Voice of a woman feature
Lindsay Williams

The Voice of a Woman

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One of the best news stories of the year so far, was the return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after 6 years imprisoned or held in Iran.

She and her husband Richard Ratcliffe held a press conference in Westminster, and I was stunned at how composed and articulate she was after her ordeal. And also, how fearless she was in her criticism of the UK Government. She appeared to speak without notes and even disagreed with her husband in public (whilst also thanking him for his incredible campaigning to bring her home).

It would have been completely understandable if Zaghari-Ratcliffe had appeared tearful, and ready to give an Oscar-style thank you speech and no more, but that is clearly not her style.

I particularly noticed this because I am suddenly aware of lots of calls for women to find their voices, be inspired by women in history, and speak more in public.

Voice of a WomanRecently, waiting for a train, I was browsing the book section in Oliver Bonas, a fashion and knickknacks shop. I was stunned to realise I was looking at a shelf and half of the books were about women speakers. From beautiful books about the words of Michelle Obama and Dolly Parton to ‘She Speaks’ Yvette Cooper’s anthology of women’s speeches that changed the world.

I also found comedian Viv Groskop’s book ‘How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking’. Groskop is not looking at the words you use but the mindset you need to acquire, to speak up as a woman. I have found no new tricks in her book, but it is an easy, entertaining read with a clear theme that speaking in public is something you can learn.

Seven years ago, a New York Times article written by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant was headlined ‘Speaking While Female’. It pulled together a raft of evidence that shows often when women do speak up at work they are spoken over or ignored. I wonder if that is true today? I meet so many impressive women it is hard for me to judge.

‘Speaking While Female’ is now the name of one woman’s project to put together a Women’s Speech Bank. American former journalist and now executive coach, Dana Rubin pops up daily on my LinkedIn feed. Her purpose is explained on her website:

Voice of a woman

Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State

Historically women have not been silent, but their words have scarcely been noted in the history books. What they said was seldom valued, recorded, or remembered…..It’s time to change that. Because it wasn’t just “great men” who gave great speeches in history. 

And in the week as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe stepped briefly into the limelight, another slipped out. The world lost Madeleine Albright – the first woman to hold the post of US Secretary of State, who died at 84. “She famously said in an interview with Huffington Post in 2010 “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to remain silent”.

I am privileged in my work to help people including many women, to find their voices: to overcome nerves, to stand proudly facing forwards using a few tricks of the trade to lead an audience through an argument in a way that is clear and memorable. But perhaps there is more that can be done to help under-confident women to develop a voice? Answers on a postcard, please…

 

Images:
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – YouTube
Madeleine Albright -https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madeleine_Albright_(30716699231).jpg
slgckgc, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Rapport Feature
Eric Dixon

Do you know how to build rapport?

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Rapport is that easy-going relationship which good speakers have with their audience, indicating that they understand their world.

But in business presentations, the quality is often as elusive as it is desirable.

Like the concept of gravitas (which we can help with too, by the way), it’s also something that critics suggest presenters try to convey when talking to others – even if they are at a loss when it comes to explaining how to do so.

These three tips are essential:

Engage

The best presenters seize the audience’s attention from the very start, indicating immediately that they understand where their listeners are coming from. Of course, this is considerably easier if you are recognised as “one of them” already.

Take the brilliant Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, carrying out a TED Talk to fellow educationalists in 2013 just before she died. Her opening words did lots of heavy-lifting on her behalf: ‘I have spent my entire life either at the schoolhouse, on the way to the schoolhouse, or talking about what happens in the schoolhouse.’ That sentence also demonstrates clever use of the “power of three” approach and is gently amusing (a genuinely useful quality; the audience’s positive reaction can be heard before the line is finished):


Eye contact helps, it’s true. Pierson manages this admirably – but despite the fact her presentation is in-the-round, even those seated behind her seem to be following her every word. As Terry Wogan, probably the best broadcaster of his generation, proved on his Radio 2 Breakfast Show; rapport doesn’t need a visual connection at all.

