Let the women speak feature
Lindsay Williams

Let the Women Speak

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We have a new Prime Minister – the third UK female prime minister. Some will love her, others will hate her, but it it’s another step forward for equality of opportunity in the UK.

Let the Women Speak That said, and despite the recent diversity on UK front benches, we are still missing out on hearing the voices of women in public life. So many women of substance, not just here but worldwide, hold back because they are surprisingly under-confident.

I recently trained a 30-something woman, online from Tokyo.

‘Is English your first or second language?’ I asked. I couldn’t tell.

‘It’s my fourth’ she replied. Without giving too much away, this woman is an authority on hydrogen power and also on the challenges of greening the global steel industry. She has a job with a clear purpose, to help ensure the international community tackles the climate crisis.

Why was I training her? Because she was an underconfident speaker! A woman with so much to offer, so many reasons to call herself an expert, nevertheless felt somehow not good enough.

I do not consider myself a card-carrying feminist, but this impressive woman is not alone. I regularly train amazing women who are, nevertheless, self-conscious or underconfident about their ability to communicate publicly.

Over the last 20 years I have run hundreds of media and presentation training sessions with the United Nations and I can remember literally dozens of amazing women, from many countries, that were similarly drop-dead impressive but underconfident about speaking publicly. I remember an extraordinary woman from Djibouti – I can picture her now – who was in a very senior public role and much loved by her colleagues, but who was underconfident about speaking in public. I remember an Indian woman who I predicted could be Prime Minister one day if only she could start to enjoy the limelight. In the Middle East there were an impressive number of capable, educated and informed women, who rarely spoke in meetings.

I could go on. I have found similarly impressive women, from very diverse backgrounds,  in investment banking, legal firms and above all not-for-profit think-tanks; all of whom have so much to say and so much to give, but hold themselves back.

A lot of these women are painfully self-conscious about the way they look. They worry about their hair (up or down? parted left or right?) they touch their faces, they use all sorts of body language that communicates subservience or discomfort. These things can typically be easily tackled with a couple of hours of coaching and a video camera, but it is sad and puzzling that it is necessary.

Of course, there are amazing men similarly afflicted with nerves but with 20 years of corporate training behind me, I can tell you I come across them less often.

I am not alone in noticing this. Dana Rubin, a US speaking coach, is doing a great job on LinkedIn reminding us of impressive women speakers from the past with her Speaking While Female Speech Bank. And I recently came across this article from Mette Johansson, another corporate coach who has a lot of experience in Asia, and who set up an Asian Women’s Speakers Bureau. Both campaign to encourage more women speakers on industry panels.

In the UK there are plenty of impressive women on TikTok telling us how to do our make-up but not nearly enough telling us how to build a fairer more inclusive society, or tackle climate change.

When women reach their potential, everyone benefits. This is now beginning to be understood. By the end of the century, I predict it will be as obvious as the idea that diversity brings better decision making. [If this idea is new to you Melinda Gates’ book The Moment of Lift is an easy-to-read introduction].

Few speakers, women or men, look or sound perfect, certainly not at the start of their career. The UK’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has herself acknowledged presentation is not always her strong point. But she hasn’t let it stop her.

My question is, how can we help more young women feel confident enough to speak out?

Quick-fire questions feature
Eric Dixon

Quick-Fire Questions; Long-Term Consequences

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In a series of rapid questions to Liz Truss during the Tory leadership hustings, one was only five words long. And her initial answer was even shorter, even if her supplementary response added some context (1:46:39 in).

Julia Hartley-Brewer: President Macron: friend or foe?

Liz Truss: The jury’s out (applause). But if I become Prime Minister I would judge him on deeds, not words.

 

 

The brevity of the interaction was put into contrast by the acres of newsprint and hours of radio and TV time which followed, in the form of comment and analysis over the Bank Holiday weekend – much of it unfavourable.

From a media training perspective, this Q&A is useful because it illustrates three important points to keep in mind for any future interviews in which you are involved.

  1. You can go off-menu

When an interviewer offers a series of potential responses (in this case, “friend or foe?”), never feel that you are restricted to the options given. Often, the choices you are being offered are unhelpful because they either over-simplify the situation or limit your reply to a binary choice, when a better answer would be more nuanced. Remember – you can always come up with a reply of your own, add extra details, or suggest that the truth is a combination of some or all of the options outlined.

