In anticipation of Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, a conservative website posted a table with 36 phrases they expected him to use. After the speech, we checked the transcript and tallied the results.

Clear evidence of the risk of forecasting.

In a prime time speech delivered at the United States Military Academy at West Point last week, President Barack Obama committed 30,000 more troops to fight the war in Afghanistan. His decision was consistent with a policy he had stated during his campaign for the presidency in 2007:

                  I did not oppose all wars, I said. I was a strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan.

And then stated again in 2008:

                  We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe
                  this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism…I think one of the
                  biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our
                  attention here…For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three.

But the West Point speech did mark a significant change in his rhetorical style; from an audience-focused to a self-focused point of view. In the past, throughout his presidential campaign and in his historic Inaugural Address, Obama involved his audiences by deploying the word “you” extensively in his speeches, a technique you read about in an earlier blog. His Inaugural Address had 15 instances of “you” which, when combined with other inclusive words—23 instances of “us,” 62 of “we,” and 70 instances of “our”—connected him with his audience. The technique was noted by Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic of the New York Times:

                  As in most of his major speeches, Mr. Obama repeatedly referred to “us” and “we,” while playing
                  down his own role as a leader. His few references to himself were put in the service of making a
                  larger point about America.

In the West Point speech, however, he used “you” only ten times, with four of them in the closing, “Thank you. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you.” That left only six instances of the powerful word in the body of the speech. In sharp contrast, he used “I” 41 times, a shift that prompted Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal political columnist—and former presidential speechwriter—to exclaim, “I, I—ay yi yi. This is a man badly in need of an I-ectomy.” She went on to explain:

                  George H.W. Bush famously took the word “I” out of his speeches—we called them “I-ectomies”—
                  because of a horror of appearing to be calling attention to himself. Mr. Obama is plagued with no
                  such fears. “When I took office . . . I approved a long-standing request . . . After consultations with our
                  allies I then . . . I set a goal.” That’s all from one paragraph. Further down he used the word “I” in three
                  paragraphs an impressive 15 times. “I believe I know,” “I have signed,” “I have read,” “I have visited.”

Granted, any senior executive—from the President of the United States to a mid-level manager in business—must take full responsibility for all decisions and actions, but Obama must not and cannot abandon the technique that helped get him elected.

It is all about “you” and not hubris.

Last Sunday, the New York Times ran an article by Peter Baker, their political correspondent, who questioned whether President Barack Obama’s widely-recognized oratorical skills were being diluted by overexposure. Baker tracked the increasing frequency of the number of times presidents speak publicly from Harry S. Truman’s average of 88 times in a typical year, to Ronald Reagan’s average of 320 times, to Bill Clinton’s average of 550 times. Obama, who speaks five or six times a day in what Baker calls a “hyperactive media environment…is on pace to match Mr. Clinton and likely exceed him.”

Of course, the controversy over health care reform, two unpopular wars, and high unemployment are such difficult issues they would challenge the oratorical skills of Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Cicero combined. Baker quoted David Axelrod, Obama’s former campaign manager and now his senior adviser, on the subject: “No one ever believed that the power of communicating was in and of itself enough,” he said. “It’s important to communicate what you’re doing and why. But without the what and the why, the communicating is of little value.”

Axelrod’s point speaks to the balance between what you say and how you say it. Readers of this blog will recall three separate posts in an earlier series called, “It Ain’t What You Say, It’s How You Say It,” in which I stressed the importance of conveying your message effectively; and illustrated it with examples as diverse as Abraham Lincoln, Frank Sinatra, CNN analyst and author Jeffrey Toobin, and playwright/screenwriter David Mamet.

Is this a reversal of my course? Am I now asserting, “It Ain’t How You Say It, It’s What You Say”? Not at all. The operative word is “balance.” Put equal effort on both sides of the equation. David Axelrod put it best, “I think it continues to be valuable…But ultimately we’re going to be judged not on the power of the oratory but the record.”

