Episode #64: Oprah's Golden Globe's Speech Carries Smart Lessons

Oprah Winfrey has been celebrated by many for her recent acceptance speech at the Golden Globes event. It proves once again the power and attraction of being able to command an audience and being persuasive with your message. Like her or loath her, that performance was very impressive. She is a seasoned professional, with many years in the limelight, so naturally she was very comfortable up there on stage. The surprising thing for me though is how many famous actors have trouble stringing two words together, when it is their turn to speak without a scriptwriter feeding them the lines. So being a celebrity, being in the business, is no guarantee of oratorical magic. What can we pick up from her speech to make our own presentations more successful?

I like the fact that Oprah started straight away with a story. She located the story in time in 1964, with a location - her as a child sitting on the linoleum floor of her mother’s house watching the Academy Awards on television. By giving us the time and location she is urging us to mentally transport ourselves back to our own childhood, sitting on the floor watching television like she was. With a few short descriptors she has mentally taken us with her. This is why telling stories makes us so powerful as communicators. She has grasped out total attention. No one in that audience was reaching for their mobile phone to check their Facebook or Instagram accounts during that story.

She wrapped up the story by transitioning to comments about the judging panel and then connected that segue with the current debate about the role of the press. This is a big topic and again, something that everyone has been exposed to recently, so it is easy for us to understand what she is talking about. Putting issues into a topical reference point makes it relevant to the audience and more interesting.

She used some powerful headliner sentences during her talk to engage the emotions of the audience. The first was when she said “speaking your truth”. This related the issues about the accuracy of reporting of the press with the current scandals about the abuse of power by men, which has seen famous men fall by the wayside, one after another. This use of a rallying cry is made to engage and energise the audience. Being able to reduce complex issues down to a headline is a real skill, but these are the things on which successful rallying cries are built. She also used another good segue to link the current issue with the issues her mother and others like her endured, again linking back to the start of the story.

By bringing up the VC Taylor story of her kidnap and rape on the way home from church, connected the theme of men using their power to abuse women, by putting it into an historical civil rights context. The extension of that story to include Rosa Parks again linked an unknown person VC Taylor to a more famous personality, to bring more credibility and memory power to the listener’s perspective. Now she has built a platform of context for her most powerful rallying cry of “Their time is up”.

There is a certain cadence to this build up. She was piling on the references to injustices of the past, to show the current injustices in a historical light and then hammer home her powerful statement of the current moment - “their time is up”.

Getting this type of build in a story is the art of storytelling. We need to set the scene, add the logs to build the fire and then throw the petrol on the fire at the right moment, to ignite the audience’s emotions. This was a masterful piece of planning and execution to get to the point of the story.

She used the “Me Too” mantra as a plea for no more cases, moving the completion of the speech to a more positive bent. She had been talking about a lot of negative things in the first part of the speech, but now she was moving the audience along the scale from desperation that nothing can ever change, to one where change is a reality. She mentioned more headline phrases, “hope for a brighter day” and then talked about a “new day on the horizon”. This is leaving the audience with hope for a better world. This is a powerful, positive call to end the speech with.

This is a useful thing to remember for our own talks because often we can be going deep into a problem and can get trapped in a negative loop. She ended with a clear Thank You and that was it, nothing more added or needed to be added and all done in under 10 minutes. Make it clear for the audience that you have finished. In our talks we can have a Q&A session, so it needs to be apparent to the audience where we are in the programme and that they can now ask their questions.

Another thing I noticed was she had controlled passion throughout this talk. She was using great energy to bring her words to life. She was also totally congruent with her content and her delivery. What she was saying and the way she said it matched up perfectly and we have to make sure we are doing the same in our talks. If it is a serious subject, then look serious and no jokes.

Her eye line was adding to her message. She was working the left, center and right sides of the room, as well as direct to the viewing audience, when she would look straight at the camera. This makes for a very inclusive style of speech. We should make sure we are addressing the entire audience. We should try to pick out people in the audience and speak directly to them for about 6 seconds, before picking up another person, repeat and repeat and repeat until we are finished. I noticed she also didn’t let the audience applause break her timing, she carried on over the top of it, to keep the flow. When we have found our speaking rhythm we should keep going with it.

A polished performance and one that reinforces the importance of planning well what it is you are going to say. She injected crescendos into that speech with strong well composed headlines. She embraced key messages into the stories which themselves were easy to follow. She involved her audience by engaging with them. We can do all of these things as well, all we need to do is plan for the impact we want and then work backwards constructing how to achieve it. Speaking has so much power and all we have to do is learn how to tap into that well.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.