It was a big affair. The entire Shinsei Bank retail staff were assembled for a series of updates from the Division Heads on what each Division was doing and where they were going. One of my erstwhile lifelong banker colleague Division Head gave his presentation. It was dull, monotone, low energy and not engaging in the least. Unfortunately for him, it was my turn next. By this time, thanks to my previous work as a Senior Trade Commissioner and Consul-General for Australia, I had given hundreds of public speeches, mainly in Japanese, to audiences of all different stripes in Japan.
I knew how to give this talk in a way which would be interesting for the audience and in a way in which I could grab their attention. My sharp elbowed colleague instantly recognised there were light years between his miserable efforts and my professionalism.
Did he commit to self-improvement, to build the biggest skyscraper in town, to become excellent in public speaking? No. He sought out ways to pull down all the other skyscrapers, so that his could be the tallest instead. He informed all in earshot, except for me of course, that “Greg is all style and no substance”.
When this comment was duly reported to me, honestly, I just burst our laughing. Not in an exaggerated thespian, ironic way, but a genuine belly laugh, because the idea was so ridiculous, so preposterous, so revealing about his insecurities. I had given enough public speeches by that time to know it wasn’t just style that was engaging my audiences.
What was ironic was that originally I was scouted to leave Austrade and join Shinsei’s Retail Bank, because of a speech I gave to the American Chamber of Commerce here in Tokyo. In fact, that speech changed the direction of my career, although I didn’t realise it at the time.
Recently, I was reading an article by Kathryn Brownell in the Financial Times, where she referenced the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. Nixon didn’t understand the medium of television as well as Kennedy. Kennedy saw the opportunity to speak directly to voters, rather than just relying on highlighting policy differences. I recall some reports I have come across at different times, which said that those who only listened to the debate, gave it to Nixon, while those who watched, gave it to Kennedy.
Nixon certainly made the complaint that the televised debate format brought in a new era where “politicians focused on style over substance”. It was a dividing line between eras and the future belonged to those who mastered the skills needed to be successful with the new medium. Kamala Harris killed Donald Trump in the recent debate and that wasn’t just style and no substance. She was extremely well prepared and brought all guns blazing to what Trump thought was going to be a knife fight.
So what about businesspeople presenting here in Tokyo? I recall coaching a Japanese President who forsook the opportunity to do a professional speech, because he felt his vendor audience wouldn’t be ready for it. He knew what to do but chose to not do it. That was highly perplexing to me as his coach, but standing out in Japan is never a popular course of action. He just gave the same old boring monotone performance, because that was the norm for his company and industry. It was painful for me to watch and know what he could have done instead.
I saw another local businessperson give a very good performance, as he was a skilled presenter. However, when I sat back and thought about what he was saying, as opposed to just being mesmerised by how he was saying it, I felt there wasn’t much meat in that speech.
Before Covid, I saw Shigeru Ishiba, a Liberal Democratic Party hopeful, currently trying to secure the Party Presidency and thereby become Prime Minister, give a talk as part of a panel discussion. He was slumped in his chair, looking bored and his comments were lifeless, monotone and dull. However, when I closed my eyes and listened to what he was actually saying, it had more impact. If he wants to run this country, I hope he has improved as a communicator since then.
It is obviously not a choice between style and substance. We need both, and I want to replace the word “style” with “professionalism”, to make the point clearer. Talking crap fluently is no help and neither is being valuable, but not being heard. The big difference between Harris and Trump, I believe, was in their understanding of the occasion and the preparation for it. This is precisely the same for us in business. If we spend all of our time crafting the slide deck and none on the rehearsal, then our talk will not be optimised.
Observe any public talks today and even the good speakers face some people in the crowd who have whipped out their phones and are no longer concentrating on what is being said. Having great content, which is ignored by the audience, because we are unskilled and so boring is no better than turning up with weak content. We fail to have any impact.
Let's wrap our numbers up in stories, so that people can remember them. Let’s work on our professional delivery skills, so that we can keep the listeners with us, from start to end. Let’s defeat the mobile phone, as the escape alternative to what we are saying. By the way, it will only get worse. We have no time to lose to improve our communication capability.