  1. Maintain perspective

Having said that, the answer Truss gave was risky. She may not yet be Prime Minister, but she is Foreign Secretary. So, her response is going to make an impact on the global stage. At a time of conflict in Ukraine, with international involvement, it could be considered tactless and inflammatory to suggest that a close and long-standing ally is anything other than a friend – particularly when the obvious foe is the one attacking a sovereign country. Worse, this is a ‘sizzled’ expression, using a powerful metaphor (there is no actual ‘jury’ debating this issue, of course), which makes her response even more quotable. A better media-trained reply would have been something like:

Julia Hartley-Brewer: President Macron: friend or foe?

Liz Truss: A friend, of course. But like many friendships, they are sometimes difficult and need hard graft to make sure that both parties are working together successfully.

By way of illustration, contrast her comments with Macron’s measured – some would say ‘statesmanlike’ – response, saying that if he were asked the question, he wouldn’t hesitate “for a second”:

The United Kingdom is a friend of France… the United Kingdom is a friendly, strong and allied nation, regardless of its leaders – and sometimes in spite of its leaders – or the little mistakes they may make in grandstanding.

So, if Truss does, as expected, become PM, that first meeting between the two leaders is going to have been made unnecessarily awkward as a result.

Quick-fire questions

  1. Your most important audience may not be in the room

Tempting though it is to ‘play to the gallery’, a televised debate is always about more than the people in the room with you. They may like what you say, and it’s easy to get spurred-on by their apparent support. However, they may or may not reflect the feelings of your wider intended audience – in this case the Conservative Party as a whole (who will be deciding your fate) or the nation (who you hope to serve).

Coping with questions such as these form part of our media training sessions – find out more here.

As we have seen, a small number of words can have a huge impact. And whilst quick-fire questions may appear simple, the consequences of what you say may stay with you for a long time.

What PR People Will Do For You feature
Lindsay Williams

What PR People Will Do For You and Why You Should Listen

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As a senior leader, your PR team may feel like another species. You may be slightly suspicious that they do not truly back your enthusiasm for something. You may wonder why they are paid so much.

What PR People Will Do For You

The wider world remains sceptical that PR people do anything useful; they tend to be treated as passengers, and in many but not all cases, disrespected by the journalists they work with. Internally, there is a strong tendency to side-line or ignore PR advice, although this is certainly not always true.

In my view, PR people are much maligned. They are essential to protecting and enhancing the reputation of both individuals and brands.

There are many different tasks that fall under the ‘PR’ banner – some more important in one organisation versus another.

Here are five essential things your PR team will do for you:

First and foremost PR people are the antidote to group think. Internally, for most people, it is extremely difficult to understand how something will play in public. Whether that is a decision to change the formula of a product, make some grand ESG commitments or agree to a profile interview with a mainstream newspaper.

What may sound like a reasonable, logical argument to a business leader, can be ‘taken out of context’ and used to prove the individual is out of touch or a villain, by a clever journalist. Your PR advisor is the person who will always warn you.

Recent examples of people who either did not consult or ignored PR advice:

Stuart Kirk at HSBC – ‘Who cares if Miami is under water in 100 years’ time’

BoE Governor Andrew Bailey – who agreed (rather than said) that people should modify their pay demands to
help fight inflation.

Secondly, good PR people know their journalists. They have extensive knowledge of and often personal or professional relationships with the journalists that you as the interviewee, are likely to meet once in your lifetime. This has a whole host of benefits from being able to predict how a journalist will react based on what they have written before, but also more influence if there is a misspeak that your organisation would prefer did not make it into print. No one can guarantee a damaging quote can be neutralised, but there is a better chance if there is already a relationship in place.

Thirdly, if you want good news to get out there, you will need someone who can work out what will interest either a journalist or journalists in general. A shiny new policy may be an important step-change for you and your organisation, but it’s unlikely a journalist will recognise or care without a clear explanation and some proof points.

