Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and a lecturer at Yale University and New York University, decided to exercise her rhetorical credentials with a critique of Joe Biden’s presentation skills. In her column, she called out five factors about the president’s presentation that readily pivot to lessons for any presenter.
1. Teleprompter In noting that Biden sometimes departs from his teleprompter script, Noonan identified the primary downside of the often-deployed equipment: the content is fixed, or “canned.”
The lesson: From time to time, depart from the main points of the narrative by adding or condensing content. You can do this by reading the reactions of your audience and adjusting your narrative as needed.
A second downside of teleprompters is that they cause the presenter to read the text verbatim. Reading verbatim tends to flatten the vocal inflection and produce a monotone voice. While public officials use teleprompters because their words are politically or legally sensitive, business presenters use teleprompters to remember what to say.
The lesson: Write bulleted notes and use them as prompts on the comfort monitors. Your narrative will become more conversational and add more vocal dynamics.
2. Enacting emotion Noonan observed that Biden sometimes raises his voice suddenly, or increases his tempo, or jabs the air to emphasize what he’s saying—which, to her, appears forced and out of character for his usually folksy image. She calls this “presentness.”
The lesson: Never try to perform. Instead, be conversational and treat every presentation as a series of one-to-one conversations. To achieve this, as you present, address each person in your audience—whether virtual or in person—by looking at them and reading their reaction to your words. If they appear to be understanding, move on to another person; if they appear quizzical, adjust your content slightly. To strengthen the connection, from time to time, state the name of the person as you address them.
3. Reference the past To sound homespun, Biden often talks about his parents and his family, but all of that is about past.
The lesson: Although William Shakespeare had one of his characters in The Tempest say that “past is prologue,” business stories should focus on the future and growth potential.
4. Self-referential Biden frequently talks in the first-person singular such as “I’ll give it to you straight.” Many presenters are self-referential in a related way: they spend most of their presentation talking about themselves, their company, and their products or services rather than what any of it means to the audience.
The lesson: Make it all about them, not you. Sell the benefits not the features.
5. Faux-eloquence During a speech that Biden gave to a joint session of Congress, he said “America is on the move again, turning peril into possibility, crisis into opportunity, set back into strength.” This is a rhetorical technique known as alliteration, a figure of emphasis that occurs by the repetition of certain words across successive sentences, clauses, or phrases. Alliteration is useful for young politicians trying to sound eloquent and make an impression.
John F. Kennedy used alliteration in his iconic Inaugural Address:
“So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.”
Barack Obama used alliteration in his famous keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention that vaulted him to public attention:
“Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?”
But for Joe Biden, who always wants to be everybody’s “Uncle Joe,” alliteration appears to be a stretch.
The lesson: Be conversational. In Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, they urge:
“Do not overwrite…Do not overstate…Do not use fancy words.”
To summarize these five pieces of advice, let’s turn to Peggy Noonan’s concluding advice to Joe Biden:
“Be Here Now…Be straightforward and modest.”
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