Empathise

But what if you as a presenter have little in common with your audience? What if you have little or no connection with their world? Perhaps you don’t even speak their language? None of this need be a barrier to building rapport – as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has demonstrated repeatedly in the last few weeks. When he addressed British politicians in the House of Commons via video link, as his country continued to battle the Russian invasion, he quoted the English bard Shakespeare (‘The question for us now is to be or not to be…’) and echoed Britain’s wartime leader Churchill (‘We will fight in the forest, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets…’). His words eliminated the one-and-a-half-thousand miles between Kyiv and London, and was nothing less than a stroke of genius:

Similarly, when speaking to the US congress, Zelensky made reference to Pearl Harbour and 9/11 and, over the weekend, when addressing Israeli parliament he quoted the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, saying ‘We intend to live, but our neighbours want to see us dead’.

Despite the huge losses to his country and the considerable risks to himself, Zelensky’s ability to take time to strike a chord with each of his separate audiences is remarkable – as my colleague Lindsay Williams points out in a recent interview with Fortune magazine (‘He does what all good public speakers do – he looks at his audience and thinks, “How can I make them relate to me?”):

Enthuse

Finally, rapport is impossible if you are dull. Not only do you need to use simple words (even if you are conveying complex material – indeed, I would argue especially when you are conveying complex material; we call it “coming down the language ladder”), but you should also craft powerful key phrases so that they become more memorable. Using metaphor and simile can both help here (we call it adding “sizzle”). It’s also about using the full bandwidth of stress and emphasis so that – even if you are reading from a script – it sounds like you are having an animated and interesting conversation with your listener by “lifting the script off the page”. Our presentation training course covers these aspects in full.

I am also teaching exactly this, and a few other tricks and tips, to a new generation of broadcasters in my Podcast Training.

So, as you can see, rapport doesn’t need to be that hard-to-pin-down, ethereal quality which many recognise but few can explain. It should be as much a part of your nuts-and-bolts planning as preparing your slides.

And if you are not sure where to start, that is where we can help.

Like everything else in our bespoke training sessions, we convey real-life practical tips; genuine ‘views-you-can-use’, all of them honed after years of experience in the field, where our ideas and methods have been tried and tested against a harsh dose of reality. Although, admittedly, not quite as harsh as a schoolhouse in an under-privileged neighbourhood in the US, or an underground bunker in Kyiv.

weaponising history feature
Lindsay Williams

Stories Leaders Tell

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Three things came together in my head this Monday morning:

  • On BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, I heard a BBC reporter talking about ‘weaponising history’. He was referring to the story, or the narrative, President Putin has crafted around why Ukraine needs to be part of a greater Russia.
  • This reminded me of a very good book by Gavin Esler – Lessons from the Top, Three Universal Stories All Leaders Tell.
  • And this directly sparked a previously missed connection with the Public Narrative Training of Harvard Professor, Marshall Ganz, a version of which is sometimes taught by my former colleague, Laura Shields, in Brussels.

weaponising history

 

Weaponising history is a very interesting phrase. The BBC interviewer, Amol Rajan, was introducing Professor of International Affairs, Nina Khrushcheva from The New School in New York, and together they explored the historical perspective or in other words the ‘stories’ that are motivating Putin and that he is using to justify war, including of course the evidence that Ukrainians and Russian are in fact the same ethnic group. (Interview is on BBC Sounds at 8.52am Monday 14th March)

‘Weaponising history’ is just a way of saying that a leader is telling a story that motivates, inspires or justifies aggression. Whilst it is a great and emotive phrase, the truth is that we have long understood there is not one version of history. To some extent, all leaders do this all the time.

A leader will create a ‘narrative’ – from selected facts, from half facts or (at worst) from fantasy, that influences others. That is what leadership is all about.

So, while we may hate the message, there is nothing new about the tactic.

