Ep 144 Ted Cruz Misses the Basketball Ring Media Training May 23, 2016

Senator ted cruz goes to indiana and talks about basketball rings.

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It was the spring of 2016. Senator Ted Cruz was on the last legs of his presidential campaign. He was campaigning in Indiana, which is well known as a huge, huge basketball state. People love basketball there. College basketball, professional basketball. And Ted Cruz had not yet dropped out of the presidential race. But things were on the last breath of his campaign. He was giving a speech and in an attempt to relate to his audience, he referred to the basketball hoops as basketball rings. Now for anyone who knows anything about basketball, and I don't know that much, but I do know some, it is true that the thing that the ball goes through is round and you could call it a ring. The problem is nobody has ever called it a basketball ring. So Ted Cruz instantly just looked and sounded ridiculous. He sounded as though he were pandering. He was widely mocked, widely ridiculed. Not just that day, not just a day later, a week later, but weeks later. In fact, President Obama at the annual Correspondents Dinner had a whole bit about that. Talking about Ted Cruz calling it basketball rings, he said, what next from Ted Cruz Calling baseball sticks football hats. But sure, I'm the foreign one, said President Obama. How do you keep from being an object of ridicule? Is this something Ted Cruz could have avoided? More on that in a moment.

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Part of the challenge of looking at gaffes, media blunders, many crises that politicians and business leaders create for themselves in the media is you have to look at the larger context. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. I've never seen a single politician, speaker, CEO who speaks a lot, who doesn't occasionally say something that just rings hollow. Sounds like there's a tinn ear. It sounds like something's fake or phony or off. It happens to everyone if you speak long enough. Now I'm not a big fan of Ted Cruz and his politics, but that's not the subject of this podcast and this show. I do have and I've praised him in the past for his oratorical skills. He is in many ways a great public speaker, presenter, communicator but as I mentioned, everybody can have a blunder from time to time. Now I give Ted Cruz. He was trying to connect with his audience. He was thinking, where am I? Let me not just give a generic speech. I know these people in this state like basketball. Let me try to make some basketball reference. The problem is, if you're going to talk about a subject matter that is near and dear to the hearts of your audience, you need to make sure you're conversant in the particulars. And apparently Ted Cruz is not a big basketball player, wasn't growing up, and it just sounded as though he had never ever seen a game of basketball in his entire life. That's why the humor from President Obama got so many chuckles and rang true. It's just anybody who's watched baseball would never refer to a baseball bat as a baseball stick. That's what made it funny. Although at some level, especially for kids, a bat made of wood is a stick. It's long and thin. It's not technically inaccurate to call it a baseball stick. And yet no one would ever do that. In the same way, it's not technically inaccurate to call a basketball hoop a basketball ring. Now, what is the greater context? The greater context here is that the media was primed to latch onto anything that made Ted Cruz look like he's going down a loser, a failure, because all the other political dynamics were in place to push that narrative. Ted Cruz was losing elections, losing primaries, was anticipated to drop out. So here's another thing that helps put together that whole story. And at some level, as a politician, it's very difficult to beat that narrative. Now, this works both ways. You can make an occasional blunder, but if everything else is going so well and you're the big winner and you're winning, probably primary after primary, you might get a free pass or it's a very small blip. It's an hour story and not a two week story. I want to make sure people don't learn false lessons here. And I want to go over what the real lesson is. I think in just a moment.

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The lesson here is not that a politician or anyone in the spotlight should have everything scripted out, fact checked, fact checked, and looked at, scrutinized from every different possible standpoint. That's not the lesson. Because if you do that, you end up sounding canned, contrived, phony, scripted, unspontaneous. So that is the false lesson here. Realize that for most people, most of the time, if you make a little mistake like this, no one's going to be bothered, no one's going to be remembered. So I do want to caution those of you who are students of communication, students of the media, it's natural to look at politicians and draw examples from that and draw lessons from that. And I do that. It's fun and it's interesting. But you also must constantly bear in mind that everything about politics, especially politics at a major national level, are completely different than how other people, business leaders, civic leaders, non profit leaders, deal with the media, deal with speaking audiences. Most of the time, if you're giving a speech, a presentation, a talk, a panel discussion, if you botch one little word, like calling a hoop a rim or a bat a stick, no one's going to care, no one's going to remember. And they might chuckle for half a second, but then move on. Because for most of us, the big trouble is getting anyone to pay attention and remember anything we say. At presidential politics level, the scrutiny is much greater, the stakes are much higher. You have so many enemies, opponents, ideological enemies in the media, pundits going after you. Regardless of who you are, you have to be much more defensive because an awful lot of people are waiting to attack you and vilify you. For most business leaders, even business leaders of Fortune 500 companies, sure, you can have your detractors in the media, but the far bigger challenge is communicating anything, is getting anyone to remember the ideas you're talking about and to come across as likable, as interesting and as engaging. So that's why I want to discourage you from the practice of trying to be safe, trying to be scripted, trying to read from the teleprompter. If you're a business executive, that just is not a good idea in my view. Most of the time. Of course, there can be exceptions. What you gain in control of not making a little flub, of calling something a basketball ball circle or a rim or whatever it was Ted Cruz called it, that was ridiculous. What you gain by that, you lose by seeming canned, phony, structured, non conversational, robotic, and not truly present. So sure, all things being equal, the fewer mistakes, the fewer blunders, the fewer wrong words you use, the better. But please realize, for most of us, it's not about getting each word right. It's the far bigger challenge. Have we communicated in a way that's interesting and memorable and people feel comfortable with us? Do that, and most audiences most of the time will forgive you for any one little wrong word choice. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me today. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success. And please, if you haven't done so, send me a suggestion of a topic or a question you have on any aspect of public speaking. I'd love to hear from you and we'll definitely answer your questions on this program.

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