Nobel Peace Prize 2011

We have seen three great women who have unshakably believed in the beauty of their dreams being honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th. All of them are role-models for a stronger generation of women rising all over the world to find their voice. But two of them are particularly inspiring to me from a speaking point of view and I would like to shed light on them here:

Tawakkol Karman and Leymah Roberta Gbowee.

“I have always believed that resistance against repression and violence is possible without relying on similar repression and violence. I have always believed that human civilization is the fruit of the effort of both women and men…” This is a short quote from Tawakkol Karmans Nobel Peace Prize Lecture on December 10, 2011. (For the full text go to: Tawakkol Karmans Nobel Lecture )

She is not only the youngest Laureate and the role-model of Jemens’ young generation, a leading voice of the Arab Spring, but also a gifted speaker. With her lecture she re-emphasises the “Dream” of Martin Luther King when she adds rhythm to her speech by repeating phrases and lets emotions rise with her pictorial language.

Very different the sound of Leymah Roberta Gbowees speech: and even more she drags us in, leaves us breathless from the beginning to the end, when she starts telling her story: “Early 2003, seven of us women gathered in a makeshift office / conference room to discuss the Liberian civil war and the fast approaching war on the capital Monrovia. Armed with nothing but our conviction and $10 United States dollars, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Campaign was born…”

She lets us be part of what she has gone through, she lets us feel the pain and the struggles that she felt herself – and makes her cause become our own. Read her full lecture here: Leymah Roberta Gbowees Nobel Lecture. It is more a story than a speech – and a good speech sounds always like a story.

The two combined give an excellent example of the most powerful tools in speaking:

1. repetition of key-phrases
2. pictorial language (never let anything important without a powerful adjective)
3. tell your own story

 Read their speeches and be persuaded by the power of these persuasive tools!

Suffering for Hope

I have kept asking myself why it is that so many people around the world are rising in war and war-like movements to change their countries’ governments and policis and are willingly suffering for their causes. Yes, of course, we know the obvious reasons – but: Why now? Why so many? Why of all social classes?

And most of these movements seem leader-less. So the questions from a leadership and communications- perspective for me are:

1. What can we learn from that for leadership?
2. Where is the connection to leadership communication? Is there any link between this massive rise of the people and the change-leaders of the past?

This morning, a quote by Angela Dorothea Merkel (just to name in full once in a while) has brought my thoughts one step further: “Everywhere we encounter thinking that has no tomorrow”. 

It became suddenly clear that all leaders, that have changed the face of world, have THOUGHT BEYOND TODAY. They gave an answer to the question: “What was IF…?” that would completely change the “tomorrow” of their times.

And these leaders lack today. In none of the countries which are currently in a state of revolution we see leaders that lead people through sufferance with a strong, defined vision of a better tomorrow.

But nevertheless, there IS a connection between the change-leaders of the past and the revolutionary movements of the present: in both situations the people not only accept but willingly drive themselves into suffering in order to break through to another level of existence.  Sufferance and joy are only two sides of the same medal. Everybody is willing to suffer if it is “worth” it – and if it ADDS MEANING to ones own condition. Everybody wants to live a meaningful life.

So in order to willingly undergo a period of (even more) suffering people need to get the promise of joy. They need: 

1. HOPE ( = the PROMISE of something better) and
2. a ROLE-MODEL to show them that it is possible (= the STIMULATOR) - and even the non-leader-driven revolutionary movements have their role-models, even if they lack the “big” leader (that they are in any case still looking for)

When we break this principle down to our topic of effective communication, is becomes quite clear and evidence proves: CHANGE-LEADERS (good or bad, wise or not) in history have always applied this principle of the human nature in their speeches:

1. tell people frankly that they will suffer (= sufferance)
2. tell them what they will gain by suffering (= joy)
3. show them that they are the biggest sufferer of all (= role-model)

If you are about to drive change in your organisation, ask yourself:

1. What kind of sufferance people will need to go through?
2. What will be their gain?
3. And how can you show them that you are willing to suffer for that cause?

The following examples are only a few and of all kinds of leaders to prove this principle:

The  “Yes, we can” - speech of Barack Obama in which he painted the sky dark-black of the hardship that the American people will need to suffer if they want to push through to the change he proposed, is quite well-known and  I will not quote it here once again.