One of the interesting challenges is that it is easier to make a compelling story out of great battles, do-or die-dilemmas, moments of decisive action, and so on. All the stuff of action movies. Finding wonderful narratives for peace, reason, not over-reacting, and living peacefully with one’s neighbours, is much harder.

weaponising historyGavin Esler’s book Lessons from the Top came out nearly ten years ago. His premise was that there are three stories all leaders must tell: Who am I, who are we, and where are we going together?  He uses examples from Barack Obama, Jack Welch and even Lady Gaga and Angelina Jolie to demonstrate this idea. He doesn’t mention Putin, but he could have done.

At the time, these ideas were new to me, and I thought the book a great read. I actually bought a dozen copies and gave most of them away.

It was a few years later that my former colleague Laura Shields introduced me to Public Narrative Training – as taught originally, I think, by Marshall Ganz; a left-wing thinker and activist. Funnily enough, his thinking is almost exactly the same – I assume Ganz influenced Esler, but I am not sure.

Anyway, Ganz believes any leader must have three strands to their core narrative. Self, Us and Now.

By the way, if you have worked with me and know how I teach the use of a Message House, you can see that these ideas map straight onto a Message House.

weaponising history

Of course, not all leaders chose to do this. Boris Johnson talks little of himself but a great deal about who ‘we the British’ are. Keir Starmer similarly does not have a powerful story about who he is. Margaret Thatcher did, of course; famously often referring often to her father’s grocery shop. One current British politician who comes to mind is David Lammy MP: a man with a rich heritage of Caribbean ancestry, north London immigrant poverty and English Public School. All laid out in his book Tribes. So, some politicians do and some don’t.

I think those that don’t are missing a trick here.

Working with senior leaders as I do, I often find that this narrative is missing. If I suggest that as an ambitious person he or she should perhaps put some thought into how they tell their personal story and what motivates them, half the time I will be met with resistance. People feel it is ‘not about me’ or ‘I am uncomfortable talking about myself’.

The point for me, is that if people know why you think what you think, they are more likely to trust you.

Hopefully, none of the people I train will use this to justify aggression, hatred or harm.

Presentation Feature
Lindsay Williams

5 Tips for Delivering a Good Presentation with a Bad Slide Deck

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‘Please can you help us improve our pitch – but, by the way, we can’t change the deck’.

This is a brief we get all too often, ahead of Pitch Training or some Presentation Training.

Presentation

In these cases the people we work with know that their slides have too much information on them, too many bullet points, the font is too small and with three different charts and a tiny legend any audience is likely to turn off in three minutes flat. But there are legal and regulatory reasons why the slides have to be as they are.

So how can you do a good presentation with a slide deck that is also a pitch book or a handout?

Well, the first things to say is please don’t carefully and diligently verbalise every bullet point on the deck. Just accept that the deck is not really a presentation, it is a document that has another purpose. Your job is to simply guide people through the document and highlight the points they should not miss. You should make available a copy of the deck and invite them to read it at their leisure.

That is tip number 1.

          Tip #1.   Be prepared to provide a brief expert guide to the information, rather than deliver it all.

Presentation

Secondly, understand that your job is to simplify, clarify and focus. And to achieve that, try to work out an opening key message. It doesn’t have to be complicated but it does need to be clear. Feel unembarrassed about stating the obvious.

For example:

‘In the next 15 minutes I hope to demonstrate that we are a great fit as a consultant for your project.’

You should also consider circling back to this message at the very end. For example:

‘So I hope I have demonstrated that we are a great fit as a consultant for your project.

               Tip #2.  Have a clear message at the beginning and circle back at the end.

My next tip is to clearly summarise or headline the purpose of each slide as you change slides.

For Example:

‘Next, let’s take a quick look at our org chart.’

Or

‘In the next slide, we have pulled together the numbers you need to compare us to our key competitors.’

This really helps any audience keep track of the whole argument. Do not expect them to work out what the slide means while you are talking.

                  Tip #3.  Summarise the purpose of each slide as you introduce it.

Presentation

The slide above would greatly benefit from an opening phrase: Now let’s look at the timeline for the project and a few key markers.

Now, assuming every slide has way more information on it than you want to actually say, my next tip is to give the audience permission to ignore most of the information on the slide (or read it later), and highlight one or two key points. I think of this as a verbal highlighter.