What PR People Will Do For You

Fourthly, there is the strategy. Do you speak to one journalist or many and if many in what order? Do you release information under embargo, or drip it into the market? Do you provide an exclusive interview or spend all morning dealing with one journalist after another? Do you do print and web interviews but not broadcast, or trade interviews but not bother to try with mainstream media? Do you have a different set of messages for trade press compared to Bloomberg TV? This is what you pay your PR person to advise on.

Fifth, and perhaps least important, the PR people write the words. They check the facts, find the real numbers and get them signed off. Often, they will write the quotes. In short, they will do all the work that takes a general idea and transitions it into a signed-off press release or executive summary on Twitter.

Good PR people have to be able to ‘speak truth unto power’: good leaders have to recognise that PR is a professional skill that is always worth paying attention to.

I am sure I have missed some other really important things PR people do … let me know below or on LinkedIn.

Images from: 123rf.com

Truss v. Sunak Takeaway Lessons
Lindsay Williams

Truss v. Sunak: Takeaway Lessons

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Plenty of others are commenting on the political implications and the relative merits of the two candidates for party leader and prime minister in last night’s debate.

As you’d expect, I was watching with a more specialist lens. Before going further, I would say these debates are incredibly difficult for the candidates and a small misspeak could cost them the contest, so the stakes are very high. And actually, I thought both of them did pretty well.

Of the two, I think Sunak came across more polished and mostly more likeable but like others, his excessive interrupting and talking over his rival in the first 15-20 minutes played very badly with me.

By the end, I felt Truss who stayed calm and performed consistently throughout, never-the-less, knew that Sunak had outdone her and very interestingly said ‘I may not be the best presenter but I get things done’. I thought that was a smart thing to say and it stuck with me. Apparently, she has said this several times before so it is not a new line.

In terms of lessons for other presenters in less pressurised environments:

Don’t be rude! Whilst the odd, interruption or forceful disagreement on a particular point (to ensure it doesn’t go unchallenged) will be forgiven, constantly trying to hog the airtime is definitely bad manners and does not show anyone in a good light. Commentators have described it as bullying which is not a good look for a leader.

[There was also a lot of sexist reaction to this on Twitter and later on BBC Five Live with some saying Sunak ‘shouldn’t interrupt a woman’. One Truss supporter described his behaviour  as ‘mansplaining’  – which I gather means being patronising, or man-splaying which is what I heard and I thought was a metaphor for taking too much of the metaphorical space or time. Either way, this is sexist tosh. Is anyone seriously suggesting that a male candidate should treat a female rival with more deference than he would a male contender!]

We often talk about the need for warmth in a presenter. I feel Truss lacks warmth and charm. She is very focussed and last night was very frowny, perhaps genuinely confused by Sunak’s uncharacteristic aggression. I had never thought of it before, but I will now add ‘don’t frown’ to my list of things to say to presenters when reacting to an opposing point of view. You want to indicate that you disagree without, I think, showing internal distress.

I favour a shake of the head and a sad smile of recognition; more of ‘I’ve heard this before and you are still wrong’ than ‘what the hell are you talking about’.

‘Use metaphors and be quotable’ is always on my list of how to be a good public speaker. Sunak had the best soundbites of the night, without a doubt.

He described tax cuts as a ‘short-term sugar rush …’ and said ‘£40 billion of unfunded tax cuts, that’s £40 billion of borrowing’ (what we call a contrasting pair or see-saw phrase for students of The Media Coach) and then likened it to ‘the country’s credit card’. This use of metaphor is much more memorable than just stating the case as Truss did “Under my plans, we would start paying back the debt in three years’ time, so I’m not putting it on the never-never.”

Connecting with your audience is also on everyone’s list of how to be a good presenter. But in this sort of debate which audience is the one to speak to?

Personally, I thought both, but particularly Truss, spent too much time talking about Stoke-on-Trent. Whilst they were the audience in the room and a couple of mentions would be a good idea, no one was under any illusion that this was not the audience that counted. The audience that mattered were Conservative party members in the country. Mis-analysing the audience is a mistake on many levels but crucially in this case it did not sound authentic from either of them.

