How to Transform Executives into Captivating Speakers

I was working with a gentleman who had to inspire action and commitment. He worked with the gap. His name was Ed. And I said, "Okay, Ed, tell me about yourself." And he said, "I am a newly promoted vice president of a certain division, and this is my first speech to the company since I've been promoted. Who's your audience?" He said, "All the GAP executives and 500 gap managers." I said, 'Well, what does a gap manager look like? He said, 24 to 28 years old. I said, ' Ed, remember you are a 45year-old prematurely silverhead executive. How long are you going to speak? He said, eight minutes. I said, 'N no pressure, but you do realize in that eight minutes all the executives and 500 gap managers are going to think either, wow, now I know why he got promoted or in a company our size. We couldn't have done better than that. That's the power of a presentation. I said, "What is your subject?" He said, 'I have to talk about the program where we get our employees to give us ideas that will either make or save the company money. Then my next question was, where are you on the program? He said 10:45 after the coffee break. I said, there are two words you cannot you cannot begin your presentation with. In fact, if you do, I'm coming out the crowd and getting on stage and slapping you. What two words did I tell him not to say that you hear frequently at conferences or company meetings? Good morning. If you're on at 10:45 in the morning and everyone is delivering eight or 10 minute presentations, there have been at least eight people on the program before you. And the chances are most of them started with good morning. That is very appropriate first on the program as the MC. But if you are the eighth or ninth person, it is too predictable. It is boring. So I said, "What I want you to do is walk on stage and say we are here to talk about heroes." And everybody laughed. I didn't know they would laugh. He didn't know they were laughed. But he had enough sense to wait because you always have to respond as if you expected the audience would respond that way. And if you keep talking when they're laughing, you're going to program them you can't laugh. We are here to talk about heroes. They may be sitting in front of you. They may be sitting behind you. They may be you in the trenches. Gap heroes. I saw 500 gap managers sit up, sit forward, and pay attention. And he gave me a page of statistics. I said, "Ed, numbers can be numbing. You have to tell me the story behind the statistics." So, we called the HR department. And one of my favorite stories was about a guy worked in the mail room and one day he realized I am sending eight FedEx packets to the same location with the same item inside a company publication. So he called the manager sending them out and said does it matter if I combine them and put a note the other end to distribute was okay. He walked over to the other guys in the department and said, "Guys, if you find you're sending multiple items to one location, at least see if you can combine them with a note to distribute. After all, we own stock in the Gap. We don't own stock in FedEx." That one idea saved the gap $200,000. I said, "Ed, you need to then answer the audience's unasked questions." So, what did you do with the money? This is how you make your statistics sexy. $200,000 is 17 miles of shelving. It is another GAN size we haven't designed. It's another month of the gap rocks, the gap swings, the gap jives commercials. And then so what's in it for me if you accept my idea? Then you tell them about the cash rewards. And as you walk out, you play David Bow's Heroes. Now, of course, I use that as my walk in music as well. The fact that my brother played on David Bow's Heroes has no reason, nothing to do with me putting in every possible presentation I can. And then I said, "Ed, do you have any kids at home?" He said, "Yes, I have an 8-year-old daughter." I said, "What I want you to do is sit her down and say, "Daddy's going to tell you some stories about some interesting people he works with." Because if you can keep the attention of your 8-year-old daughter, there is a vague possibility you can keep the attention to 500 24 to 28-year-old gap managers. practice your stories on your children. And I said, "Ed, I want you to be so good that every time your daughter hears you come in, she runs over and says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, tell me some more stories about those interesting people you work with." Because of course, if you're going to speak in front of 500 gap managers and all the executives, you have to practice and rehearse so that you can have fun. And he was the first executive on stage in that meeting that got a standing ovation. And this is the secret is that when you are telling stories, you have to tell stories and populate those stories with flesh and blood characters that they relate to. Because what we do, you speak to an audience, but when you do it well, you speak to the audience of your audience. And stories are a great way to explain an idea or the complex situation or very simply give people a model of how ordinary people doing their job ask I wonder if this makes sense.