For example:

‘There is a lot of detail here on how we choose each investment in the portfolio and our process of evaluation before we buy. But perhaps I can draw your attention to two key things that make us different…’

                 Tip #4.   Use a verbal highlighter – giving permission to ignore some detail.

If you do use this technique, it is important to ensure you appear open and transparent, not trying to distract from the detail. To ensure this, I suggest regularly giving the audience permission to ask questions.

‘I am happy to take questions on any of these points’  or

‘If there is anything you want me to explain please do just ask’

This has the added benefit of making the presentation more interactive.

                 Tip #5.  Let the audience choose the focus. Be open, to answering questions as you go along.

So, there you are. My five top tips for delivering a bad slide deck. Of course, you also need to speak slowly and clearly, use good intonation, look at the audience not the deck and all the other best practice that all presentation trainers and coaches will tell you.

And always, always, ask, can we not just simplify the deck? It will make it so much easier to present well.

My final bonus tip is to consider creating a copy of the deck, strip out all the less important information and while you provide the original deck to the audience for them to study if they want to, you put the simpler version up on the screen.

Images:

campaign-creators-gMsnXqILjp4-unsplash
malte-helmhold-m0r4a8nMarw-unsplash

Leadership
Lindsay Williams

How Zelensky Rallies a Nation

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Volodymyr Zelensky is the man of the moment and reams of video and comment are hitting the internet, analysing his chances of survival and his effect on history.

As all readers of this blog know, we look for the communications lessons in current affairs and Zelensky is giving us all a text book illustration of not just leadership, but the use of modern communications skills. He uses not just words but mobile phone video to mobilise and galvanise his country.

The short self-shot videos from the President’s own phone are likely to become part of the way leaders communicate in the future. Zelensky used them last week to dispel rumours that Ukraine’s leaders had fled the country.

One shows him in front of a known landmark, openly walking the streets of Kyiv, despite the death threats against him.

In this next video – very short, filmed on his phone at night – he shows five of the country’s leadership, naming each one, and saying: “Everyone is here.”

 

In both cases, simple, unsophisticated and yet so powerful. Note the very short sentences such as ‘Everyone is here’. And lots of repetition.

These simple often very short, adlibbed messages are in stark contrast to Russian President Putin’s set piece addresses. Putin is professionally filmed, flanked by the uniformed and decorated officers of the Russian military and often speaks for more than an hour.

The Zelensky style is clearly resonating with his countrymen and women. It is also perfect for western audiences including the young. And the style is much more likely to appeal to those younger Russians who, it is said, are busy sharing alternative material on the war in contrast to that put out by the state-controlled media.

Even Zelensky’s more formal addresses are short and stunning in their simplicity. The President has repeatedly appeared behind a podium in olive green clothes that could be combat wear although there are absolutely no medals or military paraphernalia in sight. The sub text is – I am one of you. This is not about my position and the trappings of state. It’s about the fight at hand.

 

 

There have also been some inspired and history-making quotes. Offered ‘extraction’ by the American military, Zelensky said:

“I don’t need a ride. I need more ammunition.”

Later, in a longer address,  he explained that Ukrainians will defend themselves:

“By attacking us you will see our faces. Not our backs, our faces.” In this speech he is directly addressing the people of Russia and he does wear a shirt and tie, and has a picture and the Ukrainian flag. A different staging for a different audience.

 

 

This whole speech is in my view brilliant on a technical level as well as historically, chillingly important, from a man with a target on his back.

Short sentences. Lots of personal anecdote. Simple language.

The former actor, former comedian, former sit-com President, is using the skills of that trade to shape Europe’s history. As my own brother put it to me: whatever happens to him he has, in some ways, already won. He will never be forgotten.

Lindsay Williams

The most powerful element of any message….