Providing some personal details is also important if you are seeking to persuade or lead. People need to know where you are coming from. Both shoe-horned in enough of their personal story to satisfy this.  Sunak mentioned more than once helping his mother with the accounts of her pharmacy in Southampton and Truss talked again about her schooling in Leeds.  They both sounded genuine and did this better than many other politicians have done.  Authenticity counts for a lot and is one of the subconscious scorecards that is so difficult to read as a performer.

And talking of subconscious judgements, what I saw was Sunak just a lot more comfortable than Truss. He mostly looked as if he was really enjoying himself, whereas she looked grim. As an audience, it is much more pleasurable if the presenter is having fun. It’s difficult to teach this and is something that really only comes from the experience of public speaking.

Trust is a really big issue in this contest and, of the two, Truss answered questions in a much more straightforward way than Sunak. On several occasions, it was obvious Sunak was sidestepping, whereas Truss was more direct. I have seen Truss dodge many questions in other interviews but last night she made a real effort to be direct, perhaps betting that any obvious obfuscation would have played badly. In our Media Training, we constantly stress you must address the questions of a journalist even if you don’t want to give a full and detailed answer. If you don’t you lose trust.

If you face a challenging public speaking event, consider personal coaching to help you address all considerations and all options for coming across as you would wish. Clients repeatedly tell us, that just a few hours of coaching can make a huge difference.

 

 

 

Eric Dixon

Mind the gap – getting rid of “Ums” and “Ers”

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As a voice coach, one of the most frequently asked questions I receive from delegates is how to get rid of their “Ums” and “Ers” when speaking.

They worry that audiences will find them annoying or distracting and that the use of such ‘fillers’ heightens the impression that the speaker is uncertain or nervous – which may be true, but they would prefer not to let it show!

The first thing to say is that in everyday conversation all of us “Um” and “Er” from time to time. They are a standard way of filling in a gap while we think on our feet and these sounds often slip past unnoticed.

However, in a presentation or media interview, using too many of them can get in the way and make a speaker less credible than they would otherwise be.

getting rid of “Ums” and “Ers”

Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

So how can you get rid of them?

Here’s my three-point plan to reducing your dependence on them in the future.

  1. Slow down. If you “Um” or “Er” because you are thinking of what to say next, slowing down can give you that extra time to think while you are speaking, rather than having to pause in order to do so. Obviously, the change in pace should not be too marked, but it’s remarkable how valuable that extra second or two in each sentence can be, to help you formulate how you are going to phrase your next line.
  2. Use short sentences. Most “Ums” and “Ers” occur because the speaker is trying to deal with too much information at once. Making your sentences shorter – perhaps using only a dozen or so words at a time – helps you present what you want to say in bite-size chunks. Usefully, this is also easier for an audience to absorb as well!
  3. Switch off the voice box. Let’s face it: “Ums” and “Ers” are meaningless noises. So actively switching off the voice box (and often just breathing instead) will get rid of them without adversely affecting the content of what you’re saying. Whilst this will take practice, it’s actually easier to do than you might think. Here’s how:
  • Take the word ‘bid’, for example. When we say this word, every single sound is voiced – from the ‘b’, through the ‘i’ (all vowels are voiced anyway), to the ‘d’. If you put your fingers on your voice box, you can feel the vibration it is making throughout its entire length.
  • Contrast this with the word ‘pit’. To say it, you have to switch off the voice box for the first sound, the ‘p’, then switch it back on for the vowel, then off again for the ‘t’. Everything else you do with your breathing, tongue position, lips, mouth cavity is exactly the same as when you voiced the word ‘bid’. Putting your fingers on your voice box this time will demonstrate that the vibration only kicks-in for the vowel sound.
  • My point is that if you are able to switch the voice box off and on within a word, you can certainly do it between words – which is where the “Ums” and “Ers” creep in. Try breathing in the gap instead. Crucially, such pauses between words need be no longer than if they were filled with an “Um” or an “Er”, but you will sound much less hesitant. In fact, this new way of pausing (sometimes accompanied by a breath) can now suggest you are carefully searching for the precise word to use and can actually add to your authority!

I’m surprised that some voice coaches suggest getting rid of “Ums” and “Ers” involves just closing your mouth as you finish each sentence. But as “Ums” and “Ers” often occur in the middle of sentences, it’s not as simple as that. Also, you can still make the sound “Um” with your mouth closed (try it!)  – indeed, the ‘m’ part of the sound actually requires the mouth to be closed, so this doesn’t seem to be much help either. It’s about the voice box, not the lips.

