Lessons from a Failure of a High Stakes Speech

"The reporter asked, 'why did you play so hard'"
"Because there might have been somebody in the stands today who'd never seen my play before, and might never see me again."
-Joe DiMaggio

I wrote this blog is to show how risky it is to give a high-stakes speech. We could fall into a trap by trying to make this speech great by not being credible and authentic. The proof of this was the speech recently given by the Senator of Alabama, Katie Britt, to respond to President Biden's State of the Union (SOTU).

Britt tried to make her speech memorable with a solid message supported by content and dramatic performance.  Most had never heard of Britt, but now she is one of the most recognizable senators in the US. We can all learn from Britt's speech and avoid the mistakes she made.

The SOTU response was a very risky speech for Britt. She is new to the Senate and has still not yet given a formal speech on the Senate floor, yet she was put on one of the biggest stages (the kitchen, in her case) to respond to the SOTU. The Republican party put her in a very difficult situation. She was given a script and asked to make it come alive with a memorable performance. The performance was certainly memorable, but for the wrong reasons.

All speeches have three basic elements: Message, Content, and Performance, which I cover in my book "Winning Speech Moments."

Before I briefly go into each speech element, the number one rule of giving a speech is not to draw attention to anything that will distract from your message. Britt did not follow this rule and brought attention to things that distracted from her message.  

Message
Britt did have a message. She is giving a response to the SOTU speech, so understandably, it will be partisan. Britt's message was that "President Biden just doesn't get it. He's out of touch. Under his administration, families are worse off. Our communities are less safe, and our country is less secure." Now, she had to ensure that her content supported this message with a steady performance.

Content
The content supported her message by showing that America is in trouble because of President Joe Biden's age, incompetence, and ineffectual leadership. She focused on the American Dream slipping away for many Americans, the border crisis created by President Biden's many executive orders, the failure of the Bidenomics that has caused the inflation to go up, wars brought on by President Biden's foreign policies, the weakness in dealing with China, the influx of fentanyl causing deaths, and overall hopelessness in America. 

Now, if she had put together a decent performance, she would not be famous, and her speech would have been soon be forgotten. Unfortunately, Britt's speech was more memorable than Biden's SOTU speech—and again for the wrong reasons.

On thing in her speech that hurt her credibility was the story she told. Britt told a misleading story about a sex trafficking victim to criticize Biden's border policies. There were two things wrong with this horrific story: One, the woman was abused in Mexico; two, the abuse took place a decade before Biden became president. You can't do that with any speech, let alone a high-stakes speech like the response to the SOTU. Not only will your credibility be destroyed, but perhaps your career, too.

Stories are very important to get your message across, provided they are true.  But with the publicity Britt has received with her misleading story, people will now ask when a story is used in a speech if they just got "britted." 

Performance
Another thing that hurt Britt's speech was her over dramatic performance.  You may have the message and deliver the content without misleading stories. However, you must still provide a performance that supports your message and content. This is where things uravel quickly.
Britt's performance was theatrical at various points in her speech. We were unsure who she was. Was she a senator or a concerned mom? Yes, she is a mom, but the reason she was giving the response was because she is a senator. She is supposed to have insight into policies that a typical mom would not have. Britt did not offer any insights supported by facts; hence, was left with a script where she was a senator acting like a mom in her kitchen, which made her performance unbelievable. She made people think too hard, which is something you don't want to do in any speech.

If you want to give a good speech, leave the acting and comedy to professionals. As I write in my book, you want to err on giving a "smash mouth" speech and don't try to be over the top and gimicky. Your job is to get the message across so people will remember that and nothing else. Be careful with your clothing, jewelry, and stagecraft. You are there to convey a message, not acting in a Hollywood studio. You want convey your message so people can then tell others what your message was. 

Now, I am not saying that Britt's performance had to be boring, but it had to be calibrated based on the stakes at hand. This is a high-stakes speech that very few remember unless it is awful. A lot of damage was done to Britt's credibility and her being a serious senator.

Britt's speech is a learning lesson for all of us.  Giving a high-stakes speech is hard, so don't add more complexity. Getting a base hit is good. But if you try for a home run, you are more likely to strike out.
Here are three simple rules to follow when you are giving a high-stakes speech:

• Nail the message
• Ensure that the content supports your message
• Be yourself

This sounds easy, but as you can see people often try to do too much to a speech and it does not go well. 

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Time is Money, Communication is Wealth

​I guide people succeed when they must win, such as getting a good job, advancing in career or winning a sales deal.
I wrote a practical, no-nonsense book on winning titled Winning Speech Moments: How to Achieve Your Objective with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. 

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