Page 52 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

THE STRONG START 43

economy and most powerful nation will be determined by just
two things: our ability to discipline our markets and ourselves.
If Chairman Bernanke is correct, our industry had better get
started right now because we’ve got a lot of work to do.

5. Use a rhetorical question. This old device works every time. The
question is intended to jolt the audience to pay attention right
away.
A rhetorical question is a question simply for its own sake. It is
what it says—a rhetorical device that need not have a real answer.
Its sole reason for existence is to highlight an issue. For example:

Why is it that every time I meet businesspeople from Asia or
Europe, they keep asking me why America has decided to stay
out of global markets?
Well, the answer is that America is very much in global mar-
kets. The problem is that while we may believe it, it seems that
almost no one else in the world does. . . . And why is that? (Pause)
Because we still can’t compete.

So the speaker is quickly setting up a proposition: We think we are
global, but the rest of the world does not. We think we can compete
in the international marketplace, but the rest of the world apparently
does not. The rest of the speech, if played properly, will dance to one
song: here is the problem as I see it, and here is what I think we
ought to do about it.

6. Project into the future. The world loves a seer, and audiences are
no different. Take a flyer and try to make a prudent estimate of

things to come: do you see changes, new situations, different condi-
tions ahead? The most prudent among us might venture to cast their
auguring nets only several years out, in the event their projections
are dead wrong. But some of today’s most successful business speak-

ers and authors position themselves as flat-out futurists. They have
no problem looking out 50, even 150, or 200 years into the future,