In short, don’t worry too much about “Ums” and “Ers” if they are occasional. But if they are cropping up too often in your presentations or interviews, you need to take action.

To misquote Alexander Pope: to “Er” may be human – but getting rid of “Ers” is divine!

Johnson's resignation
Lindsay Williams

The Short Goodbye

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Whatever you think of the political reality, and the extraordinary events that led to more than 50 ministers resigning from his government, Boris Johnson’s resignation statement was well written and – given the circumstances – extremely well delivered.

It was also short and to the point.

For those of us who present or speak in public one of the first things to learn is: less is more. At the end of hours of political chaos – and for the Johnson camp, one body blow after another– it culminated in six minutes of well-chosen words which:

  • Confirmed he was going (eventually), and updated the world on the agreed procedure to find a successor
  • Reminded everyone that under his leadership the Conservative party won the 2019 general election with a very large majority
  • In 72 words summed up the achievements he is proud of: Brexit, vaccine roll-out, exit from lockdown, ‘leading the west’ standing up to Russia
  • Reminding everyone of the levelling up agenda
  • A swipe at colleagues for their ‘herd mentality’
  • Thanking his family, the party, the civil service and emergency services and special mention for the special protection force (with the pointed observation, they are the one unit that never ever leak)
  • And finally ending on an upbeat note about how great the British people are

That is a long list for a short speech. The full transcript is here.

Others have already commented on the lack of apology and the disconnect from reality: the statement had no mention of the partygate scandal, the constant allegations of lying, and so on. It is clear to me that there was a very good reason for that…from Johnson’s point of view there was nothing to be gained from giving the media or history another round of negativity. Had Johnson apologised again or mentioned the handling of the Chris Pincher affair, that would have been the headline. He knew what he was doing.

In writing that short speech Johnson had one goal. No further negative headlines, remind everyone of the positives. Having a clear goal makes the writing much simpler.

Relentless focus are at the core of running anything well, and yet this most fundamental of disciplines is rarely applied to the words we use.

In both presentation and media training, our trainers will ask what people want to achieve in their interviews or in their talks. It is surprising how many of those we coach do not have a clear answer to that question.  Many warn us that they have a tendency to ‘waffle on’, ‘say too much’ or say the same thing ‘several times in several different ways’. But they don’t connect that to the lack of a clearly defined objective.

The skills of journalists put them ahead of the norm on this point. Print journalists count the words they type, and constantly cut words and paragraphs to tighten the writing. They also deliver to very tight deadlines. Broadcasting teaches you to think in seconds. Broadcasters all know the average talking speed when reading a script, is three words per second. If in doubt we time it. Seconds matter in broadcasting.

Economy of words is an undervalued discipline.

 

Image: YouTube

dont like the sound of your own voice feature
Lindsay Williams

Don’t Like the Sound of Your Own Voice: You Are Not Alone.

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Why is it that we cringe when we hear a recording of ourselves?

It’s because you normally hear yourself speak from inside your own head. You are used to hearing your voice before it fully escapes your skull. It is only when it is a recording that you hear it as others do.

The good news is that everyone else already knows what you sound like, it’s only you that is taken aback!

Regional accents also take their owners by surprise. ‘I sound so Essex/ Birmingham/ Yorkshire’ is another common reaction we get on playback of role-play presentations or interviews.

I personally love regional accents, provided they are not so strong I can’t understand what is being said. I think the variety and distinctiveness is entirely positive for anyone giving a presentation or a media interview.

There used to be a prejudice against strong regional accents or foreign accents on the BBC, but this was already falling away when I worked there 30 years ago. Now they are positively encouraged.

Neil Nunes was not universally popular when he first appeared as a continuity announcer on Radio 4, but I have always loved hearing his voice. He is now a regular news reader, instantly recognisable with a deep voice and a Jamaican accent.

Don’t Like the Sound of Your Own Voice

Neil Nunes’ unusual voice initially caused controversy when he started on BBC Radio 4, but now he is a regular presenter of the evening news.

