Anyone who has been watching the US Presidential candidates over the last couple of months will recognise the important role that public speaking skills have played. With that in mind, Accountancy Ireland asked Harrison Monarth, an expert in the area, for his insights on the respective skills of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
If words are bullets – as they truly often are, meant to inflict great harm upon one’s intended target – then those who speak them are nothing short of living, breathing weapons of mass destruction.
Granted, certainly not all words are meant to do harm, a fact which serves this little introductorymetaphor well. Because what, then, is the thing – the field of battle, if you will – that defines and licenses the context of words-as-ammunition and speakers-as-weapons, versus using words to heal or clarify or to simply give directions to the nearest shopping mall? The answer to that question is what swings open the doors to political, governmental, as well as corporate success – and once understood, makes the bearer nothing short of an arsenal of interpersonal power.
That answer is framing. How words are contextually used and positioned. Framing is the stuff of propaganda and agenda. Framing is everything that precedes, surrounds and follows the spoken word.
Framing is the unspoken field of battle, an implied world view, a palette of colour that renders the dull with brilliant hues and sharpens an otherwise harmless intention into a piercing productivity tool.
Brilliant speakers, or at least those who write the speeches of brilliant speakers, understand the concept of framing in the way that a coach understands the power of a locker room speech or a general understands the chain of command at his behest. And, at least in America, the most effective of those brilliant speakers can often be found among those who run for its Presidency. It is here where we can look to see techniques of framing raised to an art form, and how the strategic tools of language are applied to frame messages with power and meaning far beyond their dictionary definition.
Let us move from metaphor to example to make this clear. The American political system is a two party proposition, with one party always seeking to replicate the incumbency of the current administration, the other representing the party seeking to take over the White House and render the remaining months of the outgoing administration that of the proverbial lame duck.
When the candidate representing the incumbent party speaks (Republican John McCain in this case) he ‘frames’ his entire platform with the contextual view that, while he seeks to improve specific problems, things are for the most part just fine – framing those ‘problems’ as something other than the consequences of the actions of his party – and that the public should seek to extend what the existing administration has put into play.
The opposition – in this case either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both Democrats – frames the entire oeuvre of their political speechmaking effort with the contextual view that the incumbents have made a mess of things, and that change is imperative. This latter point is, undoubtedly, one of the few things on which the opposing Democratic contenders agree.
One has only to listen, and not for long, to each of these three candidates to hear the magic wheels of the framing machine in motion, both in terms of content and context. Barack Obama, at this time of writing the emerging favourite on the Democratic side, frames his speeches from within a context that has him representing true substantive change, versus the spouse (Hillary Clinton) of a president who had his eight years in the hot seat, and also versus the opposing party, which is positioned as the dark force that created the very mess the Democrats promise to mitigate and redeem. He speaks regularly in the collective first and second person – using the word ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, putting himself amidst the crowd as a person of pedestrian means, a minority among minorities and among those who seek to blur the lines of minority thinking.
Barack Obama is charismatic, taking cues from Martin Luther King’s gift for connecting with the emotions of an audience as the spokesperson for issues that humble him, but do not deter his passion for the fight. It’s all style.
Just ask his opponent about this: Hillary’s attempt to frame Barack Obama as a true victory of style over substance is the centrepiece of her attack. She cites Barack Obama’s relative lack of experience on the centre stage of American and world politics and meaningful legislative head-knocking as the primary rationale to vote for her. While the issues themselves get their obligatory due, the polls register emotional preference, which is a direct product of the efforts of the candidates to frame themselves, their platform, and that of their opponent, in such a manner that they are illuminated with the brightest possible light.
Obama’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, has a different framing Barack Obama challenge before her. Where Obama brings a natural charisma to the stage, allowing him to play on the emotions of the crowd, Clinton, for the most part, becomes her own most significant liability every time she opens her mouth.
She is clearly a keen student of both the details of policy and the compositions of her speech writers, rather than the King-inspired, off-thecuff passion that Obama brings so naturally. Neither trait bears upon the candidate’s depth of understanding of the issues – though Hillary has a substantive leg up on Obama, so to speak – or the world stage upon which they will play out, or their touch with a Congress that awaits new leadership. Her finest moment was when she finally shed a tear and let down her guard – cynics smile wryly at the possibility that the very same speech writer had a hand in that milestone moment – sending up a cry of vulnerability that whipsawed on those who sought to frame it as a liability, when in fact it was perceived as the first visible hope of herbringing a soul to her candidacy.
