Ep 70 How to Prepare for a Debate Public Speaking March 10 16

So how do you prepare for a debate?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Question coming in from one of my regulars. This posted on Facebook from Chike. Mr. Elizu, believe is his name, says TJ. I'd like you to talk about debates. How do you prepare for debates? Most of us won't ever need to debate in a formal way, the way the candidates for the presidency do. But in middle management, executive meetings and even in the boardroom, discussions and presentations are often free flowing. They involve interruptions and rebuttals, much like the formal debates, intense rivalries and as you know, the one liners can be very helpful in influencing perceptions. If you could please address this. Well, indeed, debates are a type of public speaking, a type of perception presentation. For many people they are the hardest because you can't just rehearse and have your messages and have your stories and sort of go through the process. With most speeches, you can really be very, very confident that you're going to be great by simply rehearsing, practicing on video and getting to the point where you like what you see. There are so many variables you can't control in a debate debate. You can prepare, you can do things to help you, but it's not with the same level of certainty that a normal speech or presentation might be. So I do want to give you some very, very specific pointers on how to prepare for debates. First of all, those of you running for office, I'm going to talk about that just a little because as the questioner who wrote in pointed out, most people in the business world, government world, are never going to be on a televised political debate. That is a unique arena in that you're not really trying to convince the other person. You're not necessarily trying to convince the followers of that other person that you're right. What you're trying to do is to get the media covering you, to say that you won, that you beat the other person. You're trying to say things that make your own supporters like you even more. And you are trying to reach voters who haven't made up their mind and convince them that you're more intelligent, you have better ideas, better solutions. That's what you're trying to do in a TV debate. And that's why there's often the emphasis on the one liners, because most people in the world would rather do anything than watch political debates. Now I'm the opposite. If given a choice between, if I had to make a choice between watching a Super bowl or a political debate, I'd pick a political debate anytime. If I had a choice between a World Series baseball game or a political debate, I'd pick the political debate. But I'm weird. Most people aren't like that. What that means is that most voters only hear about debates through the news coverage and these days through the social media coverage, which means the sound bites are more important than anything. So when Donald Trump says Jeb Bush, you're low energy, that's what gets attention. When Lloyd Benson said to Dan Quayle, you know, John F. Kennedy and I knew him, that's what got the headline. It was just such a put down. So the put downs do get a lot of attention. For most of you in the corporate world, that would be the worst thing to do. Having a debate with a respected colleague or your boss and you give them some zinger and you anger them, you make an enemy for life politics. The people you are debating. Rarely do you really have to work with them that closely for the rest of your life or the rest of your career. Some exceptions, but for the most part there is a little bit of distance there. Not so in your company. I do want to talk about some of the similarities between preparing for political debates versus debates in industry conference events, even events and meetings, contentious meetings in your own company. Because there are some similarities. I'll talk about those and give you tips in just a moment.

