“A certain talent for rhetoric” is the way Barack Obama described his own oratorical skills in “Audacity of Hope,” his 2006 memoir. Achieving consensus on that claim is a child’s errand, while deciphering the under-girding influences that support the ability is more complex. Yet, in the end, business communicators can benefit from the outcome.
For most Americans, Obama emerged from out of nowhere; he was a minor player in the shadowy world of Chicago politics, where he also was ensconced in the exclusivity of legal academia. Then suddenly he burst headlong into the spotlight of immediate fame replete with fawning fans. It seemed that almost overnight he became a “pop-culture phenomenon,” as Ken Wheaton characterized him in AdvertisingAge.
“Barack Obama [was] treated like a rock star…. People wait hours to hear him speak. He draws huge crowds,” raved CBS News in February 2008.
“People come in droves, by the tens of thousands at times” The Early Show’s national correspondent Tracy Smith exulted. His “soaring rhetoric is moving his audiences not just politically, but emotionally even to tears on occasion.”
Even some political commentators who’ve reported for decades on political ups and downs couldn’t help but gush, according to the CBS’s Web report, “Obama’s Oratory Grabbing Spotlight.”
Chris Matthews, the host of “Hardball” on CNBC’s, remarked, “The feeling most people get when they hear a Barack Obama speech. I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean — I don’t have that too often!”
And veteran Republican strategist and pollster Frank Luntz, told “Early Show” host Harry Smith that he’s “more than impressed” with Obama’s oratory. “I’ve been mesmerized.”
Obama’s popularity among a key target demographic, 18-to-29, spread like a summer evening fog and became so compelling that his mantra, “Yes we can!” transcended into hip-hop and emerged as a music video at Dipdive.com and on YouTube.com where it received thousands of viewings.
This ability “to move people through soaring rhetoric and [the] appealing rhythms of his delivery is now the stuff of legends,” wrote Aileen Pincus in “The Lessons of Obama’s Oratory Skills.”
The wellspring of oratory
But, from where does this ability to attract and convert emanate? Ekaterina Haskinsbelieves she knows.
Dr.Haskins is an associate professor of rhetoric at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Her department is Language, Literature and Communications. Her PhD is from University of Iowa, M.A. from Wake Forest, and B.A. from Moscow State University, Russia. And she is extensively published.
Dr. Haskins knows from where rhetoric comes, and told the BBC News that, “I believe Barack Obama embodies, more than any other politician, the ideals of American eloquence… and that his speeches consciously echo epic political presentations over the ages.”
Obama “has certainly studied all of his predecessors, [and] is quite aware of the rhetorical heritage that he draws on. He clearly sees himself as a descendant of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King,” said Dr. Haskins.
How deep is the word?
The professor believes that Obama overcomes some of the traditional pejoratives associated with mere rhetoric, which “always has the connotations of being about appearances rather than reality.” But Obama “doesn’t sound false.”
By contrast, “He plays with the patriotic abstractions that allow for a certain kind of rhetorical maneuvering and fills them with specific concrete examples.”
Obama’s rhetoric may have begun with references to lofty ideals like hope, change and promise that justifiably garnered him criticism for their high sound and low depth. However, as his campaign progressed, Ms. Haskins believes that the fathoms of Obama’s presentations increased.
While Professor Haskins believes that Obama increasingly added substance to his oratory using “specific concrete examples,” other Obama observers disagree.
Indeed, some journalists believe quite to the contrary, that Obama’s ability to captivate audiences reflects little more than a triumph for style over substance yielding largely hollow rhetoric devoid of any meaningful depth.
After covering Obama during the campaign years, New York Sun and Washington Post Writers Group columnist Robert J. Samuelson recalled that initially he was “deeply impressed by his [Obama’s] intelligence, his forceful language, and his apparent willingness to take positions that seemed to rise above narrow partisanship.”
But, in the end, Samuelson reassessed his conclusions: “Mr. Obama has become the Democratic presidential frontrunner precisely because countless millions have formed a similar opinion. It is, I now think, mistaken.”
“The contrast between his broad rhetoric and his narrow agenda is stark,” Samuelson continued, “and yet the press corps — preoccupied with the political ‘horse race’ — has treated his invocation of ‘change’ as a serious idea rather than a shallow campaign slogan.
Reaching a similar epiphany, political observer Jack Shafer wrote in the online magazineSlate that Obama’s speeches are “criminally short on specifics.” Shafer wrote:
“Barack Obama bringeth rapture to his audience. They swoon and wobble, regardless of race, gender, or political affiliation, although few understand exactly why he has this effect on them.
“No less an intellect than The New Yorker’s George Packer confesses that moments after a 25-minute campaign speech by Obama in New Hampshire concluded, he couldn’t remember exactly what the candidate said. Yet “the speech dissolved into pure feeling, which stayed with me for days.”
An ancient legacy
Whether well deep or puddle shallow, some believe Obama’s skills have a legacy reaching into antiquity.
Andy Lark, a global marketing executive who studies the origins of public communications, believes that he recognizes the foundations of the Obama style.
Obama’s “speeches are filled, thrillingly, with highly formal rhetoric of the sort that would be recognizable to ancient philosophers and scholars of the medieval trivium — in which rhetoric, along with grammar and logic, formed one-third of an education.”
Closer to home, another observer believe Obama’s oratorical connections more aligned with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and even Ronald Reagan, according to Richard O’Mara writing in a Christian Science Monitor story on April, 2009.