And then, of course, there is John McCain, who at this time of writing has locked-up the Republican nomination. Even his most staunch supporters wouldn’t think to compare his level of charisma or speaking savvy to Obama’s, which means they frame this possible liability as an extraneous issue, much like a world champion boxer’s ability to deliver a coherent press conference after a first round knockout. Who cares, anyway? This is the Presidency, man, not a Harvard debate! McCain’s framing is all about experience, it focuses on his personal integrity, his legislative experience and political acumen, all pointing toward his muscle when it comes to making decisions and wielding the hammer to get them done. If the election were to be won on charisma and one’s lightfootedness upon a dais, Obama would get the Oval Office and McCain an early retirement. And while the Obama camp endeavors to frame the election in just that manner, the McCain camp brings an entirely different framing to virtually everything that is said and done on the campaign trail. In the end the American public will decide which means the most to them.
The point here is that framing is everything when trying to win the support of a constituency. Any constituency. Because politics are everywhere, they permeate every organisation of every type, they are the contextual power that influences every issue and every decision made within those organisations. Which is why one needs to become familiar with, even master, the tools of the framing trade. Because like the gazelle on a Senegal plain fleeing the pounding paws of a hungry lion closing fast from the rear, you need only to outrun the slowest of your competitors to live another day. And you can rest assured, all of your fellow gazelles are working with these same communication tools.
Effective Framing by Positioning Framing is a function of using persuasive language. And a key element of effective framing is the understanding and positioning of high-impact words.
When speaking of clergymen, for instance, we can associate and position the church with charity and spirituality, or the cloak of mystery, deception and the recent decade’s discoveries of sexual child abuse by rogue priests.
In the game that is US politics, opponents of the charismatic Obama manage to ‘casually’ insert his middle name, Hussein, into the discussion whenever they want to invoke the average American’s fear of delivering ‘one of them’ into the White House. “Isn’t he Muslim?”, people ask, and, while he’s not, he’s Christian, the fact that it’s part of the conversation is the fruit of framing and positioning. Mission accomplished.
The Blueprint of Framing One of the key elements of positioning is structure within a presentation. All good presentations have structure, but the framing agenda itself is best served with a structural approach. It is imperative to set the context of the intended framing at the beginning, then infuse it into the specifics of the messages as you proceed. Then bring the framing back to centre stage for the close. Obama begins his speeches with an acknowledgment – often delivered by how he is introduced to the crowd – that he is the icon of change, the agent of a new beginning, the casting off of old ways of thinking, the embodiment of hope for a new tomorrow.
Whatever follows is empowered by this framing context, to an extent that, indeed, he doesn’t really have to say much at all to stir the crowd into a rock-concert level of frenzy.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, begins with a framing device that acknowledges her opponent’s charisma with a reminder that the election is about far more than that, it is about problems and issues and the experience to tackle them both headon. This focus on issues virtually excuses her from the need to whip the crowd into frenzy, just as Billy Graham speaking from a rest home recliner could, if he chose, move a crowd into deep prayer. This approach allows her attempts at levity passion – which pale in comparison to Obama’s – to come off like resounding punch lines and power chords.
McCain’s framing too is all about the issues and his deep level of political experience. All he has to do is position his platform – regardless of his level of charisma or passion – against that of the Democrats, while defending himself against a conservative Republican faction that contends he is too liberal and all too willing to cross the aisle. McCain frames this attack as an issue of personal integrity and courage, flying in the face of those who would politicise his voting record.
We would do well as communicators to watch this election unfold, if nothing else than to see these three distinctive framing styles play out as the election draws near.
It should be noted that the most fun is to watch framing happen during a live debate, when the stakes are high, pressure is on, and quick thinking and a well-placed quip can virtually detonate your opponent’s grenade before he has a chance to lob it over to your side. An example of this was most brilliantly demonstrated during the 1984 debate between incumbent president Ronald Reagan and challenger Walter Mondale, when the ‘Gipper’ preempted Mondale’s looming attempt at framing Reagan as simply too old for the job. Before Mondale could reach for the ace that was presumably up his rhetorical sleeve, Reagan delivered the killer line that he would, “not make age an issue in this campaign and exploit the youth and inexperience of my opponent”. Even Mondale could not keep a straight face, realising both, that he was just outwitted by the old fox and that one of his strongest arguments just evaporated into thin air. The framer just got framed.
Regardless of your own field of battle, you must understand that your firepower is only as good as the weapon you bring to the front lines. There is no more powerful weapon of communication than effective framing. And as it is in any confrontation or application of force, the power to use your weapons for good or evil is completely up to you. Choose wisely, because every shot fired results in consequence.
Harrison Monarth is a top US public speaking & communications coach and founder of www.gurumaker.com. He is co author of The Confident Speaker, McGraw-Hill.