How Do The Best Speechwriters Get Things Done?
There's an important client presentation coming up and you find out at the last moment that you need to give the opening presentation, but you've got NOTHING prepared! What do you do? Is there anything worse? Well fear not, in this episode I'm going to look at a rule used by Barack Obama's former speechwriter, for helping you deal with that exact situation. It's called "The 50-25-25 Rule" and it's brilliant.
Terry Szuplat was one of President Obama's longest serving speechwriters, serving as special assistant to the president from 2009-2017, and as a member of the National Security Council stagg from 2013-2017. In 2024 Terry published "Say It Well" a step-by-step field guide for helping anyone to tell better stories. Today Terry runs his own speechwriting firm, Global Voices Communications, and he teaches speechwriting at his alma mater, American University's School of Public Affairs.
This episode features one of the most practical pieces of advice I've ever heard from a speechwriter, and probably the best piece of advice I ever heard from President Obama. Enjoy.
EPISODE LINKS
- My full conversation with Terry [55 mins]
- Terry's book "Say It Well"
- Global Voices Communications
- Say It Well - One Pager [DOWNLOAD]
- BetterStories.org Storytelling resources, course & assets
- The Get Things Done Book by Mikael Krogerus & Roman Tschäppeler
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
How Do Storytellers Get Things Done?
[WEST WING THEME]
The purpose of a great business story is to make the audience feel something so that they do something. Hundreds of words have been written about how to tell stories at work, but I’m pretty sure you could sum up all the advice in those books in that one sentence.
Make them FEEL something so that they DO something.
One of the most powerful pieces of advice I’ve ever heard was from a conversation between Linkedin News Editor in Chief Daniel Roth, and former president Barack Obama. Daniel asked Obama, “What do you tell people when they come to you asking for career advice?”
Listen to this clip (even if you’ve heard it before, don’t switch off) because after you’ve listened to it, I want to take you behind the scenes of where that advice came from – because I promise you it will make you a much better storyteller.
[OBAMA]
Great piece of advice isn’t it.
Speechwriters have a word for getting stuff done – “KAIROS”. It’s an unusual word and is only really taught if you study rhetoric (the art & science of influencing audiences) but the definition of KAIROS – one of the words which classical Greek’s used to describe time, can be translated as “a supreme moment at which one must act – no matter how implausible or inconvenient.”
Make the audience feel something so that they do something.
OK – so what about when you need to write an important speech or a story, and you need to inspire your audience to act?
How do you get that done?
Well who better to ask than my friend Terry Szuplat, Barack Obama’s longest serving speech writer, who wrote for Obama between 2009-2017.
Here’s a 3-minute clip from a conversation I recorded with Terry about his book “Say It Well” about how he gets speeches done for Obama. It’s based on a brilliantly simple rule called “The 50:25:25 Rule” which I really like and use all the time – and I think it might help you too…
[TERRY x JCW]
I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe.”
If you want people to ACT when they’ve heard your presentation, then you need to prepare the environment to make it easy for them to act – and that means doing your research.
Properly. Up to 50% of the time.
Have to give a presentation in a month? Spend…
2 weeks thinking, researching and organizing your thoughts, 1 week writing and 1 week editing and practicing.
Have to give a speech in a week? Spend…
3 days thinking, researching and organising, 2 days writing, and 2 days practicing,
Just found out you have to give the introduction to a client session later today? Spend…
1 hour thinking, researching and organizing, 30 minutes writing and 30 minutes editing and practicing.
The 50:25:25 rule works so well because the best predictor of whether you’ll give a good presentation isn’t what we do at the podium, it’s the preparation we put in before we ever get to the podium;
It’s the work that goes into a speech before we ever write a single word.
But even more than that, when you’re prepared you’re not as nervous when it’s time to deliver your talk, because you know you’re ready.
And around ¾ of us get nervous and anxious when we have to give a talk, so take a breath – and no matter how much time you have (or don’t have), use half of it to get your thoughts in order and organise all the pieces of your talk in a meaningful way.
This is where AI assistants can really help you – by saving you time in your research phase – pulling a list of potential quotes to use, showing you were all the relevant reports are which you can pull some insights from, finding brilliant client stories that you didn’t even know about to emphasise your point. In my experience working with business leaders who are putting a client presentation together, using an AI assistant for research saves them around 5 hours a week.
That’s a big deal!
I also use record cards – with a different point on each card – and move them around – reorganising them until the talk feels right.
So…
You want to chop down a big tree?
You’ve got to give a big talk?
You’ve got to sharpen that axe!
50:25:25
Thanks everyone – see you on the next one.
[WEST WING THEME]
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The Truth in Ten is a cross between a podcast series and a storytelling masterclass. Each short episode shines a light on a different inspirational leader; someone who shared a short story which changed the world in some way. This is a show for anyone who wants to make a difference by sharing their story.
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