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When my parents married they were dirt poor.  My father had walked away from a life in the steel mill in South Wales and wanted to be a journalist.  Living in a rented flat with two young girls in the early sixties, every penny was counted. He taught himself Pitman’s shorthand – a skill now almost extinct. After a badly paid spell as a reporter on the Oxford Mail he got an exciting new job as a Press Association journalist, in the lobby. For a poor lad from the backstreets of Cardiff, it was a big break. But he had no suits! Nothing he could wear in the Palace of Westminster. Mum’s father gave him some cast-offs but he was a much shorter rounder man than my Dad. Mum altered those suits and sewed turn-ups on the bottom, something that at the time was definitely not in fashion. But they did the job for a while. And my father went on to become a BBC reporter and presenter.

My parents’ struggle to get ahead, to have a professional and intellectual life rather than working in a factory is one of the stories that, 60 years later, still influences me. I feel so lucky to have interesting work.

Message

And everyone has those stories. Stories of where they’ve come from or moments that defined the rest of their lives. All businesses have those stories too. They are too rarely told.

Most courses I run these days are just two or four hours, and very intense. Senior time-poor people who need to get ready for a media interview, a town hall or a presentation. There is no time to go digging for story gold.

But just occasionally we are booked for longer courses with the luxury of time to really help our clients glimpse the world through our lens.

Persuading people to tell stories as part of their professional communications is hard work. Sometimes, they can’t quite see the point.

However, when we create the safe space and the time to get a group of people to share a story, lots of magic happens. People connect with each other more and enjoy the experience.

But more importantly, we can demonstrate the power of stories: how they shift people’s perspective, how they touch something other than the analytical brain and yet still influence it.

It is not just stories about where leaders have come from. I remember helping with messaging to launch a ‘pick and mix’ home insurance product: all very dry until we dug out the story of a letter from an elderly customer. ‘My husband and I are in our eighties’ she wrote ‘our cycling days are long behind us so why am I paying to insure 2 bicycles as part of my home insurance.’ That letter had – in part – inspired the new product.

Many years ago, I worked on messaging a new pension product inspired by a CEO who said: ‘I watched my grandmother outlive her pension’. I remember that man saying to the room ‘but is that really interesting?’ Everyone shouted emphatically ‘yes’.

And the story of the Reverend Henry Duncan who founded the world’s first mutual savings bank in 1810 in Dumfriesshire, as a way of helping his parishioners manage poverty, is an inspiring story retold many times. The bank went on to become TSB and the Henry Duncan story is a pillar of that brand.

If your business is looking to talk about purpose, the hunt should be on to find stories to communicate that.

Learning to find, chose and create stories to use professionally, is simply about creating awareness.  To use an analogy: If you not interested in nature, a bird in the garden is just a bird. But, once you stop to look, it is clearly a busy solitary blackbird or part of a gang of noisy sparrows. You just need to look.

If your job is to explain or lead with purpose look more. Tell more stories!

Lindsay Williams

How to Speak Human…

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‘Things could go crazy quickly.’

‘That’s a world war when Americans and Russians start shooting at each other.’

speak human

If you want people to listen and take note of what you say, keep it really, really simple. President Biden wants Americans to leave Ukraine, and leave now. So, he chooses very compelling language. The Guardian pulls out the key clips for us here.

‘Go crazy’ or ‘shooting at each other’ are the sort of phrases most business leaders would strike out of a speech, substituting more cautious or sophisticated language.

But if your audience is the man and woman in the street, or perhaps your staff, they will take a lot more notice if you use simple, colloquial language.

Sounds obvious huh!

Obvious but not so easy in my experience. It’s probably one of the things professional people find the most difficult when learning to be a spokesperson or give a professional speech.

And just to add one basic point often missed: written English and spoken English tend to be different, so even if you are writing a speech or the script for your podcast, you want to write to be heard, not to be read. We teach this in all our training and is a central feature of my colleague Eric Dixon’s ‘podcast training’.

Here are five tips to ensure you find the right vocabulary:

Imagine someone you know

Putting a real person front of mind and noting the words you would use to speak to them, can really help. I often ask people to speak to their Mum, or their son or their son’s best friend. I find people often automatically find different words and better explanations.

Use the short word

Utilize should always be use.

‘Procure’ or ‘purchase’ should be replaced by buy.