In 1994 while at the BBC, I argued and won for the then unknown Adrian Chiles, with his Birmingham accent, to present our new business show Wake up to Money on Radio 5 Live.  I felt his voice was usefully different and gave him authenticity, while giving the show a distinctive personality. (He was also a very hard-working and brilliant presenter.) Adrian was a huge success and almost immediately snapped up by our rivals at Television Centre. Business news is easily thought of as stuffy, and a regional accent freshened it up. It’s a formula followed many times since, notably with Steph McGovern. In this video, Steph herself explains how being northern with a good strong accent has been her unique selling point.

Those speaking a second language also worry about their accent. Again, I think it works in the favour of the speaker, provided the argument is clear.

Most of us are familiar with research that says some regional accents are trusted more than others. This is an issue debated in the world of marketing. The paragraph below comes from the website of an outsourcing consultancy About Match.

In recent years the number of businesses adopting regional accents for their adverts and contact centre services has witnessed a sharp increase. A PH Media Group survey uncovered a recent 27% rise in UK companies using accents in on-hold (telephone) marketing. Of the total, 37% said they deliberately adopted a particular accent to reinforce their brand’s identity. The survey explored associations people have with certain accents, uncovering that Scottish is perceived as trustworthy and reassuring, while Manchester is seen as industrious and creative.

Yorkshire is an accent perceived as wise and honest – a good reason for Broadband supplier Plusnet to feature a Yorkshireman in their TV campaign. Also, the accent is a nod to the brand’s Yorkshire routes, helping to reinforce its identity.

Another ‘hang up’ about the way your voice sounds may be related to class. Whilst we are not such a class-ridden society as we were, there is still plenty of unconscious and conscious biases related to class as seen in this Reuters report on branding and accents. But the world is changing fast and all of us working today are being told to step aside from those snap judgements. Accept people for what they are and the talents they bring.

I have a strong hunch that often it is an individual’s perception of class bias, rather than the real bias of any audience that causes the most damage.  Don’t let your accent be an excuse to hide your talent.

You can, of course, change the way you sound but it takes time and work. In my book, it is much easier to own the way you speak and use it.

My advice to all presenters or media interviewees is to embrace who you are. Provided any audience clearly understands you, your voice is an asset, as individual as your face. Being distinctive is valuable. Provided you get everything else right – interesting, useful presentation, entertaining, informative interview – the way you talk will just be enjoyed and, if you are lucky, remembered.

The Media Coach team always feels it is a privilege to work with underconfident individuals who have a message to get out there. Sign up for our bespoke Presentation Training or Personal Impact Training and challenge us to transform you from shrinking violet to sunflower.

Mick Lynch Feature
Lindsay Williams

The Mick Lynch Style: Not Recommended

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Mick Lynch, leader of the RMT, has emerged as one of the most articulate political voices for a generation.

Mick Lynch

His robust interview style and the confidence to respond witheringly to journalists’ questions are winning him fans in the most unlikely places. Perhaps because people are, in general, fed up with the chatter of the chattering classes.

But while I am dead impressed, I would not recommend this interview to style to others.

Before explaining why, I would like to emphasise a key point that I have not read elsewhere.  It is Lynch’s stand-out ability to abstract simple headlines from detail, that is really impressive.

When you hear Lynch speak you think the argument he is making is very simple and straightforward. This is never the case. Behind the scenes Lynch, like every professional, has huge amounts of information, nuance and political – with a small p and a capital P – pressure to navigate. Not to mention lots of numbers to remember: inflation rates, historic pay increases, etc.

His unique talent is to be able to distil everything down to instantly understandable and reasonable-sounding nuggets suitable for the media: ‘This would all be much simpler if the government got round the table’ or ‘We want a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies and then we’ll talk’, etc. It is the simplicity and clarity of his message that is his number one skill.

Second to that, is his ability to come up with a robust response to whatever random or unexpected line the journalist pursues. From ‘Are you a Marxist?’ (Good Morning Britain’s Richard Madeley) to ‘Why do you choose an evil character from Thunderbirds as your Facebook profile picture’ (Piers Morgan). (All the Thunderbirds stuff is 11 minutes into the interview). Or in another interview ‘One doctor says the rail strike is disrupting the treatment of cancer patients, and people will die.’

