Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our board co sponsor today is strategytraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com, forward slash overall approach. And today we have with us Matt Kohut who is the author of Speaking Out. He is the managing partner of KMP communications, where he prepares CEOs, elected officials and public figures for events such as live television appearances. Matt, so great to have you with us.

Matt Kohut  01:23

Oh, thank you so much. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Kris Safarova  01:26

So to set the context, maybe you could let us know a little bit about your story that got you to this point of working with CEOs, helping them prepare for being on CV and so on.

Matt Kohut  01:37

Sure, when I first arrived at this work I was a speech writer, and I was working for somebody who was an incredibly accomplished speaker, and as I started working with other speakers and doing a little bit of Moonlighting, I realized that a lot of the people who I was writing for were varying abilities, as far as speaking, regardless of the words and I and a couple of other frustrated speech writers coalesced around this challenge, and we thought, There’s got to be some sort of an answer in social science. And we start running some experiments, and we hit on some ideas that gave us the basis for a methodology for working with speakers. And quite literally, 20 years later, almost to the month, here we are, and this work has been, really my life’s work in some way for, certainly for the past two decades.

Kris Safarova  02:28

Do you remember the finding moment in your life when you decided that you are really interested in being an excellent communicator and helping other people?

Matt Kohut  02:38

I do and it was really when I had the first chance to write a speech for someone, I thought, huh, it’s almost like adopting another person’s voice. And that challenge itself was so interesting to me, and I approached it from trying to understand the way that other person talked, the way they paused, the way they used the voice itself, not just the words, and that really drove the whole interest in trying to help other people communicate. So it all really stemmed from the fundamental challenge of helping someone come up with the message.

Kris Safarova  03:13

And early in your career, before you were speechwrite and so on, did you always knew that is what you wanted to do, kind of go in that direction, speaking communication, being on stage, being able to put an important message in the format that audience can really absorb and connect with. Or did you have some other thoughts about your career path and then something moved you to become a speechwriter?

Matt Kohut  03:39

Yes, I got here by a very circuitous path. I had no idea this is where I would end up, but writing was always my foundational skill as a professional. It’s what I’d studied in college, and right out of college, I did some reporting for a local newspaper as what they called a stringer or a freelancer, and I also got a job writing reports about social science, about survey data, about public opinion research, survey data, and so I learned the fundamentals of good professional communication fairly early on, but it was far from the only thing I was thinking about in terms of becoming a communications professional, in the sense of helping other people with speeches and so on, or anything related to what I do. If you told me when I was 25 this is what I’d be doing at this point in my career, I would have nodded my head and said, What? And had no idea what you were talking about.

Kris Safarova  04:37

So let’s talk about your recent book, speaking out. What made you want to write this book?

Matt Kohut  04:43

Well, the fundamental premise of speaking out is that CEOs and leaders of all kinds of organizations now have to deal with political and social issues in a way they haven’t had to say a few decades ago, and I’ve seen a little bit of. This up front or up close, rather, from my work with leaders of various organizations, and as this was becoming an increasingly a challenge for leaders, I thought it would be interesting to try and gather best practices across a range of industries, a range of sectors, and really look at how do you do this? Well, how do you manage this challenge? Well, what are the things to avoid and try to put it all down in one place as almost a version 1.0 of what someone should think about if they’re faced with this fundamental challenge?

Kris Safarova  05:34

Corporations, of course, had made their voices heard for very long time, but it was kind of behind the scenes before, but they still had number of ways to flex the political muscle. But now we see CEOs voices in the mix. The question I wanted to ask you, do you think it is a good idea for CEO and leaders in general to speak out on political and social issues, versus keeping their head down and focusing on their duties? Because, of course, all of us as leaders, we have so much on our plate, and we don’t really have a lot of time to get distracted.