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So the biggest similarity between political debates and a debate in any organization is if you want to be prepared. You need to actually have interesting ideas where you can just go into that debate and put it out there and you can't do it by reading it. You've got to really be able to talk it. It looks horrible to look down during a debate, whether it's a business meeting or anything else. For the most part there can be exceptions if you want to call upon certain facts or figures. But the number one thing is you need to have important ideas that you've really thought about and you've thought about how to package them to make them interesting and understandable and memorable to your audience. That's true whether you're debating for the presidency of the United States, or you're debating about whether to allocate social media assets in your company to Facebook or to Twitter or to some other app. You need to really have a clear cut idea of what is most important to you. So please, number one, do that. The next thing that's critically important in a debate is you've got to be comfortable and be in the moment. Now this is a hard thing to do. This is why it's so important to prepare and rehearse. In fact, the very first media training, presentation training I ever did was in preparation for a political debate with a gentleman running for the United States Congress from Charlotte, North Carolina in 1984. Man, am I sounding old. I was a senior in college at the time. This was an unpaid internship. We had a gigantic camera brought in, hooked it up to a TV and we practiced the debate practice asking questions and answers. So most people don't do that certainly in the corporate arena, practice on video. Presidential candidates for the most part do practice. Certainly if they are the nominees of a major party, they do practice their debate on video. They have someone be the stand in for their political opponent. And the reason you want to do this is you want to try out certain answers, number one. Number two, you just want to get comfortable with this so that you don't freeze and panic when you're nervous. When you panic in a debate, that's when the words don't come up. That's when you can't think of what to say and you're sort of fumbling around. That's the worst of all possible cases. So the next big thing that is true of political debates and corporate or industry debates is you've got to practice so that you're comfortable saying what you want to say. Now related to that second point, the third point is you've got to get to the point where you are in the moment. And what I mean by that is you're not thinking about what you're going to say next. You're, you're simply saying what you want to say. You're listening to that person. And you can be calm enough and comfortable enough where you can really listen. Because that's what shows mastery in a debate. If you can listen to what this person said, that person said, synthesize them, or show a contradiction. That's what happens in a real debate. Now some of us have in our mind the concept of a debate in the United States Senate, for example, where no one's even listening to each other. All they're doing is reading pre written speeches that's not really a debate. But one of the things that is fascinating for those of us who enjoy politics is a good political debate. Candidates will actually pick apart what one person said, use it against them. So, for example, in the 2016 Republican primary debates, Chris Christie heard the governor of New Jersey heard Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, use the same line several times in defense of his own basic youth and inexperience of only being in the Senate for a couple of years. He had a standard line he used about Obama knowing exactly what he's doing and not being essentially the rationale was not that Obama has an inexperienced problem. The problem with Obama was ostensibly his political beliefs. So Marco Rubio had a sort of set line for that. But then he said it again, word for word. Chris Christie caught it, mocked him for it right away. There you go, the same 25 second set speech again. Because he was listening, because he reacted, because he attacked in a way that didn't seem phony and canned and artificial and pre wrapped. It stung. And Chris Christie got a lot of credit for how he behaved in that debate. Now, it didn't help him in the long run with his candidacy, but he got tremendous attention on something he wanted to and it dramatically hurt Marco Rubio and almost knocked him out of the presidential race. And he did not do well in that primary in large part because of how he did in that debate. So that's a perfect example of how you have to clearly be in the moment. You have to be comfortable enough, confident enough to listen and be able to think of new stuff to say and react. That's what Chris Christie did. And that's one reason why it was so effective. That's harder to do. That's why I encourage people to speak every opportunity you can to speak. The more you speak, the more you debate, the more you are a part of a panel discussion, the easier it's going to be for you to be able to be comfortable enough to listen in a debate, think, react and say what you want to say.

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My biggest advice for you is to take every opportunity you can to speak, debate, discuss in meetings. Because every time you do it, it gets a little easier. One of the things I do and it sometimes annoys my wife, but every single time I can be out in a walk in my neighborhood, if I see a TV camera, I will walk up to the reporter and say, hey, what's the story today. And typically they'll say, well, we're getting a reaction to what people think of. And then they'll name some topic and unless it's something I've absolutely never heard of, I always offer a reaction because it's a chance for me to practice sound bites, message, say what I want, get on TV more. I realize that sounds a little egotistical, but it is my business and I like to practice what I preach. And every time you do it, you get a little more confident, you get a little more comfortable. It becomes more difficult to actually be nervous when you're speaking, knowing you're seen by thousands or tens of thousands the more often you do it. So that's why I do it, to get better at it. And to show you can do it with a moment's notice, you can do it with three weeks preparation. It shouldn't take a long time. Now, a TV interview isn't the same thing as a debate, but it's more like a debate in that you have to think on your feet and answer questions as opposed to delivering a set canned campaign speech or presentation. The other big difference, and I want to caution you about this, in politics, there is a zero sum game, election day. Only one candidate is going to win, unless you're in some sort of multi candidate city council or legislative race in the top seven. But for most cases, most of the time, one can win, everyone else loses. So quite often you have to attack. You have to say what's wrong with the other person. And if you don't, then the only thing people will remember will be the attacks the other person made against you. So having a strong, clear, forceful attack that reaffirms your strengths, galvanizes your supporters and destroys the credibility of the opponent is something whether you think it's a bad thing or not, it's inevitable in politics, in the business world, in the social world, in the public affairs world, the nonprofit world, the civic world, that's not true. You don't necessarily want to be burning bridges, you don't want to be attacking people. You're generally going to be seen as more effective, more believable, more convincing. By having a positive argument for what you're doing, why what you want is great, why it'll help everyone, and why it makes sense. The final tip in any debate is realize each time you're talking, it's a mini presentation. Therefore the same rules apply. Focus on one idea at a time. If you can tell a very brief story, one example, simple words, short sentences infuse it not just with intellect, but with emotion. Make sure it's understandable to people interesting and memorable. Do that and you're going to win a lot of debates. I'm TJ Walker. May all of your presentations and debates in life be a huge success.

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