‘Remuneration’ can be replaced by ‘pay’ or ‘pay package’, (or ‘pay and benefits’ if you must).

‘Adhere’ is not something you would say at home. You would say ‘stick’.

‘Accordingly’ can usually be shortened to ‘so’.

Don’t be afraid to use several words rather than one long one

‘Beneficiaries’ might become ‘the people we help’ or ‘serve’.

‘Products’ is best explained as ‘our face creams’, ‘bank accounts’, ‘loans’ and so on.

‘Access to services’ is a phrase whose meaning is often completely lost. Try ‘installing ramps and widening                     doors’ or ‘ensuring people can use the phone, get cash out, etc.’

Have a back pocket phrase

Some phrases you may want to use but need a neat explanation to hand just to help those who are not familiar. For example:

Quantitative easing – a form of printing money.

Reduced footfall – fewer people walking past, less often.

Burrito method – sew inside out, like a burrito.

Try it out on someone else

Spotting the jargon or group-speak of other professions is easy, it’s much harder to work out which of the words you use every day are not fully understood by others. Fortunately, you just need to ask. You can ask colleagues, but it is even better to ask someone not as familiar with your professional world.

The one question I always get…

Aren’t you patronising your audience?

I can only say that I think shrouding the meaning of something in language that only those ‘in the club’ understand, is much more of an insult than over-explaining. If you carefully consider who is in the audience, you will almost certainly pitch your language at the right level. But if you do over-explain here and there, is anyone really going to leave the room feeling ‘patronised’.

Need help with all this? You could book a short online training session with one of our team. To reach us, click  here.

 

Biden Image from YouTube

 

bank of england governor gaffee feature
Lindsay Williams

What the Bank of England Governor got so very wrong

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If you are going to be the public face of an organisation you need to understand how normal people will react to your words.

Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, got it badly wrong last week when he called for workers to moderate their wage demands. A call that predictably and reasonably caused outcry and fury. Twitter and the airwaves exploded with venom: yet again the man in the street was being asked to ‘pay for’ some economic crisis.

It is clearly unacceptable to have rich people asking poor people to tighten their belts. Surely most people in public life would recognise that.

bank of england governor gaffee picIn fact, telling other people or groups how to behave, comes pretty high on my list of stupid headline-worthy things to say. Unless you actually plan to kick a hornet’s nest, seek to persuade rather than demand. At least in public.

It is easy to dismiss this as ‘tomorrow’s chip paper’, as we used to say when news reached us via newspapers. But in my view, this is hugely damaging for Bailey, for the Bank of England and for the political establishment.

Millions of people are watching food prices rise and are seriously frightened by the jump in the cost of gas and electricity.  Bailey’s remarks are just more evidence that the ‘toffs’ that run the country are out of touch.

How could Bailey have got this so badly wrong?

Watching the interview through the Media Coach lens, anyone trained by us would spot it straight away: the Governor was just answering a question. It was a seasoned and ambitious journalist, BBC Economics Editor Faisal Islam, picking up a thread and asking the interviewee to fully articulate or agree with something that so far had only been hinted at.

Islam’s question: “Are you trying to get into people’s heads and ask them not to ask for too high pay rises?”

Bailey’s answer: “Broadly yes… in the sense of saying … we do need to see a moderation of wage rises. Now that’s painful.”

It’s clear that Bailey is trying to soften the blow here, but the words are out. A much safer answer might be:

“No but as policymakers we need to find ways to squeeze inflation out of the system again.”

Just to be clear, Central Banks are supposed to worry about inflation, and wage inflation is particularly damaging to financial stability. Every economist will know why Bailey would have been motivated to say what he did.

In the privacy of the high-ceilinged, panelled meeting rooms of the Bank of England there have probably been many discussions about how to keep wage inflation from getting out of hand.

However, no one would have advised a high-profile press conference to announce the public should moderate their wage demands. The fact that the idea comes in response to a journalists question, makes it no more acceptable.

Bank of England Governor Gaffee twitter.

By the way, if you watch the clip you can clearly see Faisal Islam is genuinely surprised that the Governor could say such a thing and realises – in that moment – that he just got a scoop.

