The King's Speech

19 Pages·2014·0.36 MB·English

by  Nick Morgan

INTRODUCTION
The Academy Award winning movie The King’s Speech revolves
around the relationship between a reluctant king, George VI of
England, and his speech coach, the Australian Lionel Logue.
The film reveals that a strict father and some painful teasing as
a child contributed to George’s stutter, and that he was quite
content in his role as the Duke of York, second in line to the
throne after his older brother, who would become Edward VIII.
Even so, the pressure on George, born Albert and known as
Bertie only by his family (and Logue), to speak at public events
causes him to engage several speech coaches in an effort to
overcome his stammer. All such efforts fail until his wife,
Elizabeth, discovers Lionel Logue, who had built a reputation
working with shell-shocked soldiers from World War I and
worked out of a shabby suite of offices on Harley Street in
London. The two began working together, and George made
remarkable progress even though he resisted Logue’s
unorthodox methods and insistence at treating the Duke of York
like an equal. “My house, my rules,” Logue maintained.
The central drama in The King’s Speech comes when The Duke
of York inherits the throne after his father dies and his older
brother, Edward, abdicates to marry the American divorcee
Wallis Simpson.
George will have some lines to speak at his coronation, and he
must rely on Logue more than ever.
He gets through his coronation without embarrassing himself,
but the King’s real test comes several years later, in 1939,
when he must address England and the world to explain that
England is at war with Germany. George VI will both represent
and lead England during the speech, and he cannot stammer in
his country’s hour of need.
In my two decades as a communications coach, I’ve seen many
clients go on similar journeys. The coaching relationship is an
intensely personal one, and the stakes are frequently high.
While no one I’ve worked with has had to declare war, my
clients have given Congressional testimony, argued high-stakes
cases in front of juries, given interviews on television, and
spoken in front of thousands of people around the world.
The lessons, five in particular, I’ve learned working with my
clients parallel the lessons from The King’s Speech. Let’s take
each in turn.
Chapter 1
FACE REALITY
You’re not as good as you probably think you are. If you’re a
leader, you’re likely surrounded by people who tell you what
you want to hear, not what you need to know. I once worked
with the CEO of a health care company who thought he was a
pretty good public speaker. He came to me because he wanted
to go from good to great.
Then I taped one of his speeches and showed it to him. He was
astounded. Like many of us, when he was on stage, with
adrenaline coursing through his system, he lost affect. He
looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights - his face
showed no animation, and his voice was a steady monotone.
“I’m really boring, aren’t I!” he exclaimed. That knowledge was
painful to acquire. But for years he had been asking the first
person he saw after giving a speech how he had done. And that
person was invariably a vice president who told him he was
great.
Fortunately, that CEO was tough and honest, and, with my not-
so-gentle critique, he resolved to improve. Similarly, you’ve got
to be willing to be honest with yourself. If you won’t admit
you’ve got a problem, then you’ve got no upside potential.
How do you accomplish this difficult task? Get someone to
videotape you the next time you speak. Then let 24 hours go by
(so you’ll no longer be in adrenaline mode) and watch the
video. Then compare your performance with that of speakers
you admire. How do you stack up? Are you as eloquent as a
Kennedy? As passionate as Martin Luther King, Jr? If not,
you’ve got work to do.
In The King’s Speech, it took a tremendous personal struggle,
but the King finally opened up to Logue once he had faced
reality and realized that his inability to speak in public was an
insuperable barrier to his Kingship.
Chapter 2
UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT GOT YOU TO WHERE YOU
ARE TODAY WON’T GET YOU THE REST OF THE WAY
Many executives have reached the position they currently hold
by pleasing their superiors and competing vigorously with co-
workers. But once they get to the C-Suite, the communication
styles that served them well before no longer work.
I once worked with an executive who had used the street-wise
skills he had learned growing up in Brooklyn to fight his way
into the leadership ranks of a Fortune 500 company.
When he was made CFO, however, the bare-knuckles approach
with employees and colleagues was no longer welcome. He was
now interacting with the board, and its members expected
collegiality, not aggression. I spent 6 months working with him
to tone down his pugnacious communication style. The work
