Sound advice on writing good speeches, KISS and KISS leads to quicker kisses.
Sound advice on writing good speeches, KISS and KISS leads to quicker kisses.
How to write a good speech
I give, or used to give might be more accurate, a lot of speeches. It’s what you do as a general and then as a Congressman. For some reason people think you might have something important or interesting or intelligent to say.
Don’t let that go to your head, it’s not likely that you do. The organizers just need somebody to headline the event and somebody knew somebody, who knew somebody, who could invite you. Annnddd, the Senator, or the Governor, or the Vice-President wasn’t available, so you’re the lucky person to get the invite.
First question you ask: what do they want me to talk about? Second question: how long do they want me to speak? Third question: who’s my audience? Fourth question: what’s the size of the audience? Fifth question: where do I park? Final question: where’s the nearest bathroom?
Now, I like to write my own speeches. I like to write my own speeches because nobody knows the way I talk like I do. Well, I once had a staff sergeant in the National Guard public affairs office who could imitate my style pretty well, but since I retired from the Guard to go to Congress and he stayed with the better paying and less hazardous position, I don’t have him as a speechwriter any longer.
Much of what I learned about public speaking was as a soldier. What does soldiering have to do with public speaking, you ask. When you’re a soldier you have to listen to people speak, or at least appear to listen. You have to stand in formation, the sun beating down, the sweat trickling down your back, dripping from your nose, which you can’t wipe off because you’re in formation. You can’t even look down to see the sweat splatter in the dust between your highly polished, black boots, or between your desert sand boots, or between your jungle green boots. Nope, you’re stuck there as the general, or the Congressman, or the Mayor drones on.
So, the first lesson is KISS. Now we’ve all heard the acronym KISS. It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. Right? Yeah, but even more importantly, it stands for Keep It Short Stupid!
The absolutely, best public speaking advice I ever got was from an Army National Guard chaplain, who told me that when he went to seminary, they taught him the perfect sermon is seven minutes long. Seven minutes is long enough for parishioners to think they got their money’s worth, but not so long as to have them squirming in their seats.
Another great mentor, both as a speaker and as a soldier, once told me, “There is no speech too short when soldiers are standing in formation!” Good advice. Remember it.
An intelligible speech rate is just over a hundred words per minute. Note: I’m not talking about the used car salesmen hawking pickup trucks in a tv commercial or a politician making sure he gets all his talking points in on the evening news hour. I’m talking about someone trying to convey a message to folks at least reasonably interested in listening. So, seven minutes works out to seven or eight hundred words. Five hundred is better, because it’s about five minutes, which is even better than seven.
You say: “I can’t say anything in seven hundred words!” The Gettysburg address is 272 words. I submit that it is the best presidential speech ever written. Since none of us is Lincoln, we can take two or three times as many words.
A local judge was asked to speak at a deployment ceremony for one of my National Guard units headed to Afghanistan some years ago. The judge’s son served in the unit. The judge fancied himself a bit of a scholar and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, was running for election. Most lawyers are terrible public speakers. They’re terrible public speakers because they want to prove they’re right and that they’re smarter than you. Since all judges are lawyers and they’re used to lawyers nodding sagely and saying “yes your honor” to everything they say, they’re, generally, even worse public speakers.
Please note that I’m specifically excluding my wife, who’s a retired judge, from this overgeneralization. She is a terrific public speaker. She’s one of those rare lawyers, who doesn’t feel it necessary to prove she’s smarter than every one else in the room. I suspect the real reason she’s a great public speaker is because her mother was a third-grade teacher, so Annette learned early to break down topics and relay them at an easily understood level, i.e. the other KISS.
At any rate, it’s late June, we’re ensconced in folding metal chairs on a stage set up on the local high school football field. It’s mid-afternoon and the Southern Illinois sun is beating down. Families in the stands. Soldiers in formation on the field, ranks standing before our stage.
The public affairs officer assured me the judge had been advised to keep his speech short. Just as a precaution, I leaned over and mentioned to the judge, “Judge did the Captain ask you to keep your remarks brief?”
He replied, “Oh yes, general. My speech was about an hour long, but I’ve managed to cut it to twenty minutes.” As the commanding general, and no longer an actively practicing lawyer, I simply said, “Judge, these soldiers are standing in the hot sun. Their families are waiting to say good bye. Brief means two minutes.”
The startled look told me the judge was clearly not used to being told to keep his speeches to two minutes. He managed.
The mayor, a veteran himself, kept his remarks to a minute and a half, and I wasn’t much longer. Twenty minutes in the hot sun and the soldiers were released for those last hugs and kisses before boarding buses to a known destination and unknown future. Their kisses came sooner because the judge obeyed my injunction to KISS.