Casual listeners to current affairs programmes would be astonished to know the huge amounts of work that normally go into avoiding this sort of gaffe. Key statements are planned, and predictable questions have carefully prepared answers. Very few people are experienced enough in public life to instinctively avoid this sort of landmine.  Most need the help of others to consider the implications, risk assess both statements and reactive lines.

Every PR person’s nightmare is the leader who is used to being the smartest person in the room, who thinks dealing with the media is something any intelligent person can do without preparation or training, and who thinks PR advice is for the numptys.

Tom Swarbrick feature in media interviews
Eric Dixon

In media interviews, when you don’t want to be drawn, don’t draw!

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Interviewers often receive a lot of stick about using unfair amounts of pressure to force interviewees to reveal something they are trying to keep secret. In other words, to ‘draw’ something from them, when they are quite clearly trying not to be ‘drawn’.

Sometimes this criticism is justified.

But occasionally, interviewees themselves provide the impetus for such an approach, leaving the interviewer with little choice but to pursue them.

What follows is an unedited transcript of a two-and-a-half-minute extract from a recent live interview on LBC radio. Night-time host Tom Swarbrick was interviewing the Conservative MP for Bolsover, Mark Fletcher.

in media interviews Tom Swarbrick

Tom Swarbrick

Swarbrick started by asking a general question about the two dramatic events in the House of Commons that day: the call from David Davis for the Prime Minister to ‘go’ and Mark Fletcher’s friend and former fellow Conservative MP Christian Wakeford crossing the floor to sit on the Labour benches. Fletcher’s response:

Mark Fletcher MP in media interviews

Mark Fletcher MP

MF: “Well, I find it very difficult to talk about Christian Wakeford – he’s a good friend of mine. And I know he’s been in a very difficult place personally and professionally for some time…”

That response, early on in the interview, was a classic example of the problem. If Fletcher had stopped after the first sentence and stuck to his guns, all would have been well. But his second sentence positively encourages further enquiry – which is precisely what happened:

TS: “What do you mean by that, ‘he’s been in a difficult place personally and professionally’?”

MF: “Well – I don’t want to reveal everything about our friendship – but, you know, he’s had a difficult time. And I’m not necessarily sure that this is the decision that the Christian Wakeford who was elected in the first place would make, and I think, you know, he will come to regret it.  And I feel very sorry for him on that basis.”

For Swarbrick, this was clearly a rich vein to tap. Not only was there more to ‘reveal’ (Fletcher’s own word), several gems of information had already been extracted, including the fact that Fletcher believes his friend is not the same man elected in 2019:

Christian Wakeford MP in media interviews

Christian Wakeford MP

TS: “So, you’re suggesting that he’s changed somehow, since he was elected, to now.”

MF: “Yes.”

TS: “What’s changed him?”

MF: “Well, again, I don’t want to reveal anything that isn’t in the public domain, but I think, um, he has found many things, er, quite difficult, and…”

There’s a pattern here: the emergence of various tempting snippets of information (which often prompt more questions than answers), followed by a swift refusal to go further. Unusually, on this occasion, the interviewer explicitly points this out to his guest:

TS: “But I’m not sure Mr Fletcher this is a good idea to give a ‘nod-nod, wink-wink’ about someone’s personal behaviour or personal life, as being the motivation for them making a decision that you don’t agree with, without telling us what the problem is.”

MF: “No, no – that’s absolutely not my intention. My intention is to say that I am struggling between feeling betrayal from a friend and anger towards that friend, but also feeling, um, that perhaps I haven’t been a good enough friend over the past few months. And, you know, and it is a matter of personal regret to me that if I had been a better friend, perhaps he wouldn’t have done what he did today.”

Wow. This is powerful stuff, which in itself prompts the following – perfectly fair – line of enquiry:

TS: “In what way could you have been a better friend to help him?”

MF: “So, I think that he needed more support. Um, and I think he needed help through a difficult period of time, and, um, I wish we could have done more to keep him where he started.”