Matt Kohut  06:08

Well, you’re asking really the big question here, and I’m going to give a really nebulous answer, which is, it depends. And what I mean is, let’s, let’s back up, and at least taking the American context here. The CEO’s job is to provide shareholder value for the investors in the company. That’s what they’re literally supposed to do, according to law. And the question then of, well, wait, why should they wade into politics or social issues? For the reasons you said, it seems like it might be a distraction. The challenge is this, as you mentioned, CEOs have always had to deal with and navigate political and social issues. For decades, they were typically doing this behind the scenes. In the past, a couple things have changed. One is the media environment has changed dramatically, certainly over the last 15 years with the advent of social media. And secondly, one thing that I think has really changed is that the stakeholders who matter have really changed. Not the stakeholders themselves haven’t changed, but the importance of the stakeholders has changed, and employees have more of a voice than they had in many decades past, the public has a voice. There are interest groups that can influence whether or not organizations feel like they have to respond to different issues, and suppliers and customers, of course, are a huge part of this as well. So it’s not as straightforward as CEO should just keep their heads down. There are many times where that’s exactly the right thing, but there are other times where, if a CEO decides to remain silent, and all of his or her peers have decided to say something, they can actually seem a little out of step, and people their silence might speak volumes when people think, why didn’t you say something so it’s, I hate to say it, but there’s not an easy answer here. It’s really on a case by case basis that CEOs and their teams should be making decisions about issues.

Kris Safarova  08:11

Could you give us examples from your work with CEOs, an example when CEO should speak up and an example when CEO should not speak up?

Matt Kohut  08:21

Well, I’ll give you some examples from some public examples that I think are relatively straightforward. So for instance, the CEO of Random House, Penguin Random House, which is the largest book publisher, I believe, in the world, certainly in the United States, spoke up last year opposing book bans in the United States. This, to me, is as straightforward a case as there should be about when a CEO should speak up because their business is directly affected by book bans. It’s not good for a book publishing company if book bans are something that out in the public, sort of in the zeitgeist. So to me, that’s a very clear case where, yes, the CEO is wading into a political or social issue, but it also affects the bottom line for a book publisher. So that’s as straightforward as it comes. Now, the question of when CEOs shouldn’t speak up is really going to be more on a case by case basis. And I’ll say this, it comes down to a few different things. It comes down to the relevance of the issue. It comes down to the organization’s values, and it comes down to the risks posed by saying something. And so if you figure out, does this matter for what we do with our mission, our purpose, when you look at our stakeholders, which of our stakeholders are directly affected by this or impacted by it. What are our values as an organization, and what are the risks if we take a position here, and you essentially have to make a series of decisions around those things, and oftentimes you will decide the best way for us to address this is not to say something, and this also just allows me to. To introduce the idea that saying something externally is very different than saying something internally. So if employees are the primary stakeholders on an issue, a CEO or a leadership team can choose to say something internally, and that can often address the concern. Now the caveat there, of course, is that these days, anything that’s said internally may become external. That is to say, it may be leaked. And we’ve seen plenty of instances in which employees have leaked things to the media if they weren’t happy with what a leadership team or CEO said about an issue.

Kris Safarova  10:34

When your clients come to you for help to be ready to speak out on an issue, what are some of the things they struggle with the most?

Matt Kohut  10:43

Well, if they’re asking for help with something like this, there it’s always a challenging situation, and they’re thinking about reputational risk of the firm or the organization. They’re thinking about their personal reputation. They’re thinking about if what they’re going to say is going to address the primary concerns that people have. They’re thinking about how to mitigate the unhappiness that there might be among some people, and trying to say things in a way that will minimize that. So there are a range of things that they’re considering. And like I said, every situation is fundamentally unique as far as the specific context of how they’re trying to work the decision tree, so to speak.

Kris Safarova  11:31

When it comes to mitigating unhappiness. What would be your advice?

Matt Kohut  11:37

Well, look, leaders make decisions about all kinds of things that are not political or social, and there are some people are going to be happy about unhappy about those decisions, and I think that the thing that you’re trying not to do is make an unforced error. And so when you think about advice, a lot of this is about making sure you know where your stakeholders stand. A lot of that is listening to them and talking to them, and depending on the issue and how quickly it’s moving or not, having conversations with people up front to understand where they stand, what matters to them, and how your potential to say something might affect their feelings about it is a really important part of this. So that consultation, that listening, art, is a huge part. And some organizations go even further than that, and they consult with different folks that they meet with to think about the messaging of things. I’ll give you one example. LinkedIn, the platform has a series of their their organization has a whole bunch of employee resource groups. And these employee resource groups actually will talk with the leadership team if, if the CEO or other leaders are going to make an external statement about something that matters to them, to make sure that the what the company saying externally aligns with how it behaves internally. So I think that there are lots of opportunities for CEOs and communications teams to consult with the people internally that that work with them and their other stakeholders, to really understand what their key concerns and interests are, without disclosing who the client was.

