Barack Obama’s Presentation Skills- India Trip, Nov 2010

I am sure there must tons of coverage on what Barack Obama did at India and his Asia tour of 2010- There was considerable coverage in the India media before he arrived and after he departed. Politicians, Corporates, Institutions, Villages et al had an agenda with the Big O and vice-versa. While there is a lot of talk around Obama having an agenda for the US and how he wanted a win-win situation with us- I am not blogging those important details as there are better folks than me who would have documented that. Also there was a section of crowd that said, “now we have got attention” and another section that said, “we better get this attention as we are definitely invincible”, blah, blah- We are not entering that area as well.

Quite interestingly, the premise of this blog is look at one sliver of Big O’s visit which was his town hall session at St.Xavier’s college at Mumbai [tp://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/nov/07/slide-show-1-obama-visit-ask-obama-tough-questions-keep-him-on-his-toes.htm ] where a lot of students were supposed to be grilling him with hard, sensitive questions. I happened to see that session in the TV and I got some valuable insights on presentation skills- I think I will be the millionth fan of Big O’s presentation skills but nevertheless wanted to record that. I know that big title, designated corporate honchos can also learn on the art of presentation through this Q & A session alone.

Here are my observations:

• Non-filler usage- This is an amazing skill especially when you are extempore and faced with sensitive political questions. Typically, folks use “you know”, “I mean” etc some 200 times in a 5 minute conversation- Even senior corporate honchos have this problem. Hint for their HR team: Get a communication coach for your CEO and VP’s. I have already blogged about this earlier!!

• Connection with the audience- Usually communication coaches call this as “eye contact” but Big O has clearly crossed that part. This connection is beyond eye contact- there was an emotional angle associated with the answers of some of the questions. Its again to hard to develop this skill because this requires good amount of empathy and compassion! Both of these are in scarcity today.

• Engaging the audience and local association- There were many times where Obama mentioned about local things at India, Gandhi etc. This brings the relevancy and also engages the audience- There is a huge plus in connecting with the culture even if it is a 30 minute conversation!

• Assertiveness in communication- I think this is an amazing trait of Big O. The tone tells about the assertiveness on some issues!

• Answering the questions specifically- This seems like an OBVIOUS point in a Q & A session but most of the leaders or presenters in this type of sessions don’t answer the question and beat around the bush. I won’t say Obama was perfect in this area but given his constraints he did a great job. There was a question about why Pakistan not being called a terrorist state and Obama’s answer was picture perfect- He said that Pakistan’s stability is good for India and there are extremists in Pakistan as they are in any part of the country in the world. India is on a super growth mode and an unstable Pakistan is not good for India. He also added some masala on how great Pakistan is but the key point is abstracting the question and focusing on stability which is important for India. Fair enough! From purely a ATQ [answer the question] perspective, his answers were great. From a different perspective, US wants Pakistan to be an ally and they need Afghan control in the war and they are ramping down as well. These are some underlying aspects but as I said earlier, there are enough folks who are deep in to this debate that I don’t want to join that gang with my opinion. :-)

You can view the Youtube version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLapI4dQBAE



All of the above points seem very obvious and easy but I think it’s very difficult to implement on regular basis! More importantly, these are highly significant for any leader today whether s/he in business or politics.

After I blogged this, I was curious to google about “Barack Obama’s presentation skills” and I got a whooping 96,700 results. I was bang on with my assumption of me being a millionth fan or one among the millions who likes his presentation skills.
I wonder how much of home work Obama does for his speeches or is it a innate talent! I would have asked that question in St.Xavier’s, Mumbai if I was present during that day!

"You Know"- Is this communication's greatest filler or failure?

Imagine this scenario- A senior leader or a politician or a management expert comes in to speak and the topic goes this way:

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen- I came here to talk about green energy- What is green energy? You know, this is a……You know…..it has….. You know….blah…You know…blah…You know…blah… You know repeated 150 minutes over the next 10 minutes then moving on to infinity of “you know”’s.

In December, 2008, Caroline Kennedy used “You Know” 142 times – a lot of internet sites has that video; during that conversation, I am sure that all of us gave our full focus on the fillers and its appearance the next time. It’s more of predicting the occurrence in a speech rather than listening to that speech. Don’t you agree?

A lot of times, we inadvertently use the filler, “you know” while we communicate- There is no harm if it is used once or twice during a conversation. But it becomes super frustrating to understand someone’s thoughts if it is used throughout the conversation. Some of my preliminary studies on various leaders, various communicators indicate that they use this filler quite generously.

My observations indicate an alarming frequency of this usage- This one is for hardcore statisticians and for folks who like data; On an average, I have observed the usage of fillers some 150-200 times in a 15 minute conversation. “You Know” as the filler is the leader of the pack followed by “like”, “I mean”, “means”, “as in”, “huh” in some geographies. In other geographies, some other filler takes the place!- Somehow YW (shortened for “You Know”) has this egregious ability to penetrate all conversations and spoil the whole show. It’s like a virus that’s constantly spreading unless we consciously ostracize it.

I have personally experienced the ability of YW peeping in my conversations- Most of the times we never recognize its destructive ability until someone points it out. In your professional life, people rarely point out; sometimes people point out depending on the hierarchy level that you are in. The higher you go, the number of people who give you candid feedback comes down tremendously and you have to rely on informal sources. Interestingly, my wife pointed this all the time whenever I was giving a talk- I used to get all irritated when she used to point out but I never got angry on YW. I have consciously eradicated the frequency but it does take time when one is habituated to use fillers.

Based on my experience, I can suggest couple of measures to eradicate it:
• Please acknowledge that we use fillers
• Observe your speech- The best way is to listen a recorded speech as that has the best prophylactic effect
• If you don’t have the means to record your speech, have a neutral person outside your organization evaluate your speech – During that time, please ask him or her to note down the fillers
• Once you have done this, you can validate the annoyance of fillers in our daily speech
• If you have reached this stage, you have won 75% of the battle
• The remaining 25% is just execution- Consciously avoiding it, replacing it with silences- Sometimes a pregnant silences will do. 
• Once you have done it, re-record your present conversation and compare it with the earlier one- Then pat one on your back and reward yourself a “Hagen-Dass” ice cream or whatever “you know”! 


On one of my earlier listening sessions, I was hearing one of the senior leaders speak on one of the management sessions and the frequency of YW in a 10 minute conversation was 250 times. It was really an arduous task for me to segregate the real content after removing the fillers. The person really had great content but YW really made a mess of the content. The only thing that remains is, “you know”, I don’t know what to say!

In today’s world, communication has become the greatest tool for everyone irrespective of his/her designation- Communication coaches, advisors and mentors should definitely point this out to senior leaders today. It’s okay to use it but definitely not okay to overuse it- When someone does that, the real content vanishes and all it remains is the filler!

Although fillers are a good tool to create on the fly thinking especially when you are on the spot, or when you are thinking aloud or when you want to wing the conversation; this tool needs to be used sparingly!

Don’t you all agree? Would love to hear your views or your experience of fillers or your experience on listening to a fun-filled overused “filler” conversation?