TS: “I still don’t quite understand what was difficult for him that perhaps hasn’t been difficult for you or, as of yet, any other of your colleagues who were elected in 2019?”

MF: “Obviously, we have faced some of the same pressures in regards to the pandemic and in regards to things that have happened in society – but I also think that Christian has been in a place in which, um, you know, he has struggled with a few things, and er…”

It’s time for the ‘teasing’ to come to an end. The ‘difficult’ nature of Wakeford’s situation has been mentioned several times. Plus there are his personal and professional ‘struggles’, as well as his need for ‘support’. So Swarbrick’s next question is almost inevitable:

TS: “Are you alluding to his mental health?”

MF: “I am not alluding to anything.”

TS:  “Well, you must be alluding to something!”

MF: “I will not be drawn on that.”

TS: “But you drew it!”

Tom Swarbrick is right. As an interviewee, you are, of course, perfectly entitled to withhold any information or opinions that you wish. That is your choice, and no interviewer has a ‘right’ to extract them from you.

But what you cannot do – or at least cannot fairly expect – is to ‘tease’ your interviewer or ‘allude’ to something you could say (what Swarbrick describes as a ‘nod-nod, wink-wink’ approach) and then staunchly refuse to talk about it.

It’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to your interviewer, and it can end up revealing far more about the subject you are trying to keep under wraps than you had ever intended.

Images:
Tom Swarbrick – YouTube
Mark Fletcher MP – Wikipedia
Christian Wakeford MP – Wikipedia

Pork Pie Plot feature
Lindsay Williams

Pork Pie Plot and Other Matters

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The news can be dull, repetitive, and tedious despite the best efforts of journalists.

But creating or just reporting the witticisms that come naturally from some people, really does make it all a lot more fun.

Pork Pie Plot

I just loved the ‘Pork Pie Plot’ so-called because one of the alleged political plotters comes from Melton Mowbray. This is how CNN is reporting it to the world:

The British press is rife with speculation that the MP for Rutland & Melton, Alicia Kearns, hosted a meeting of discontented Conservative backbenchers this week. That constituency is home to the famous Melton Mowbray pork pie.

Pork Pie Plot

Rutland & Melton MP Alicia Kearns

I don’t know who first came up with the name, but it spread like wildfire. And that is the thing to take note of. A good name, a light-hearted name, encourages everyone to use it – including journalists who are looking to inject fun into the news.

There were a couple of other great metaphors in UK politics in the last few days. The idea that the Conservative leadership would give the Tory right some ’red meat’ to keep them happy, also got a lot of traction. In this case, ‘red meat’ referred to policies like ending the BBC licence fee and calling in the military to end illegal channel crossings by migrants. Here is a nice explanation from the I newspaper.

A few days earlier Keir Starmer used the phrase ‘industrial-scale partying’.

And in the metaphor-news this week, we hear that Professor Jonathan Van-Tam (dubbed JVT) – knighted for his work in the pandemic – is stepping down from his role as Deputy Chief Medical Officer and going back to academia. JVT is on the record as saying he loves a metaphor. There is a good piece from the Evening Standard which pulls together some of his best.

But it is naming that always fascinates me.  Again, I have blogged about this before, in 2015 in fact, when I observed that a dentist from Minnesota who mistakenly shot a protected lion whilst on safari, was very unlucky to the extent that the lion was named Cecil.  Had the lion had been called Dhahabu (Swahili for gold) or just had a number, there would have been a lot less publicity. The name Cecil was enough to ensure the dead lion was reported around the world.

‘Pork Pie Plot’ is inspired and will probably make it into pub quizzes and books of political ephemera. It will also be associated with Alicia Kearns all her political career.

And yet businesses I work with are always so reluctant to give new products and services interesting names. Or even interesting nicknames. If you call your new portal ‘Babs’ or ‘Shirley’ or name a high-tech vehicle ‘the Batmobile’ people will talk about it more. Journalists will write about it more. The actual logic behind the name can be very tenuous (as in the Pork Pie Plot) but if the name is fun …it will work.

And surely, after the last two years, fun is something we all need.