 

Lynch is always robust in his responses and shows barely disguised irritation.

‘You do come up with some twaddle, Richard.’

‘I can’t believe this line of questioning’

‘We run a picket line. We’ll ask people not to go to work. Do you not know how a picket line works?’

In the Piers Morgan interview there is a great deal of back and forwards about relative pay rates. Morgan asks Lynch – ‘are you a millionaire?’ For example, and then several minutes on comparing Lynch to the aforementioned Thunderbirds character, an evil mastermind wreaking havoc on society. Most comments I saw suggest Lynch came out better in all this.

Mick Lynch

As a media trainer, I would say Lynch enjoys winding up journalists a little too much. And in each interview, there is a lot more of the trading blows with journalists than there is substance about the RMT case.

To date, Lynch’s tactics have played well with his audience, but that is not a guaranteed outcome. If you are tempted to call out a journalist for a stupid question, I would think twice. Most people would not be able to do this as effectively as Lynch and journalists love an on-air fight.  It’s good for the ratings and remember, live on-air in a studio, broadcasters are in their comfort zone, the interviewee rarely is. From a media training point of view, the danger is too much of the airtime and too much of the attention is on the cat and mouse of the interview, rather than the issues to hand.

So, while this strategy is working for Lynch, I will stick with my advice of not getting into a ping-pong with a journalist on-air, however annoying they are. Keep your cool, respond briefly and dismissively and then get to the point you want to make.

Plenty of others have commented on the Lynch Media Style – and other interviews are cited as evidence. Here is a list of a few of them.

Guardian news 23rd June

Guardian Comment 23rd June

New Statesman 22nd June

The Mirror … praise of Lynch from Gary Lineker

And on Twitter, Politics Joe has put together a bunch of Mick Lynch clips that tell you all you need to know in one hit.

 

 

 

In defence of clichés feature
Lindsay Williams

In Defence of Clichés

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Clients often express horror and disgust at the idea of using a cliché in an interview. They feel, as serious professionals, that they should not be using what they see as trite, overused and near meaningless phrases to talk about their important issues.

Well, there are some clichés I hate and would never use but in general, I find clichés very useful.

In defence of clichés

Divided team

This is a subject that divides Media Coach trainers. Some of these professional wordsmiths, whose writing skills were honed at Reuters and the BBC, are reluctant to write anything that might be seen as ‘lazy’. Others, like me, are delighted when technical arguments can be turned into colloquial language that anyone would instantly understand.

Arrogance

A knee-jerk dismissal of clichés is, for me, an arrogance of the chattering classes.  Clichés communicate meaning quickly and in a way that is familiar and inclined to provoke empathy. Clearly, that is not true if it is your pet hate cliché. Mine is ‘at the end of the day’ which I once counted 17 times in one interview on Radio 4.  I gather I am not alone, in a 2009 survey it was named the most annoying cliché ever. But phrases such as:

‘It’s like buses, nothing for an hour then three come all at once’
or
‘Horses for courses’
or
‘There is no one size fits all’
or
‘There’s a time and place for such things’

or

‘It’s a game of two halves’

…all of these are instantly recognised in the UK and communicate meaning very quickly.

Owned by the people

A former colleague and BBC Newsnight Arts Correspondent, Madeleine Holt, says clichés are bad news unless they ‘owned by the people and rooted in our history and common parlance’. She cites ‘don’t rob Peter to pay Paul’ as being a good example. She avoids, in messaging, anything that echoes known ‘spun’ phrases. So ‘Education, Education, Education’ she sees as having strong echoes of the Blair era of spin and therefore to be avoided at all costs. Similarly, we would probably all agree that ‘green shoots of recovery’ should not be used because when Norman Lamont used it he was lying, or perhaps misguided. Either way, the folk memory has negative connotations.

Another former colleague, Laura Shields, who now runs her own training consultancy in Brussels, wrote a whole blog for us on how ‘game-changer’ was a grossly overused and now a meaningless phrase. I happen to completely disagree with her!