The point here—and in another prior blog—is that for any presentation to succeed, every presenter must give full attention to every component; and even more to the point, the presenter must be certain that each component integrates with every other component.

After his formal address to a Joint Session of Congress last Wednesday about his health care reform proposals, President Obama went out on the stump to seek the support of the public. According to CBS News, by Saturday, when he got to Minneapolis to speak “to more than 10,000 people at the Target Center,” it was for the fifth time that week.

The setting was like that of his stump speeches during his campaign for the Presidency and, as in those times, he called upon two of his familiar rhetorical devices: the human interest story and anaphora, or the repetitive use of a key phrase. (For a fuller discussion of anaphora, please see my earlier blog about his Inaugural Address and my prior blog on his health care speech.)

Saturday’s human interest story was about a campaign appearance candidate Obama made in Greenwood, South Carolina, and about a city councilwoman there named Edith Childs. Ms. Childs is known as the “Chant Lady” because she had a reputation for stirring up crowds at public meetings by chanting. Here’s how Obama described his event in Greenwood to his audience in Minneapolis:

            Suddenly I hear this voice shout out behind me: “Fired up?” And I almost jumped out of my shoes.
            But everybody else acts like this is normal and they all say, “Fired up!” And then I hear this voice:
            “Ready to go?” And the people around me, they just say, “Ready to go!” I don’t know what’s going
            on. So I look behind me, and there’s this little woman there…[and] for the next five minutes, she
            starts chanting. She says, “Fired up?” And everybody says, “Fired up!” “Ready to go?” “Ready to go!”
            And this just keeps on going. And I realize I’m being upstaged by this woman. And I’m⎯she’s
            getting all the attention, and I’m standing there looking at my staff and they’re shrugging their
            shoulders. But here’s the thing, Minneapolis. After about a minute, maybe two, I’m feeling kind
            of fired up. I’m feeling⎯I’m feeling like I’m ready to go.

Then, as any good speaker would, Obama segued from Ms. Childs’ story to his own message, and he did so with his own repetitive phrases:

            And it goes to show you how one voice can change a room. And if it changes a room it can change
            a city. And if it can change a city it can change a state. And if it can change a state it can change a
            nation. If it changes the nation it can change the world. It can bring health care to every American.
            It can lower our costs. It can make your insurance more secure.

Returning to Ms. Childs’ technique, Obama asked the crowd in Target Center,

            I want to know, Minnesota, are you fired up?

The crowd shouted back,

            Fired up!

Obama asked,

            Ready to go?

The crowd shouted back,

            Ready to go!

Obama led the crowd in two more rounds of the chant, with a crescendo of volume, laughter, and applause each time, and then concluded:

            They can’t stop us. Let’s go get this done. Thank you, everybody. God bless you.

These rhetorical skills helped Barack Obama win the election. Will they help his health care reform plan win?

In his weekly New York Times column yesterday, Frank Rich called Barack Obama’s health care speech to a joint session of Congress last Wednesday, “inspired, lucid and, in the literally and figuratively Kennedyesque finale, moving.”

Mr. Rich was referring to two Kennedys, Ted and John; the latter was the figurative reference and the former the literal. Obama quoted directly from a letter Ted had written to him just before he died:

            He expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform⎯”that great unfinished
            business of our society,” he called it⎯would finally pass. He repeated the truth that health care is
            decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that “it concerns more than material things.”
            “What we face,” he wrote, “is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but
            fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.”

Obama then plucked that last phrase, “the character of our country,” and proceeded to expand upon it in his objective to overcome the controversy that has divided our country over health care reform. Invoking the spirit of Ted Kennedy’s lifelong efforts on the issue, Obama appealed to the Republicans and Democrats in the Joint Session, and to the millions of American citizens watching the prime time broadcast, to put aside their differences and come together on an efficient and fair system of health care.

The figurative reference to John F. Kennedy came in Obama’s finale. JFK’s most memorable words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” represent a rhetorical technique called antithesis, or a figure of balance in which two contrasting ideas are juxtaposed in adjacent phrases, clauses, or sentences. Here’s how Obama employed antithesis:

            We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.

