executive speech writing

executive speech writing

Mastering the Art of Executive Speech Writing

1. Introduction to Executive Speech Writing

Why is it important for the speech writer to understand rhetoric? Because, in the last analysis, Aristotle wrote that persuasion is the most honorable and excellent task of rhetoric, and a speech writer or public relations person can never really become skillful in executive speech writing unless he is a master orator. Executive speech writing is a unique skill and does present some peculiar problems. First of all, as one advertising agency phrased it in an ad, “We can’t put in what God left out.” Before an executive speech writer can create a great speech, he must have an executive who is great, who has a genius speaking style—a style the speech writer can evoke and excel. Executive speech writing has a second condition, which is the speech writer’s understanding of the rhetorical tradition, the skill and expertise of the fine orator. Our objective, then, is to familiarize the speech writer with different types of rhetoric and to make the speech writer aware of when to use what flavor.

Observe closely and you will notice they exhibit the timeless qualities of rhetoric which the Greeks identified 24 centuries ago. Our most celebrated political orators, religious orators, editorialists, commentators, and raconteurs and wisecrackers on radio or television, more recently our public relations people, come to hold these values. They value and evince memory. They make use of character to carry conviction. They exercise style and judgment to enhance persuasive power. In some considerable measure, we can appreciate these values without really understanding them or their interrelations in the speaker.

A great speech can be filled with commonplace ideas and reasoning and still be enthusiastically cheered and soundly applauded at the end by an enthusiastic audience. How can this magic performance be explained?

2. Understanding the Role of Executive Speeches in Leadership Communication

Understanding the basics of executive speechwriting and delivering can trace their context to oral interpretation and public speaking subjects and even the areas of persuasion, corporate communication, professional writing, and leadership. By learning the principles behind each and every speech, anyone would be able to better appreciate and master the speaker’s power of his words. Given specific speaking tasks, the audience for those speaking events, and the multitude of situations in which executives present, this book takes as its focus the situations and the audiences first. If you know the audience and the typical function of the situation, then customizing the speech or message is a matter of adding personal topic knowledge and letting that focus drive the speech building decisions.

One of the primary means of leadership communication is through executive speeches. Just like other official or formal documents or forms of communication, executive speeches also take quite a time in the making before they are shared to the public or a particular audience. These long speeches, whether scripted, pure dictations, or extemporaneous ones, are expected to contain the leader’s perspective on a particular matter being tackled, whether it would be for an informative purpose, for an attempt to persuade, or to attempt to somehow bridge a connection between the speaker and the listener. These speeches contain the leader’s strong messages on which many, if not all, contents and parts are highly expected to have connection as needed. Thus, it is vital for the maker of the speech to understand what these long pieces of talk should contain and how each part contributes to its impact.

3. Crafting a Compelling Narrative: Structure and Content

At its core, building structure is about making a logic puzzle for your audience. You provide the clues, and they solve it for themselves. If you’re only trying to inform in a speech, wow, this is a moneypit of a tactic. People don’t listen, ever. If you’re trying to sway opinion, any position outside of dissatisfaction or some level of perceived need/recognition of the corporate culture will yield the same result. Those trying to engage emotion can find themselves stuck in a quagmire between resignation and anger. If the story, the pretty myth they make of you and your company, resonates with someone, it’s the only hope you have for engagement. This requires underpinning your organization’s mission and values with their narrative underpinning. You tell your story with them, not behind a pair of those nice wooden doors that shut out the elevator masses. This subtext, which would be metatext created by the narrator, will flavor your story, introduce new voices, reveal these problems and the brave ways that they were faced, both fails and triumphs, the humans who fought and usually lost, in favor of a stronger vision, and how it brought our narrator (and your audience) to a lesson they’ll carry with them from that point on.

The best executive speeches are soaring narrations that seduce and reassure your audiences. Narratives tame the complexity of your company and your mission, and point to a deeper, more universal truth. The best speeches never sacrifice message for story, or vice versa. The most effective speeches are equal parts mythologizing and explicit messaging. This, in turn, provides for a rich and complicated subtext, where one or two extra messages emerge. This is the felt sense that there is so much more going on below the surface of your speech. This is where we want to be.

4. Effective Delivery Techniques for Executive Speeches

Ask yourself, what can your audience bring with them? To begin, the intended message should always be clear in the mind of the presenter. This is your purpose and the urge that the audience actually attend the event. Ultimately, speakers deliver an address to convey a significant idea and elicit a positive influence on those who hear their words using a skilled use of language, a subtle ability to capture the listening heart, and a presentation that does not detract from their message. Giving highlights or a gist or recap of your message, you should have a means to keep listeners focused and help them to draw in surrounding main points or body ideas. A variety of delivery techniques add interest to the discussion. It helps to make your ideas real to use illustrations. Your audience might better understand both a complex outline and specific statistics by using examples.

Orating can shake even the most confident and capable of public speakers. Study the success, and you’ll find that no leader ever became prolific in the art of speaking without some concerted effort and time. Perfection can take many trials, but practice can expedite even the slowest relative to the liberal use of compelling speechwriting. Keeping in regards what we have established as the purpose of an effective speech, we will shift gears to focus on methods of effective presentation of the message. In using these keys, as well as some general evaluation tips, your conviction and intention will come shining through the presentation to make a memorable presentation.

5. The Importance of Authenticity and Tone in Executive Communication

5. Reading the Room: Executive Tone One study by Frozen Smile in Australia suggests that a significant proportion of corporate communications could be shifted to better communicate the desired tone – defined as warmth and authority, as per the Harvard Business Review. For a CEO, an image of authority is already expected, so exemplifying this will not stand out as unique or compelling. Studies support the idea that in combining these two traits, women in particular will be able to display more unique executive communication in the interview process. Any stories and examples included within executive communication pieces need to align with this tone. Any evidence, be it via past experience or just through the way they speak, that aligns with this tone furthers the CEO’s credibility in any reader’s view – be they shareholders, stakeholders, employees, or customers. In advancing a distinct company image in this way, companies should project themselves as they truly appear and want to be seen. Worker rights abuses, racial bias, and corruption at the top will go viral no matter the image portrayed. Authenticity is defined, in short, as being true to oneself. As with most things, it’s easier said than done. For business executives, the push to make something happen is considerable. But the rewards for doing so can be companies with an effective reputation and a workforce that is engaged.

4. Authenticity over Perfection The Schwartzmedia research piece identifies that above all else, leaders should strive to be authentic in their speech and their communication. Humans have a built-in ability to detect inauthenticity. When that detection kicks in, authenticity doesn’t just not make it through; it can have the exact opposite effect. Some CEOs have such a total grasp on authenticity that they manage this tone with nearly abandon, throwing around profanities and ill-polished phrasing. Most don’t need to go that far, but identifying the sweet spot, where executive communication is unpolished and realistic without spilling over, is an excellent move.