really accelerated when I showed him a video of him role-
playing himself in a meeting, and he told me, “I act like a
punk!”
Switching behavior from what has worked so well before is
quite hard, especially when it comes to communication styles.
The new style often feels risky and unfamiliar, so the
temptation to revert back to the old style is great. Executives
often fall back and tell me that, “It’s not real, it’s not me,”
meaning that they prefer the old over the new behavior. I
worked with an executive once, for example, who was impatient
of preparation and preferred to wing it in meetings with clients
and co-workers. I was called in after he had been promoted to
the C-Suite, and had a disastrous meeting with the investment
community in which he made some off-the-cuff remarks that
drove the stock price down. It took that kind of feedback from
Wall Street to make him realize that he wasn’t his style, and
that he had to start rehearsing and using scripted remarks or
lose his job.
But in fact it’s not an executive’s soul that’s at stake, it’s his or
her behavior with others. If you’re not willing to adapt your
communications style to fit your new role, you’re not going to
go the distance.
George VI had to be willing to let go of his personal reserve
during his sessions with Logue. He had to fight his desire to
hide behind the shield that class and power gave him and
change his behavior even though it was uncomfortable and
unfamiliar.
Similarly, it’s important for leaders, especially those in new
roles, to decide on what kind of impact they want to have, and
what sort of communications style will enable that impact. Do
you want to bring change to a conservative, slow-moving
industry? Then a style that embodies creative flair, or
technological change, or even one that shows you to be
impatient might serve you well. You pick the style, and then a
coach can help you figure out what that needs to look like in
public and how best to develop it.
It’s easier, of course, if the new style matches elements of your
personality. I recently worked with an executive who was being
groomed to become the CEO of his company. But his reserve,
which had worked well enough in the largely supporting
financial roles he had occupied before, was making the board
hesitate; he got quite nervous when addressing more than a
small number of people. Our discussion at first centered on his
resistance to change. He told me, “I’m an introvert. That’s who
I am.”
In fact, he resented the idea of what he saw as changing his
personality to become CEO. So I asked him if he wanted to be
CEO at all. He said yes. Then I asked him what he saw as good
CEO communications styles. He listed characteristics that
included ease in front of groups, authenticity in dealing with
multiple stakeholders, and so on. Then I showed him a brief
DVD of him making a presentation and analyzed the style he
was showing, stressing that I was not evaluating his
personality, merely the persona that he was projecting. He
came across as inward-looking, intense, and quite nervous. I
asked him if that was the persona he wanted to project, and he
said no.
So then it simply became a matter of showing him that some
fairly straightforward changes in the way he stood, held
himself, gestured, and connected with an audience would allow
him to achieve his goals.
Today, he’s the CEO and well known in the company for being a
straight-talking, approachable, authentic leader.
Chapter 3
FIND YOUR VOICE
One of the turning points in The King’s Speech comes when the
Duke of York has a rehearsal for his coronation and Logue
affronts him by sitting on the throne that English monarchs
have occupied for centuries. Furious, George rages at Logue,
asking him again and again why anyone should listen to him.
Finally, the George shouts, “Because I have a voice.” And Logue
quietly replies, “Yes, you do.” The moment perfectly captures a
key moment in George VI’s journey: For the first time, the
Duke of York sets aside his fears and self-protective armor and
asserts himself.
All leaders need to find their unique voices. To take command,
and to inspire others, you need to tap into and speak with your
unique authority. This is especially true in a moment of crisis.
People will not follow you if they sense that you’re not
authentic, and if you don’t believe in them as much as they
want to believe in you.
Indeed, you need to be present every moment, in meetings, in
sessions with employees, in day-to-day stuff as well as during
big speeches and climactic moments that every career presents.
Finding your unique voice means a good deal more than just
polishing your skills and speaking sincerely. It means finding
your edge, finding that part of you that really makes you tick
and making the most of it. It doesn’t mean learning to present
like Steve Jobs or Jesse Jackson or Abraham Lincoln. It does
mean figuring out what in you has that same kind of magic as
Jobs’ enthusiasm, Jackson’s passion, or Lincoln’s vision.