And then Obama turned to one of his own favorite rhetorical devices, anaphora, or the repetitive use of a key phrase. (For a fuller discussion of antithesis and anaphora, please see my earlier blog about his Inaugural Address.)

            I still believe that we can act when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility,
            and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we
            will meet history’s test.

            Because that’s who we are. That is our calling. That is our character. Thank you, God bless you,
            and may God bless the United States of America.

My next blog will have another example of Obama’s use of repetitive phrases in another speech about health care that he gave three days after his address to Congress.

In last month’s blog about Barack Obama’s fourth press conference, you read about a contentious exchange between the president and Chuck Todd of NBC News, sparring about the demonstrations in Iran. In yesterday’s blog about Obama’s fifth press conference, you read how Obama diminished his use of “unwords” in his handling of the reporters’ questions—until Todd tangled with him again. Perhaps it was the aftertaste of that first encounter, perhaps it was because Todd asked a follow-on question, perhaps it was because the question challenged what Obama had said in his opening statement, but Obama’s unwords reappeared during his answer.

Todd’s testy question was:

                  Back to the politics of it, you mentioned two Republicans in your opening statement.

Todd was referencing this part of Obama’s opening statement:

                  I’ve heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to
                  compromise, it’s better politics to go for the kill. Another Republican senator, that defeating
                  health-care reform is about breaking me. So let me be clear. This isn’t about me.

So Todd not only challenged Obama’s original statement, he also went on to stir the pot—as any journalist worth his salt would; after all, conflict is drama. Todd said:

                  You have 60 Democratic seats, a healthy majority in the House. If you don’t get this, isn’t
                  this a fight inside the Democratic Party? And that Republicans really aren’t playing—you can’t
                  really blame the Republicans for this one.

Obama took the challenge and promptly rebutted Todd’s claim:

                  Well, ah, first of all, uh, you haven’t seen me out there blaming the Republicans. I’ve been,
                  ah, a little frustrated by some of the misinformation that’s been coming out of the Republicans.
                  Uh, but that has to do with, as you pointed out, politics.

In his rebuttal, Obama accelerated his cadence. You’ll recall from yesterday’s post that speed overrides pauses and without pauses, the mind, in search of thinking time, inserts unwords. As Obama’s answer continued, his rapid pace continued and so did the “ums” and “ahs,” as well as several iterations of the meaningless phrase, “you know.”

                  Uh, you know, if you’ve got somebody out there saying not this, you know, let’s get the
                  best bill possible but instead says, ah, you know, let’s try to beat this, so we can gain
                  political advantage, well, you know, that’s not, I think, what the American people expect.

The “ums” and “ahs” continued throughout the remainder of his answer to Todd. But when he finished and called on ABC News’s Jake Tapper—who asked a less challenging question—the unwords diminished. Tapper’s question was followed by questions from six other reporters, and Obama’s unwords stayed few and far between.

To maintain his trademark cool demeanor and to abolish his unwords, the president would do well to insert more pauses in his answers—and to avoid Chuck Todd.

Barack Obama, whose smooth, articulate delivery style in his major speeches has been lauded by friend and foe alike, has also been derided by friend and foe alike for his tendency to sputter “unwords”—“ums” and “ahs”—throughout his extemporaneous press conferences. In my previous blog on the subject, you read a serious online commentary and saw a comic television mash-up of Obama’s sputtering.

One of the major factors for the sharp differences in his cadence is his use of the teleprompter. Because of his diligent attention to policy as well as to rhetorical detail, Obama uses the teleprompter to read his major speeches verbatim. The two teleprompter panels cause him to swing back and forth, the swings cause him to pause between his phrases, and the pauses eliminate his unwords. But when he speaks extemporaneously, his words, fueled by his deep knowledge and dynamic delivery, come pouring out with far fewer pauses. Unbroken strings of words inhibit thinking, and so the mind, in search of processing time, breaks into the word strings with “ums” and “ahs.” The problem is compounded by the insertion of unnecessary “ands,” which also inhibit thinking and cause even more unwords.