Kris Safarova  13:17

Any private information? Of course, could you share with us a very challenging assignment you had with the client where you had to prepare them for something, and it was particularly challenging for you?

Matt Kohut  13:31

Well, look, a lot of organizations in the United States had to deal with the question of access to abortion after the Dobbs decision a couple summers ago, and different leaders who I spoke with about this were asking questions about, is this something we want to do on the record? Is something we want to deal with internally, and figuring out really how to navigate this was incredibly difficult, because opinion about abortion is incredibly difficult, and it’s about an issue that some people feel is deeply moral. Other people feel like this is none of your business. And so the divide among people is really intense, and this is one where absolutely somebody’s gonna be unhappy if you say something or you don’t say something, there’s no there’s no middle ground there. People will be unhappy with what you do. And so that’s one that was very tricky for folks to figure out. And if you look at large companies, the prevailing trend in the way they responded was not many of them said things publicly. A few did for sure, but a lot of them took steps internally, and those internal steps became known publicly. So they were taking care of their people, but they weren’t talking so loudly about it in public.

Kris Safarova  14:54

I also wanted to ask you about reputational risk and personal reputation risk. You mentioned those. Some of the biggest concerns your clients have for our listeners right now who are thinking about how they manage this risk, what would be your recommendation for them?

Matt Kohut  15:10

Well, in some way, the fundamental decision tree you’re working here is about what is the risk to our reputation, and how much could it hurt us, and you really do need to think through are you going to lose business if you take a certain position? Are you going to alienate people who might buy your product otherwise, or drive people away who already are customers of yours? And that’s it doesn’t get more fundamental than that where reputation is concerned on a personal level, if a CEO takes an unpopular position, it’s usually going to stick to the brand. It could also potentially stick to the CEO themself, if they came across as particularly lacking in grace, in the way they characterized something they said on an open microphone or something they said in a meeting that was leaked and basically reflected poorly on them personally.

Kris Safarova  16:07

What specifically leaders need to understand, given that the internet and social media in particular, exploded the speed at which publicly shared opinion can go instantly, nationally or even global?

Matt Kohut  16:20

I think they really need to understand that every single word counts, and the good ones get this. So I’ll offer one cautionary tale here that I think speaks to the importance of this. In the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, lots and lots of Fortune 500 companies were asking themselves, how can we respond to this? And many were coming forth with pledges of things they were going to do to rectify their own performance at diversity, equity and inclusion. And one of those companies was Wells Fargo. It had a relatively new CEO who had just joined the company toward the end of the year before, and among the things he said Wells Fargo would do was he said it would double its black executive leadership cadre. I’m speaking broadly here, but it was to double the number of black leaders at the at a senior level. And during that summer, after he had said this, he was caught mentioning in an internal meeting on zoom that he thought the company actually didn’t have the talent pipeline to do this. This deeply upset many of his employees, and when this was leaked to the world, it ended up sparking a real backlash against him. Personally, the company looked bad as a result of it. He ended up getting a lot of flack from people in the US Senate. Elizabeth Warren, notably, and it was an utterly avoidable thing. So really, every single utterance of a CEO about a sensitive political or social issue counts, and there’s there’s no room for error here, in many cases.

Kris Safarova  17:59

That is a stressful situation for people to be in, so that they can never relax, and all of us sometimes just say something without thinking don’t mean anything bad at all, not even meaning what people thought we meant. What would be your advice for leaders who feeling the pressure and it is very stressful, what could they do to not let that stress get to them as much as possible?