Others believe Obama more closely echoes previous Democrats Teddy Roosevelt and FDR.
Writer and scholar Garry Wills disagrees. Obama’s speeches are not “full of mesmerizing tricks and rhetorical flourishes as many think; nor are they out of the black church culture of oratory, which produced Dr. King, Jesse Jackson and other like that.’”
No, Wills states, Obama’s speeches “manifest his time as a teacher.”
Despite Wills’ claim and Obama’s years teaching constitutional law (1992-2004) at the University of Chicago, the black Protestant church has clearly proivded a stylistic foundation for his oratory.
In America, the black church sprang up among the slave communities, and was later represented by such aggregative names as AME Church, African Methodist Episcopal. Founded in 1816, the AEMC was “the first major religious denomination in the western world that originated because of sociological rather than theological differences.”
From its beginning, the local black church served as the social, cultural, political and entertainment hub for black communities. It was in the church that black felt free to express themselves, to develop their talents, to test out their political bounds, and to find succor and safety.
So, it is not surprising to read that Dr. Kenton Anderson, dean and professor of Homiletics at the Northwest Baptist Seminary, believes that Obama was “Nurtured in the African-American preaching tradition.” And it was from the black church that Obama learned “his sweeping rhetoric” and where he discovered the essence of a “truly effective public speaker.”
“Those of us who are interested in preaching and biblical communication ought to watch closely what he is doing, not just because of the homiletical heritage of his speaking, but because we can learn something from him,” professor Anderson wrote.
In support of this observations, Anderson quoted Philip Collins, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s speech writer, saying that Obama’s “style of delivery is basically churchy, it’s religious: the way he slides down some words and hits others – the intonation, the emphasis, the pauses and the silences.”
If nothing else, Obama’s style is complex, simultaneously ancient or modern, casual and deliberate, embracing and piercing.
Say it again, Barack
Whatever the style and from wherever it is derived, the global communicator Lark has dissected Obama’s speech syntax to find the key to its effectiveness. “Repetiton” is one of Obama’s rhetorical potions, Lark wrote.
“Repetition, particularly in the form of anaphora – where a phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive lines – is another of the prime tools of political oratory and one that Obama revels in,” Lark wrote, choosing Obama’s January, 2008, Iowa caucus speech as one example.
Obama spoke:
“You know, they said this time would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.”
Then the candidate declared:
“I’ll be a president who finally makes healthcare affordable … I’ll be a president who ends the tax breaks … I’ll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity … I’ll be a president who ends this war in Iraq … ”
And: “This was the moment when … this was the moment when … this was the moment when … ”
And finally: “Hope is what I saw … Hope is what I heard … Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire.”
This mesmerizing cadence created a tone painting, not so much communicating words to rememeber, but of emotions to be felt, Chris Matthews’ “thrill going up my leg.”
Obama’s “speeches are written to be heard, not read. His syntax is simple to follow at the moment. The transitions between sections offer no speed bumps in understanding,” writes Lee Cary in The American Thinker.
Instead of conveying information, Cary believes Obama’s speeches “create eloquence. He could read the small print disclaimer on a TV auto ad and his followers would chant, ‘Yes, We Can,’ because he speaks to their hearts not their heads.”
The emotions generated fulfill needs in his audiences. Indeed, Cary believes that Obama’s rhetoric is akin to that of a revival preacher completing the leap of faith from promise to redemption.
Obama’s audiences “need to be identified with an historical moment, and he [Obama] fulfills that need. And because he is of utmost importance to the future in their eyes, they, too, have enhanced importance by identifying with him. That is a powerful tonic, particularly for those who feel weak.”
Lessons for business communicators
While most Americans have never met Obama, and never will, “They do feel connected to him because of the power of his pre-election speeches,” according to The Oratorical Prowess of Barack Obama. It is “Obama’s ability to overwhelm an audience and make it his, [that he] mesmerizes.”
This is power stuff, and it is not the exclusive domain of politicians. Business communicators need persuasive messages and compelling delivery as well.
So, what are the elements of The Obama Style that corporate communicators can adopt and use to improve their own relationships with their audiences.
Johns Hopkins humanities professor Richard Macksey told the Christian Science Monitor’s O’Mara that Obama’s style has seven key elements.
- He speaks in whole sentences.
- His body language gives the impression of relaxation.
- He listens.
- He’s quick to admit when he’s made a mistake.
- He is not quick to anger.
- His rhetoric is empty of fire and brimstone.
While not all observers would agree that Obama’s delivery always adheres to these points, their soundness remains.
Aileen Pincus, media coach and principal of The Pincus Group, emphasizes in “The Lessons of Obama’s Oratory Skills ” that “Any executive looking to improve presentation skills or public speaking confidence must first understand the basics.”
“Obama has developed his strengths as a public communicator precisely by understanding the links between his ideas and the way those ideas can most powerfully persuade others,” she added.
And the ability to effectively establish that link between the communicator and his audience is based on six fundamentals.
- Start with what you know.
- Don’t speculate about what you don’t know.
- Be clear; never leave an audience wondering what your position is.
- Your audience is listening, not reading; so write and speak “for the ear,” the way you normally communicate orally.
- Understand that your audience is looking for your perspective, not just data.
- Let them judge.
As Obama, and his proposed policies, move from the euphoria of campaigning to the brutal arena of governing, his ability to actually transform words into results is being tested. But, regardless of the outcome, the nation and the world will have experienced an oratorical phenomenon unique in recent years, and communicators have the opportunity to learn from the experience.
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