All of that changed in Obama’s fifth and latest press conference last week. After his usual smooth reading of his opening remarks from a teleprompter, he opened the floor to reporters’ questions. In his response to the very first question, his cadence was as smooth as it was in his remarks; almost as if his answers were on the teleprompter—which they were not. Punctuating his phrases and pausing frequently, he produced his signature rhythmic pattern.

To appreciate the full power of Obama’s almost musical cadence, listen to one of his speeches with your eyes closed and hear how he parses his words. (By the way, there is now a dedicated website of his speeches.) During this latest press conference, his parsing pattern eliminated almost all of his unwords in his answers—until he responded to a question from Chuck Todd of NBC News.

Tomorrow’s post will examine that exchange in detail.

But less than two weeks later, after a White House press conference with many of the same correspondents who had attended the dinner, Obama may have decided to go back to celebrities. The journalists, targeting his responses to the demonstrations in Iran, challenged the president sharply, and he responded in kind. The New York Times report of the event was titled, “At Air-Conditioned News Conference, Obama Feels the Heat.” The Washington Post said it “wasn’t so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama.” A YouTube mash-up video called it “Obama’s Testy Press Conference.”

The transcript of the session tracked the testiness of the crossfire.

Major Garrett of Fox News fired the first shot, “In your opening remarks, sir, you were—you said about Iran that you were appalled and outraged. What took you so long to say those words?”

Obama shot right back, “I don’t think that’s accurate.” And then, frowning at Garrett, he scolded, “Track what I’ve been saying. Right after the election, I said that we had profound concerns about the nature of the election, but that it was not up to us to determine what the outcome was.”

Chip Reid of CBS News who, as you read in my prior blog, posed a false assumption question in Obama’s first press conference, came back at him again in this session, “Some republicans on Capitol Hill—John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for example—have said that up to this point, your response on Iran has been timid and weak. Today, it sounded a lot stronger…Were you influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak?”

Here Obama did not return the fire. Instead, he broke into a smile and said, “What do you think?” His response brought a wave of laughter from the crowded room, but then he turned serious and said, “Look, the—I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues, and I think that all of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail. But only I’m the President of the United States, and I’ve got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests.”

Chuck Todd of NBC News turned the heat back up, “Mr. President, I want to follow up on Iran,” he snapped, punctuating his words with his right hand holding a pen, almost poking it at Obama. “You have avoided twice spelling out consequences. You’ve hinted that there would be, from the international community, if they continue to violate—you said violate these norms. You seem to hint that there are human rights violations taking place.”

Todd’s words, voice, body language, and undoubtedly his pen turned Obama “prickly,” as the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd reported. “I’m not hinting,” Obama said sternly, glowering at Todd. “I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that’s a problem.”

Todd shot right back, “Then why won’t you spell out the consequences that the Iranian…”

Obama cut him off. “Because I think, Chuck, that we don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out.” His voice steely, Obama added, “I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I’m not.”

Todd would not give up, “But shouldn’t—I mean, shouldn’t the world and Iran…”

Obama cut him off again, “Chuck, I answered…”

Todd kept going, “… but shouldn’t the Iranian regime know that there are consequences?”

Obama cut him off for a third time, “I answered the question, Chuck, which is that we don’t yet know how this is going to play out.”

After such heated exchanges, how are Obama’s relations with his former idolaters going to play out? Is the honeymoon over?

Barack Obama, whose superior speaking skills undoubtedly contributed to his ascent to the presidency, is known to lapse into unwords whenever he departs from his trusty teleprompter and speaks extemporaneously—as in a press conference. This lapse has drawn much spoofing, much of it in “slice and dice” videos, in which video editors extract Obama’s unwords from a press conference and string them together into a tight montage. David Letterman, whose show has a running feature of satirical videos about presidents, most of them targeting George W. Bush, did his own mash-up of Obama’s unwords.