Matt Kohut  18:23

Well, there are a couple things that come to mind here. One is, this is a really stressful thing. That’s why the leaders get the big bucks, so to speak. It’s for being disciplined about what you say about sensitive issues. And let’s be realistic here, leaders have always had to be very smart about what they said, as far as the way that financial markets were going to read into every little utterance they made. This just come makes the playing environment that much more complex. It’s not just the markets that matter. It’s really there are more stakeholders that have a voice. As far as how to prepare for as far as how to mitigate the stress, part of the way you mitigate the stress is by being prepared and having a good team and being very proactive as issues emerge. So you know where you stand on things. And to a certain extent, knowing where you stand allows you to relax into realizing. I’m gonna when I’m asked about this, I’ll say that, and it’s really about preparation more than anything that you can then in some way feel confident about handling those questions, as opposed to feeling like you’re walking on eggshells.

Kris Safarova  19:37

What approach would you recommend for preparation, specific steps that people could take, people listening to us now, who are in a position where they need to speak out on certain issues, how can they prepare to know what to say?

Matt Kohut  19:51

Well, the preparation should be a team sport, and what I mean by that is you have communications function. If you’re a large enough organization, you also have agent. CS or and or consultants who work with you. And this isn’t something you should just whip up or say into an open mic without having thought about it. It really is about sitting down with the folks and saying, Okay, this issue is something we have to address, or we think we should address it. Who is it affecting? As far as our mission or our core business, how does it align with our values? What what segment of our stakeholders are most affected by this? Is it an internal thing? An external thing? What are the risks if we do say something? What are the risks if we don’t say something? Is there an opportunity to mitigate our risk, maybe by signing some sort of a joint statement, as opposed to putting ourselves out there. So there are a whole series of questions you can ask. And like I said, this is a team sport, and the CEO or the leader is the head of that team. But I think it’s one of those situations where there’s also got to be a lot of openness to feedback and to the the what you what you might call almost looking around the corners, trying to see the risks that you don’t see. So there really has to be an openness to hearing things you might not want to hear. If you think we should say this, and somebody says, Yeah, well, if you say that, you’re going to get killed by this group, that group, the media, whoever. So I think there, there’s a lot that has to be considered when you’re preparing something like this, and it’s almost a scenario planning kind of an exercise at its most sophisticated, where you’re thinking, Okay, if I say this, the media will say this. Markets might respond like this, and you’re really trying to look at it from all the angles that are most relevant to you.

Kris Safarova  21:44

Since the ability to engage on a wide range of issues has become a more important part of the job, companies increasingly look for outstanding communication and social skills when hiring new CEOs. Understandably, if someone listening to us now feels they need to strengthen their communication and social skills. What would be your advice to them?

Matt Kohut  22:06

I think one of the best opportunities to get good at this is to really lean into going to conferences, speaking at conferences, taking part in networking events, and really just doing anything you can do to put yourself out and have opportunities to grow in this area. So maybe you do podcasts, maybe you do different kinds of things that give you a chance to be the voice or a voice from your organization, and you make it a diligent effort on your part to get better at this. And it’s not unlike trying to get better at. I’ll name a few things that might seem strange, but playing a musical instrument, playing a sport, it’s a practice, in other words, and yes, some people are born with more ability than others and more interest or desire than others, but if you decide you want to get better at this, this is absolutely something you can work at and improve at simply by being diligent and determined to get the reps in.

Kris Safarova  23:04

So to speak, Matt and you probably often deal with clients who don’t feel very comfortable speaking in public. What are some of the approaches, techniques, tools, strategies you share with them that you could share with our listeners now that helps someone in that situation?

