What We Can Learn from Great Political Speakers

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The worlds of business and politics might seem worlds apart, but executives can learn a lot from the most successful political communicators. Terry Szuplat spent several years on the speechwriting team for President Barack Obama, helping to carefully craft his messages and win over audiences. He has gone on to coach business leaders including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and he says that many of the same principles for good speechwriting and delivery apply - whether you’re giving a presentation to your team, pitching a client, or making comments in a moment of crisis. He explains the importance of authenticity and personal stories, structure, language choice and presence. Szuplat is the author of the book Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Got 30 minutes?
0:02.0	Join Capital Group CEO Mike Gittlin for a new monthly edition of the Capital Ideas
0:07.2	podcast brought to you by Capital Group, home of American Funds Distributors Inc.
0:12.0	subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Home of American Funds Distributors, Inc.
0:12.6	Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBRIDICAST from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.
0:33.0	In the political world, success often depends on being an inspirational public speaker and we all know a good speech when we hear one
0:47.8	2,000 years ago the proud of post war
1:07.0	Key with Romana. The proudest post was Keywish Romanes Thumb. Today in the world of freedom the proudest post is is being a ghillin' up. Mr Gerberchhoff
1:11.0	tear down this wall. And that means that when I said the fate of the
1:19.0	Republic rests on you I wasn't joking but that shouldn't make you fearful, that should make you
1:25.2	excited. It's not often where you can move the arc of history.
1:30.0	Now, your next conference talk or all staff presentation might not seem comparable to a
1:35.2	presidential address but our guest today says there's a lot business leaders can learn from
1:39.8	the most talented political speechmakers about how to effectively communicate
1:43.8	persuade and captivate an audience. Terry Zuplat was a speechwriter for President
1:48.9	Obama and now teaches at American University. He's also a keynote speaker and trainer and has helped many
1:54.7	executives, including sales forces Mark Binney off to hone their public speaking skills.
1:59.9	He wrote the book, Say It Well, Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, inspire any audience.
2:05.0	Terry, thanks for being here.
2:07.0	Thanks so much for having me.
2:08.0	First question, is public speaking really as an important, a skill for business
2:17.8	leaders to master as it is for politicians? Like do we all really need to be good at this to succeed in the corporate world?
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -189 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.