For weeks now I have been asked to analyze the presentation skills of Tina Fey and Sarah Palin and comment on who is a better speaker. I have never seen either of these VP candidates speak in person so my data might be less than 100% accurate. But I have been clicking on YouTube and observing these women with a trained eye so I’ll focus on two of the more important techniques of political speechmaking: pausing and touching.
Tina Fey and Sarah Palin
Good speakers know the power of the pause and some even know that pauses come in three distinct types. I like to describe pauses with both a word, and, for visual emphasis, a symbol: The strategic pause ( ), the dramatic pause ( ) ( ) and the over- the- top (OTT) pause ( ) ( ) ( ).
There are a lot of places you can go to learn to use these three pausing techniques but one of the best places, hands down, is Beauty Queen School. As a distinguished graduate of Beauty Queen School, Sarah Palin, ( ) presents ( ) pauses ( ) perfectly. Governor Palin has a uniquely conservative approach to pausing. That means she relies heavily on the strategic (sometimes called the strategery) pause ( ) with an occasional sprinkling of the dramatic ( ) ( ) but, the Governor never goes OTT ( ) ( ) ( ). For example, let’s look at the following sentence familiar to all of us because she has used it in every speech she has given in the last three weeks: “And on that bridge to nowhere? ( ) I said ( ) thanks, ( ) but no, thanks.” Judicious. This sentence was so well delivered that everyone who heard it thought it was actually true. But as some of us know pauses have no real bearing one way or the other on reality. Pauses are intended instead to make the speaker sound convincing and the message sound “just like ( ) the truth.” Beauty Queen School graduates know this about pauses. They also know that using OTT pauses ( ) ( ) ( ) can make you sound insipid, ( ) ( ) ( ) dim, ( ) ( ) ( ) trite, ( ) ( ) ( ) superficial, ( ) ( ) ( ) or ( ) at the very least ( ) ( ) ( ) inept. They avoid them like the plague. There is a lot to be learned about public speaking in Beauty Queen School.
On the other hand, it does not appear to me that Tina Fey has ever been anywhere near Beauty Queen School. She lives in the world of OTT. Fey uses elongated, ( ) ( ) ( ) exaggerated ( ) ( ) ( ) pauses ( ) ( ) ( ) with absolutely no regard for pause regulation of any kind. It is obvious that Tina did not spend much time practicing her pausing technique and she seems to have absolutely no idea of the negative impact this has on her audience. My bet is she probably thinks that someone else (like the free market) will step in and take care of things. That’s ( ) naïve ( ) at best.
The second area critical to success in political public speaking has to do with touching others on the stage. Beauty Queen School graduates are well trained in this area. Tina Fey is not. I was shocked to see the way Tina manhandled Her Royal Highness, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Watching a mere Governor treat a distinguished Senator like that: Appalling! When it comes to platform touching there is only one rule. Don’t do it. You would never see Sarah Palin pawing her podium partner. Like her pauses, Sarah’s touching is perfect—brief hug, air kiss, pat, pat, pat. In Beauty Queen School there is an entire week-long module devoted to this exact touching technique. So, Tina, ( ) ( ) if you want ( ) to win this election, ( ) no ( ) touching ( ) ( ) ( ) ever.
Who is the better speaker? There is no winner yet, but stay tuned for the next installment. Meanwhile, here are my recommendations for each VP candidate: Sarah, I want to make sure you understand that those perfect pauses and airy kisses won’t help you execute on foreign policy, education, climate change or our now perilous economy but they will help us think you know what you’re doing. So keep using them. And Tina, a few weeks at Beauty Queen School would not be a waste of your time.
By the way, you can watch Tina Fey’s Spoof on Sarah Palin / Hillary Clinton:
It is hard to imagine a speaker alive today who moves an audience as easily as Bill Clinton. When I saw him on TV tonight at the Democratic National Convention, I felt as though he had a “crowd control” button under the podium. At will he could hit that button and send the crowd afloat swooning toward the stage, reaching right across that platform and eating out of his large, smart hands. It was fascinating to watch.