Obama’s unwords have also drawn a great deal of commentary. I wrote about the subject in an earlier blog and in a chapter about Obama in The Power Presenter. The chapter was excerpted in an article in BOTTOM LINE/Personal, but because the excerpt focused on his strengths, it omitted my discussion of his unwords. This prompted an angry email criticizing the omission, saying, “To prove my point on Obama … using fillers to ad nauseam, try counting them in minute intervals. I’ve done this on numerous occasions when he’s ‘unscripted’ and the fillers come in around 17 per minute. In fact, with a yes or no question, our president took 4 minutes to answer, and used 51 fillers.”

My critic concluded, “The ONLY time the president does NOT use ‘ummm’ or ‘ahhh,’ and please allow me to add the word ‘and,’ is when he is reading the teleprompter. This is why he uses this aid all the time. This man needs to be scripted, and if not, he’s awful.”

I agree with my critic about the negative effect of unwords, and so does the Times crossword puzzle—unwords are indeed rough speaking—but there is an opposite point of view. An article in London’s Daily Telegraph described an academic study in Scotland:

Experts at Stirling and Edinburgh universities asked volunteers to listen to a series of sentences, including a
number punctuated by “ers” and “ahs”.

Then they tested how much the listeners could remember, and found that inserting the “ers” had a significant
positive effect on how well the subjects recalled what they had heard.

Up to an hour after hearing typical sentences, volunteers got 62 per cent of words correct where there had
been an “er” in the sentence.

That compared with 55 per cent for similar utterances where there had not been any stumbles. The tests have
since been replicated twice and the results are said to be “statistically significant”.

Perhaps something was lost in translation coming across the Atlantic, but after twenty years of observing and coaching thousands of presentations, I can tell you with absolute certainty that unwords undercut any presenter’s effectiveness, including that of the current President of the United States and his far more often than not charismatic speaking style.

He could eliminate his unwords very easily—without resorting to a teleprompter or even surgery. Yes he can.

Just call me.

One of the most common instances of not listening comes in response to multiple questions. Because such queries are usually a rambling set of unrelated issues, it is difficult for any presenter to remember all the diverse parts. Two common responses are to answer only one of the questions and then to turn to another questioner, creating the perception of not listening; or to answer the first question and then to turn back to the questioner and say, “What was your other question?”—again creating the perception of not listening.

In the Line of Fire offers a solution to this problem, and Barack Obama offered yet another in last week’s press conference. Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times asked him, “During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving in this office, humbled you the most and troubled you the most?”

Tom Shales of the Washington Post called Zeleny’s four-part query, “marginally frivolous,” but the president did not treat it as such. He immediately reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a pen and said, “Let me write this down,” producing a wave of laughter from the crowd gathered in the East Room of the White House.

As Obama began writing, Zeleny began to restate his question, “Surprised … troubled…”
Obama said, “I’ve got⎯what was the first one?”
Zeleny repeated, “Surprised …”
Obama repeated, “Surprised …”
Zeleny repeated, “Troubled …”
Obama repeated, “Troubled …”
Zeleny repeated, “Enchanted …”
Obama said, “Enchanted,” then smiled and added, “Nice,” evoking more laughter.

Barack Obama had carefully listened to the question, confirmed that he had listened by restating what he heard, and then re-confirmed by writing what he heard, sending a clear message of his attentiveness. Compare his approach to the usual evasive response from most politicians. As Shales described Obama, “You ask, he’ll answer—earnestly, disarmingly, enchantingly, even—and most of the time convincingly.”

Obama represents a refreshing change for a veteran Washington journalist like Shales because he—and we have learned to tolerate, if not endure non-answers from politicians. In business, no man or woman can get away with evasiveness. But in business, presenters often give the appearance of evasiveness because they handle multiple questions poorly. They do so because of the complexity of such questions rather than intent to evade, but net effect is the same: not listening.

Take a lesson from the president. Next time someone asks you a set of long, rambling multiple questions about your presentation, reach for your pen, start writing, and confirm what you heard.

Keep listening alive in the 21^st Century!