Read here a few other quotes instead and try to find out who said these words and under which circumstances. At the end you’ll find the correct answers.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat…. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering… You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. Its is victory.“ (1)

“Now, I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative: either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote…. Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; … If we win it, this hardest of all fights, then, to be sure, in the future it is going to be made easier for women all over the world to win their fight when their time comes.” (2)

“Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live… I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (3)

“My whole life has been nothing but one long struggle for my people, for its restoration, and for Germany. There was only one watchword for that struggle: faith in this people. One word  have never learned: that is, surrender…. Just as I myself am ready at any time to stake my life – anyone can take it for my people and for Germany – so I ask the same of all others.” (4)

“Their only question is: “Has Britain the courage and resolve to sustain the discipline for long enough to break through to success?” … Yes, Mr Chairman, we have, and we shall. This government are determined to stay with the policy and see it through to its conclusion. That is what marks this administration as one of the truly radical ministries of postwar Britain.” (5)

(1) Winston Churchill, House f Commons, London, 13 May 1940 * (2) Emmeline Pankhurst, “Freedon or death”, 13 November 1913, in the US * (3) Nelson Mandela, Speech in his own defence, 20 April 1964 * (4) Adolf Hitler, Speech at the Reichstag, Berlin, 1 September 1939 * (5) Margaret Thatcher, at the Conservative Party Conference, Brighton, 10 October 1980

Sermon in the Augustinian Abbey in Erfurt

Speech at the Olympic Stadium

I do not wish to analyse these speeches in detail but to make you excercise your ability of PERCEIVING the LITTLE THINGS which in the end create the key message. (And you do not need to know German in order to understand these little things…)

In all his speeches Pope Benedict has adapted the method of logic deduction in order to interpret quotations from the bible (as in his sermons) or events in the history of the Roman Catholic Church (as in his address to the Parliament) for todays’ circumstances. With this he tried to raise the relevance of the bibles’ teachings for our modern world and show the long tradition of the Churches’ quest for justice and “the right path”.

In all his appearances he confirmed the image of the highest church dignitary: on the one side as expected by his loyal followers: a man who will not falter in the view of revolutionary confrontations from all corners of his religious “kingdom”; and on the other as expected by the representatives of the political system: a man with the qualities of a statesman.

The verbal content of his speeches was effectively built by means of rhetorical tools – with a clear “assembly point” in which he welcomed and gathered his audience, followed by opening the bracket in which then he packed the content in a logical succession and ending with the closure of the bracket and a final “take away”-message. He also emphasised his words with a moderate but distinctive change of rhythm and volume.

The difference which I pointed to at the beginning lies in two details which I would like you to focus on:

1. the difference in tone between his sermons and his address to the Parliament: while preaching (= talking to ”his people”) he uses a somewhat softer tone than while addressing the politicians. He lets perceive the warmth and kindness of the One he represents, acts more like a father addressing his children in these occasions and limits himself to represent the “statesman”, the highest representative of the Roman Catholic Church, in the other.
2. the difference in non-verbal clues: while addressing the Parliament he hardly looks at anybody, he keeps to his text and there is no passage from his eyes to his heart – not even when he delivers the key-message: “…that we, the legislative authorities of today, should wish for a listening heart“. In this moment he does not seem to be feeling or hearing anything but his own words. Indeed, now we believe: he will not falter in the view of any controversy, because he is not permitting any glimpse of it come closer than to his rational surface. Here he stands as the statesman in front of the representatives of another state – and no further connection than the connection through status will be possible. When he talks to “his people” Pope Benedict acts slightly different. He looks up, addresses the crowd with his eyes and sometimes you see a glimpse of emotion supporting his words – you perceive his feelings apart from the clear strength of his conviction. 

If I would have to judge from these three speeches alone whether there will be any reform of the Roman Catholic Church supported by Pope Benedict XVI I would clearly say: NO. We will never see that happen. And this – maybe quite provocative prognosis – is not made upon the analysis of the Popes’ words but only upon the messages perceived in his para- and non-verbal style of communication.

What is your opinion?

Download here the 31 pages analysis of Barack Obamas Jobs Speech:

President Obamas Job Speech_08092011

It was a highly efficient speech which President Barack Obama delivered last Thursday to the Congress. Whether it was really effective we will only judge from the future but there are good possibilities that it will be seen as such.

Let me briefly introduce the attachment and why I judge the speech as efficient:

1. Obama was building the bridge to his first presidential campaign by telling the people again ”YES, WE CAN!” without repeating that slogan but by providing many examples of the ability of the Americans to make their way out of troubles and for political parties to work together for the common good.
2. Every time he opened a new chapter he made sure that he would start with everybody gathered in one single point of departure
3. He brilliantly played with the succession of emotions and “hard facts” - even though he played his emotional chords much softer due to the current political climate (over-doing would have backfired)  
4. Through recurring “formulas” and repetitions with extension he succeeded in creating rhythm and to some extent most probably ownership of the proposals in his audience.
5. Once again he reached out to everbody and positioned himself as a leader for the whole nation, not only one political party

All in all it was a speech focused on national pride building upon the “Big American Dream” and this eagerness to succeed the Nation could always count on.