be candid about your company’s bad news, but immediately follow up with what you are doing about it.

Acknowledge that the elephant is in the room, and then lead it out.

You can also read more from my new book, just published by Pearson, "Winning Strategies for Power Presentations"; it is one of 75 lessons from the world's best presenters, and available now from Amazon.

http://www.powerltd.com/winning_strategies.htm

Obama’s 2^nd Inaugural Address: Echoes of History

Yesterday, in his second inaugural address, President Obama eloquently expressed his future vision of America: “…it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence…” but he did so by looking back in historical context: “… to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.”

In the second paragraph of the speech, the president quoted the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

He then proceeded to echo his idol, Abraham Lincoln, by embedding the famous words of the Gettysburg Address in this sentence: “The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”

And then, as a unifying theme, Mr. Obama used the immortal first three words of the Constitution, “We, the people…” as a recurring phrase at the beginnings of four consecutive paragraphs:

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still

By using repetition, the president was echoing Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday was celebrated concurrent with Inauguration Day. Dr. King used the phrase “I have a dream” 16 times in his 1963 speech. In fact, Mr. Obama was reaching even further back in history to the Greek orators who termed the use of a repetitious phrase in successive sentences, Anaphora.

If you look back at the fourth instance of “We, the people…” you’ll see that Mr. Obama employed another rhetorical device: By restating the words of the Declaration of Independence, “the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal,” he created a bookend, an echo of his beginning.

Bookends, anaphora, and familiar quotations, are techniques any presenter can employ in any presentation.

You can read more about Barack Obama's rhetorical techniques in "The Power Presenter".

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You can also read more from my new book, just published by Pearson, "Winning Strategies for Power Presentations"; it is one of 75 lessons from the world's best presenters, and available now from Amazon.

http://www.powerltd.com/winning_strategies.htm

By Jerry Weissman

After more than a decade of denials, Lance Armstrong finally admitted in yesterday’s televised interview with Oprah Winfrey that that he used performance enhancing drugs. His denials had been so vehement, Gail Collins, the Times satirical columnist, said that they “made ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’ sound like a confession.”

One Wall Street Journal story speculated that Mr. Armstrong’s motive was to “figure out a way to compete again;” another quoted “ESPN writer Don Van Natta Jr. [who] posted on Twitter, ‘You don't go on Oprah to confess. You go on Oprah to be forgiven.’”

Motives aside, Mr. Armstrong’s admission provides a larger communication lesson; it is what every human being must do in every exchange: take responsibility and be transparent.

In a prior blog, you read how Rupert Murdoch, when confronted with charges that his newspapers had engaged in phone hacking, ducked his responsibility by issuing an apology in the passive voice: “We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred.” But the passive voice is the opposite of transparency.

As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “at the length truth will out.” Evidence mounted in the phone hacking scandal, and a year later, the United Kingdom Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee issued a report that called Mr. Murdoch irresponsible. In response, he apologized and he did so in the active voice, “We certainly should have acted more quickly and aggressively to uncover wrongdoing. We deeply regret what took place and have taken our share of responsibility for not rectifying the situation.” (You can read the full account in my latest book, Winning Strategies for Power Presentations.)

The truth came out for Lance Armstrong. Last year, the United States Anti-Doping Agency barred him for life from Olympic sports and stripped him of his seven Tour de France medals. His major sponsors such as Nike, Oakley, and Discovery Channel dropped their endorsements. And so Mr. Armstrong finally took responsibility when he told Ms. Winfrey, “I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times.”

Transparency counts. Its vital importance was best expressed by Meg Whitman, the CEO of HP. In a video interview on the Journal’s CIO Network earlier this week, she spoke about her company, but her words have universal applicability: “One of the things that I think is so important, I will tell you in some ways I learned this in the governor’s campaign, which is transparency of communication. Say what you mean, mean what you say and deliver along the lines that you say you will deliver.”

5.0 out of 5 stars 75 great lessons in effective presentation from a master

January 3, 2013

By Jeff (Northern California)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program

Full Disclosure: I've been through the author's 3 day introductory course and am a huge fan of his insight and lessons.

Winning Strategies for Power Presentations tackles a problem endemic to our current times: short attention spans. In fact, Chapter 54 is about the difficulty of presenting to a crowd lost in their Crackberries. Ironically, it's the only topic where Jerry admits trying a lot of techniques and not finding one he likes.

Well, never mind, because the other 74 chapters offer sound advice for many challenges in communicating effectively in presentations. Each one takes a problem and in anywhere from 2-5 pages gives practical advice distilled from several of his other books. As usual, he's informative, entertaining, and quite insightful.

If you're new to Power Presentations, this is a great book to start with. However, if you're really serious, you will want to move on to his other works where the chapters are longer and the advice is more detailed. Think of this book as the appetizer. When you're done, you've got several great full courses in front of you.

If you've read any of his books before or taken one of his courses, this book is a great reminder of his advice. I caught myself reverting to 2-3 old habits recently and this booked snapped me right out of that.

Finally, Jerry has a keen eye for really good and really bad examples of public speaking. Although he refers quite often to politicians both in this book and in his courses, he also pulls material from many other fields of endeavor. He's not afraid to show examples of people who contradict his advice and can get away with it (e.g., Ronald Reagan not moving his hands when he speaks.) This book is a thought provoking, quick read, that should make you want to read everything else he has written. There is no one else like Jerry Weissman.

For additional information and ordering: http://www.powerltd.com/winning_strategies.htm