Acquiring the Clinton factor

Why is Bill Clinton a riveting speaker while George W Bush – autocue accidents apart – is not? On 14 March the Institute’s Great Hall was packed to the gunnels with business people anxious to learn how to move their individual public performance abilities closer to the ex-president’s end of the speaking skills spectrum. The audience was there for actor David Gillespie’s talk, ‘The Clinton Factor’ – an analysis of good presentation/communication skills, and how to acquire them.

The fact that Clinton is tall and good-looking doesn’t hurt, Gillespie allowed. But even those less fortunate in the genetic lottery can aspire to the former president’s speaking skills. Gillespie’s advice was that Clinton-style delivery depends on just three key elements – story, status and focus.

We are told stories from the cradle onwards. Storytelling is a device for enlightenment – it helps the listener understand things; it can be used to transfer skills; it evokes feelings. The stories ‘stick’ and are therefore passed on. So – although Gillespie reluctantly conceded finance people’s need to use PowerPoint – the story is the key ‘medium’ for the presenter. And the creation of a good ‘story’ involves:

• careful construction;
• ruthless editing;
• a ‘journey’; and
• ‘flow’.

Successful construction depends on first getting the right ‘skeleton’ story before then putting flesh on its bones. In Gillespie’s view, achieving a good skeleton “probably mean starting at the ‘end’ – the message you want them to take away – then working backwards through the ‘middle’ to the ‘beginning’.”

But don’t overdo the detail. Edit it down. Trying to tell one’s audience everything is a mistake Gillespie said, invoking modernist architect Mies van der Rohe’s famous maxim ‘less is more’. Hence, “You should always be asking yourself what you can leave out.”

Taking your audience on a ‘journey ’is also important: the appeal of ‘Once upon a time...’ is not restricted to the very young. An adult audience also needs to travel from point A to point B in order to understand the information being imparted.

Further, that journey needs to ‘flow’. Why should the listener have to work hard to understand the information? Each component should lead easily and logically to the next, making it easy to remember. Also part of the ‘flow’, however, is the life injected into the story in the telling– use of your voice, its inflexion, volume and pace.

In short, “A good storyteller picks us up and deposits us where we want to be.”

The storyteller/presenter’s status is also crucial in determining the success of a presentation or other form of communication.

According to Gillespie, there are three subconscious things we ask ourselves when meeting someone –their age, sex and status. Having the answer to those three allows us to determine the manner in which we will respond to them. And although there is little a presenter can do about the first two, adopting and conveying the right status can payoff handsomely.

Status can be partly conferred by the seniority of the job (eg the high status afforded a senior manager, the low status of the office boy), but mostly it is demonstrated physically through deportment, tone of voice and demeanour. Our own status can vary with circumstances: Margaret Thatcher’s was high during her tenure as prime minister, much lower as she left Downing Street after involuntarily standing down. Tony Blair’s status, Gillespie ventured, can be “all over the place, depending on what’s going on”. An actor will explore all levels of status from one to 1,000.

But Clinton’s unwavering “open, warm, approachable, receptive, strong manner” is what is needed for communication. And that, Gillespie said, is “about a five to a seven, on a status scale of one to10”. Clinton, he pointed out, hugged people in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, whereas George W Bush “rushed behind a podium and jabbed his fingers at the perpetrators”.

Gillespie then went on to describe the importance of managing the audience’s attention “from the moment you step on the stage to the one that you step off”. Keeping your audience’s interest is key, and can be done by switching your own apparent concentration. He strongly recommended using the three ‘circles of concentration’ identified by Russian actor/director Stanislavski (on whose principles Lee Strasberg’s famous Method acting ideas were largely based). These work as out-lined below:

• third circle of concentration – if you are directing a movie, the third circle of concentration is the ‘master’ shot, which shows everything, the whole set, all the players etc. For a presentation, it means addressing the whole audience;
• second circle of concentration – this circle of concentration is the filmic equivalent of the ‘intimate two-shot’. This is the circle you use by catching the eye of some-one in the audience (for a limited time... more than three seconds, and they feel awkward), making them feel singled out; and
• first circle of concentration – this is the single ‘close-up’. It is epitomised by an introspective, thoughtful, slightly unfocused look. The speaker can use this extremely effectively by pausing, as if in thought – and using that interval as a platform for introducing a new idea.

The timing of these switches is important, too: go for quick, sharp switches between these circles, creating what Stanislavski called “a series of ‘now’ moments”. And, Gillespie added, this venture into the world of dramatic presentation is no detour: “When you give a presentation, you have entered into the world of showbusiness: you have a duty to entertain and engage."

In summary, he said, the keys to a good presentation are telling a good, simple, well-structured, flowing story; adopting the right confident, approachable status in telling it; and choreographing a performance which is a crisp series of ‘now’ moments, switching among all three circles of concentration to keep the audience’s attention.

• Acquiring the Clinton factor
  Finance & Management Magazine, May 2007, p.14-15

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Further reading on developing your presentation skills is available through the articles below.