Congressional testimony is a Q&A free-for-all the place each side attempt to create sound bites for media consumption, making messaging important to survival. Holland & Knight’s Dan Small and Christopher Armstrong proceed their collection by explaining the viewers hole: The questioner has already decided what they consider the solutions to be.
That is the second of a three-part collection. Learn Half I: Preparation.
Within the first article on this three-part collection, we talked concerning the first pillar of profitable congressional testimony, preparation. Now, let’s flip to the second pillar: message. Bear in mind, this isn’t an mental discourse. It’s a Q&A free-for-all, with each side making an attempt to place out their message and create sound bites adverse to the opposite facet for media and public consumption.
There’s an exquisite quote about message from the novelist Paul Theroux. He stated, “Tv wants pleasure. It wants an angle. It wants a sound chunk.” And that’s what that is all about. Partially, that is theater, not a quiet dialogue. It’s a matter of who can generate the most effective and worst sound bites. That’s what you must put together for.
It’s important to put together your core themes or dwelling bases, as we name them. We name them dwelling bases as a result of going again to the kid’s recreation of tag, there was all the time one thing — a tree, a fireplace hydrant, a lamp put up — that was dwelling base, and in case you have been touching it, you have been all the time protected at dwelling. So, in each case, we have to develop quick, clear, highly effective dwelling bases that the witness can all the time return to in the event that they’re caught or if they simply want a cushty spot.
Get snug with repetition
Growing your message requires you to know and settle for what we name the viewers hole. We like to take a seat across the desk, whether or not it’s a convention desk or a dinner desk. If you collect across the desk with folks and somebody asks you a query, you understand that they’re the viewers. They’re the one within the reply. They’re the one to whom you direct your reply, and also you hope that they’ll pay attention, contemplate it and no less than settle for your place.
On this weird witness setting, perhaps for the primary time in your life, all the pieces modifications. The questioner isn’t the viewers. You’re not going to persuade that questioner of something. They’ve almost definitely already decided what they consider the true solutions to be. They’ve been prepped by their employees. They’re agency of their beliefs. They’re able to rumble. They’re not essentially able to pay attention.
In consequence, your solutions are usually not actually directed to the questioner. Superficially, they’re by way of look, however in fact, that’s not who you’re speaking to. You’re speaking to the TV display, you’re speaking to your personal many constituencies, you’re speaking to the political world on the market. The questioner isn’t the viewers. Don’t argue, don’t attempt to persuade, don’t get offended or annoyed, none of that’s price it. They’re not the viewers. They’re merely the car by which a query is being delivered so that you can articulate your message.
So, take into consideration the audiences you care about. There are most likely a number of. The media and the general public, in fact. However you’ve gotten others, all of the totally different constituencies all of us reply to. What do all of them want to listen to from you, in response to the powerful questions or the political questions? What’s the language it’s best to use and the language it’s best to keep away from? What works? What persuades? For one, not a protracted discourse: Boil it right down to quick, clear, highly effective statements that ship your message. Develop them with counsel, write them down, problem them, take a look at them. Then, and solely then, observe them in Q&A kind. Again and again. They’re, as we stated, your property bases for a variety of questions. Irrespective of how typically you’ve given a core theme, give it once more.
Repetition is endemic to this course of. There’s all the time repetition, for a lot of causes. Typically the questioner simply didn’t like the reply you gave earlier than. Typically they’ve misplaced their place. Typically it’s a unique particular person asking related questions. It doesn’t matter the way it occurs, it simply occurs.
The purpose is, nobody cares. In case you gave a very good reply to a query the primary time, you must give simply pretty much as good a solution the second time — or guess what’s going to occur. Nobody’s ever going to see your first reply. They’re going to bury it and broadcast your poorer, second reply to the excessive heavens. So, deal with every query as if it have been the primary one. Give the most effective reply you may, each time the query is requested.
Your core themes are your true north. They are going to assist information you safely by this unusual course of so to ship your message. This will’t occur with out plenty of work and never with out the third pillar of profitable congressional testimony, which we’ll focus on within the subsequent article, self-discipline.