Oliver Wates, once a senior editorial figure in Reuters and our go-to person on written style, is inclined to wield the red pen when it comes to clichés. He likes to challenge my use of clichés, particularly in written work.

Despite the prejudices of these very clever people, I will continue to advocate the judicious use of clichés, and why – because I am always seeing my carefully chosen and suggested phrases in the write-up of my clients interviews. Journalists are actually very predictable and rarely turn down a good cliché.

This article is a rewrite of a post on my blog in 2014.

 

 

 

Easy to misspeak feature
Lindsay Williams

It’s So Easy to Misspeak

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As a media trainer, one of my roles is to warn people that it is all too easy to misspeak in public life – with very significant consequences.

I have recently been working with a couple of senior leaders from very different backgrounds who both, in my view, greatly underestimated the danger of misspeaking.

One said: ‘I would be very disappointed is someone took something I said out of context’

Easy to misspeak

As I had to explain: the reality is journalists always take things out of context. A journalist’s job is to sift vast amounts of information and find the nugget that is new, significant or interesting. They never report the full context, if they did no one would ever read what was written or listen to what was broadcast.

Many journalists are very careful and ethical about how they do this, and some are less so. Either way, the risk is significant.

As I was under pressure to evidence this risk, I was prompted to pull together a list of misspeaks that had long-lasting consequences for the person who said them. It is far from a comprehensive list. I would love to hear from people who remember other examples of people casually saying something by accident that hit the headlines and caused a storm.

I was a financial journalist and as a trainer, I am often called on by people in the City of London, so top of my list of famous misspeaks is the one made by former Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.  In 2009 Blankfein famously said to a Sunday Times journalist during an interview in his office, ‘We do God’s work here’. The comment was a joke or irony, but that didn’t stop worldwide portrayal of Blankfein as ‘God’s banker’ and someone who thought he had a divine right to make vast amounts of money.

The Daily Mail article from the time can be read here, but there are hundreds if not thousands of references to this online, many of them dated much more recently.  And that illustrates the danger, once said never forgotten.

easy to misspeak

Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Photograph by Stuart Isett/Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit

More recently, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey was persuaded, in a BBC interview, to agree that people should moderate their wage demands to help limit inflation. His remarks showed him totally out of touch and immediately prompted journalists to point out that the Governor earns half a million a year. The government was pretty cross with him and swiftly distanced themselves from his comments.

You can read the BBC News article here.

I have previously mentioned in a blog (linked here) the case of HSBC’s Stuart Kirk who last month was unnecessarily highly quotable in a presentation about the increasing pressure being put on investment houses by ESG regulation. One phrase that got particular widespread attention was ‘who cares if Miami is under water in 100 years time’. He also said ‘nut jobs’ were always predicting the end of the world, and always wrong. He was, and I think is, suspended from his job as global head of responsible investing.

You can read the BBC News article here.

Sexism is another area where it is easy to misspeak. Many years ago I did a TV profile on Kevin Roberts, an amazing CEO at Saatchi and Saatchi. A few years later he was asked to leave by the board of the parent company Publicis, over sexist remarks he made in an interview with Business Insider. He suggested women in advertising lacked ambition and were happy to just do great creative work.

I blogged about this here and you can read the Guardian article here.

Then there was the Nobel laureate and honorary professor at University College London, Tim Hunt, who made some bad taste joke about women in science. He was at an academic conference in South Korea when he said:

“Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”

Business Insider reported this here.

For me, this was much more offensive than Kevin Robert’s comments. Hunt was 72 at the time and those remarks almost finished his career. Wikipedia tells me he did eventually make a come back to the lecturing circuit but his public humiliation despite an apology was intense.

easy to misspeak

Heather Wheeler MP, Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

And finally, be careful about speaking negatively about towns or cities. Just this week we had a junior cabinet minister, Heather Wheeler, forced to apologise for describing Birmingham and Blackpool as ‘godawful places’. This one probably won’t affect her career but it did give her the sort of headlines no one wants.

You can read the FT article here.

In all cases, these comments came either during an interview or when journalists were known to be present. Despite agreeing that many of these comments were indicative of attitudes I find distasteful, I have a great deal of sympathy for most of these speakers.  The truth is, unless you are trained and experienced in dealing with journalists, it is very easy to misspeak.