“Hey Dave, I’m talking on leadership at Smith University in May. Please draft some comments, sketch something out for me this week,” General Snuffy said.
“No problem, Sir,” I said.
May? That’s like 3 months away. Why would we be preparing for May? We usually execute a week or two out. This speech must be important to him. Cool.
By the end of the week, I sketched some comments General Snuffy really liked. I printed them, he took the binder and made notes. We revised. He made notes and highlights three or four more times.
I must say, this is more preparation than I’ve done for any speech. I’ve written comments for POTUS and we didn’t take this much time!
As May rolled around the General mentioned the event often. It was clearly on his mind. We never plan like this, especially for a non-operational event. This was going to be important for the old man. I was glad he was going to do something he was really personally invested in. He continued to look over the comments, make edits and rehearse.
It was speech day. General Snuffy got a haircut that morning! We stopped at Starbucks and arrived early.
“Ok Dave, where’s the binder?”
“Uh, oh shit Sir, it’s gone. We don’t have it.”
“What the fuck do you mean you don’t have it?! Where is it?”
“It’s not here. But Sir, let’s talk. What were the main points you were going to make? Do you remember the transitions and the general flow? You don’t need the binder. The speech starts in 5 minutes. Tell them your guy trashed the speech and just talk with the crowd. You got this.”
PAOs: Throw your scripted comments out the window. Scripted comments suck. They are inauthentic, usually too long and lack connection with the audience. Figure out what you are trying to achieve and achieve it through genuine audience connection.
Photo by Cynthia Griggs