Bill Clinton’s speech was exemplary. It was the kind of speech where every short sentence could be quoted because every single word was perfect. His message had “snap,” not only because he has snap but also because he used every technique in the book: concise sentences—never more than 13 words; crisp phrases using just 4 or 5 words. His pauses were powerful, strategic, and dramatic, sometimes occurring after every single word. More information was transferred in those frequent, extended pauses than paragraphs of wordy text could have ever conveyed.
Bill Clinton understands that those pauses were a gift to us—they gave us time to get involved in his message and to trust, to reflect, and to adore. When he smiled, he lifted his eyebrows to his hairline. When he nodded at us, we felt like we were in his living room. Those gestures—his big sweeping arms moving far away from his torso and then closer to his chest—were sharp, active, forceful, and always on message. And best of all was hearing his incredible vocal resonance. He used an easy melodious pitch range reaching all eight notes on the musical scale from high to low and back again.
All this looks so natural and easy for him, but Bill Clinton is a technique machine. Every breath, every pause, every raised eyebrow, every inflected word, every pitch change is well thought out and carefully rehearsed. And while he may well be “unconsciously competent” and have muscle memory as strong as an Olympic athlete, he did not come out of the womb with these skills. He has worked for decades to refine and polish his speech delivery. We have a model in our training program that teaches people to Create Performance Combustion. Bill Clinton did it tonight by using every skill in the book with perfection.
My clients sometimes ask me, “Angela, is it really possible to become a powerful and elegant public speaker? Aren’t those outcomes mutually exclusive? Don’t those qualities collide?”
Well, it is a privilege to inaugurate my new web site and blog by writing about Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. Her incredible performance was a great example of just how power and elegance work together to ignite an audience and inspire action.
I have been a strident Hillary supporter for a long time, committed to helping her succeed in becoming the first woman president of the United States. This is partly a personal mission for me, having grown up in Washington, D.C. amidst the excitement and pageantry of politics—and where from a very early age I wondered out loud, “Why has there never been a woman president?” So I watched her speak tonight with two minds—one belonged to the perplexed little girl who still wonders why, and one to the professional speech coach looking for an example of a great speaker.
Hillary did everything right tonight. She began with a beautifully written speech and then delivered it with nothing less than presidential poise and power. She did what I coach my clients to do—she used her body and voice to create power and elegance. She stood erect with both feet planted under her hips so that her posture projected strength and vigor. She used a variety of gestures that were well-coordinated with her message—symmetrical and asymmetrical, high and low, sharp and smooth. All this gave us the impression of a woman who was completely relaxed and comfortable on this grand stage speaking in front of thousands.
I have seen Hillary speak many times before and sometimes her face has looked less enthusiastic, but tonight she sparkled. She smiled, she nodded, and best of all she used the facial technique that her husband uses so well—raised eyebrows! When she raised those eyebrows and smiled with all her teeth, she looked warm, friendly, and fully alive!
But best of all I loved hearing her forceful voice—the Hillary Clinton signature. She paused with greater intention and used more inflection. She even used higher pitch levels, which she rarely does. The combination of these vocal skills coupled with her strong physical presence reached right into our hearts and minds. I liked that.
The pundits kept saying “she hit it out of the park.” I will leave the sports metaphors to them. To me she delivered a set of twins—power and elegance, as only a woman of her stature can.
A smile is the universal sign of friendship. It cuts across all cultures, all ages, and all genders. In public speaking it is one sure way to bridge the gap between speaker and audience. But when I coach my clients to smile, they often resist. They tell me that they “just don’t smile” or that “smiling is frowned upon in a business presentation.” To this, I say, “Nonsense!
I heard a great smile story recently. At the Olympics, thousands of people competed to fill volunteer positions as good will ambassadors. Once selected, their job was to walk through the streets of Beijing spreading peace, joy, calm, and happiness. Like all emissaries they were trained to be poised—to stand erect and with dignity, to move slowly and gracefully, to tilt and nod their heads, and most important, to smile.
As it turned out, the smile training was the most rigorous. The volunteers practiced many days and many hours rehearsing this one smile technique: to show just eight teeth. How did they practice this perfect smile? By holding a chop stick in their mouth until they got it right. I don’t use that technique in my work with clients (at least not yet!), but I do encourage my clients to practice their smile so that when they stand up in front of a group their smile is ready to bridge the gap between them and their audience.
And if you want to show more than eight teeth—you have my blessing.