Congressional testimony is a Q&A free-for-all the place each side attempt to create sound bites for media consumption, making messaging important to survival. Holland & Knight’s Dan Small and Christopher Armstrong proceed their collection by explaining the viewers hole: The questioner has already decided what they consider the solutions to be.
That is the second of a three-part collection. Learn Half I: Preparation.
Within the first article on this three-part collection, we talked concerning the first pillar of profitable congressional testimony, preparation. Now, let’s flip to the second pillar: message. Bear in mind, this isn’t an mental discourse. It’s a Q&A free-for-all, with each side making an attempt to place out their message and create sound bites adverse to the opposite facet for media and public consumption.
There’s an exquisite quote about message from the novelist Paul Theroux. He stated, “Tv wants pleasure. It wants an angle. It wants a sound chunk.” And that’s what that is all about. Partially, that is theater, not a quiet dialogue. It’s a matter of who can generate the most effective and worst sound bites. That’s what you must put together for.
It’s important to put together your core themes or dwelling bases, as we name them. We name them dwelling bases as a result of going again to the kid’s recreation of tag, there was all the time one thing — a tree, a fireplace hydrant, a lamp put up — that was dwelling base, and in case you have been touching it, you have been all the time protected at dwelling. So, in each case, we have to develop quick, clear, highly effective dwelling bases that the witness can all the time return to in the event that they’re caught or if they simply want a cushty spot.
Get snug with repetition
Growing your message requires you to know and settle for what we name the viewers hole. We like to take a seat across the desk, whether or not it’s a convention desk or a dinner desk. If you collect across the desk with folks and somebody asks you a query, you understand that they’re the viewers. They’re the one within the reply. They’re the one to whom you direct your reply, and also you hope that they’ll pay attention, contemplate it and no less than settle for your place.
On this weird witness setting, perhaps for the primary time in your life, all the pieces modifications. The questioner isn’t the viewers. You’re not going to persuade that questioner of something. They’ve almost definitely already decided what they consider the true solutions to be. They’ve been prepped by their employees. They’re agency of their beliefs. They’re able to rumble. They’re not essentially able to pay attention.
In consequence, your solutions are usually not actually directed to the questioner. Superficially, they’re by way of look, however in fact, that’s not who you’re speaking to. You’re speaking to the TV display, you’re speaking to your personal many constituencies, you’re speaking to the political world on the market. The questioner isn’t the viewers. Don’t argue, don’t attempt to persuade, don’t get offended or annoyed, none of that’s price it. They’re not the viewers. They’re merely the car by which a query is being delivered so that you can articulate your message.
So, take into consideration the audiences you care about. There are most likely a number of. The media and the general public, in fact. However you’ve gotten others, all of the totally different constituencies all of us reply to. What do all of them want to listen to from you, in response to the powerful questions or the political questions? What’s the language it’s best to use and the language it’s best to keep away from? What works? What persuades? For one, not a protracted discourse: Boil it right down to quick, clear, highly effective statements that ship your message. Develop them with counsel, write them down, problem them, take a look at them. Then, and solely then, observe them in Q&A kind. Again and again. They’re, as we stated, your property bases for a variety of questions. Irrespective of how typically you’ve given a core theme, give it once more.
Repetition is endemic to this course of. There’s all the time repetition, for a lot of causes. Typically the questioner simply didn’t like the reply you gave earlier than. Typically they’ve misplaced their place. Typically it’s a unique particular person asking related questions. It doesn’t matter the way it occurs, it simply occurs.
The purpose is, nobody cares. In case you gave a very good reply to a query the primary time, you must give simply pretty much as good a solution the second time — or guess what’s going to occur. Nobody’s ever going to see your first reply. They’re going to bury it and broadcast your poorer, second reply to the excessive heavens. So, deal with every query as if it have been the primary one. Give the most effective reply you may, each time the query is requested.
Your core themes are your true north. They are going to assist information you safely by this unusual course of so to ship your message. This will’t occur with out plenty of work and never with out the third pillar of profitable congressional testimony, which we’ll focus on within the subsequent article, self-discipline.