Matt Kohut  23:21

So there are two sides to it. One is preparation before you’re going to say something, and preparation means learning what you’re going to say, really chunking the material, getting it into your system, so that it’s not just memorized, but it’s internalized. That means running through it, learning it, running through it aloud, recording yourself on video, or even just on voice memo, and getting it so you play it back and you listen to it, you say, Oh, that was awful, and you try it again. That’s the preparation side of it. And nobody enjoys that part of it. But doing that is critical, because if you don’t do that, you’re going to be more nervous going into this now on the other side is what you might think of as getting ready right before your talk. And this is where dealing with performance anxiety, or nerves, comes in. And the techniques that are helpful for public speaking anxiety are exactly the same techniques that are helpful for Olympic athletes and for professional musicians and for Navy Seals and other people who find themselves in high stress positions or facing a high stress task where they have the same kind of nerves. And you can split these techniques into two categories, physical and mental. So when I say physical activities, they’re things like breathing exercises, stretches. Lots of times, people have exercises they’ve learned in some other domain, like yoga or martial arts or dance class that they can do to help them mitigate the nerves. And then on the mental side, there are things like visualization. Of what you’re about to do. All Olympic athletes in the United States are taught to visualize their events before they do them. And visualizing a speech you’re going to give is the same thing. You basically close your eyes and you run the video in your mind before you go out there and you do it. Another one is having some sort of what’s called positive self talk. And this is basically having the equivalent of a mantra and saying something to yourself over and over to remind yourself that you’ve got this thing. I’ll give you an example. A few years ago, I met a two time gold medalist, and she was telling me that as she was waiting for her events to begin, she would be saying to herself, I trained for this, I prepared for this. I belong here. And she would be saying that on a loop to herself, waiting for the starting gun to go off, and it kept her from getting freaked out by her nerves. So this positive self talk again, something Olympic athletes are taught to do, visualization, another thing that they’re also trained to do, these are what you might think of as mental techniques you can use if the physical things aren’t working for you, or some combination of them can be really helpful. Now, what I’m talking about is having some sort of a 92nd routine before you walk out on stage or before you join a call virtually. It’s not something that requires extensive time, but it’s the equivalent of just having that moment or two to really get yourself ready, and you’re not going to turn the nerves off so much as you’re just going to turn them down a little bit so that you’re managing them rather than they managing you.

Kris Safarova  26:30

Very good advice. Thank you so much, Matt. And what will be your advice on creating the right impression?

Matt Kohut  26:37

One of the best ways to get a sense about things regarding how you show up is to understand what the norm is where you’re going. So if you’re going to a conference, and this conference has happened before, and you watch a little bit of video from IT on youtube, you see the way people are dressed if they’re speakers at this thing. That gives you some idea of what the norm is. Now you don’t have to follow the norm. You can buck the norm if you’re trying to stand out in some way, but ultimately, you’re making a decision based on your best guess about due diligence you’ve been able to do. So I think that’s an important part of how you show up, as far as things like apparel and appearance. Now the other side of this is something that I co wrote a book with John neffinger About over a decade ago. And it speaks to the idea that when audiences are sizing us up, they’re fundamental, fundamentally asking themselves two questions about you. One is, are you capable? Are you someone who knows your stuff and can get can get things done? And the other judgment they’re making is, are you my kind of person? Do you understand me, my concerns, my interests, maybe even my emotions? And when you think about going somewhere where you’re going to be assessed by the audience, especially something like a public speaking context, you’re certainly going to want to demonstrate that you know something you’re capable you’re worth listening to on that score. But just as importantly, you want to show that audience that you understand who’s in that room, and you understand what matters to them, why they’re there, and how you can show them that you, in some way, can relate to their concerns and their interests. So it’s thinking about both of those things, and striking the best balance you can between those two things.

Kris Safarova  28:25

Any specific colors that you recommend your clients, such as Blue, makes people feel that maybe you’re more trustworthy?

Matt Kohut  28:33

You know, there is all this sort of, I don’t know. I call it science, but there are all these theories about this color means this, and that color means that. And one thing that I think is actually a more important question to ask yourself, and there’s some research that backs this up, is, what can you wear that will make you feel confident? And the color and the thing, the outfit, the shirt, the suit, the blouse, whatever you’re wearing that makes you feel like your best self, that’s actually the thing that’s going to have the most effect. So it’s not going to be the effect of the color on the audience so much as how you feel when you wear that thing that makes you most confident is going to make you beam a little more brightly. And actually, that’s the thing that I would suggest you go with very wise words.

Kris Safarova  29:27

So building on that confidence, so you touched on it a little bit. Anything else people can do to feel more confident?

Matt Kohut  29:35

I think really, it comes down to knowing your stuff, being prepared, and then, like I said, managing the nerves like that. And the good news is that with time, you get used to this. Now that doesn’t mean the nerves go away, but you can almost welcome the nerves and say, Oh, here you are again. And even if they don’t go away throughout your entire career, you can become familiar with this. Yes, and just that familiarity makes it so that the difference between your best days and your worst days diminishes dramatically. It doesn’t mean the nerves don’t get the best of you occasionally, or that you really don’t feel them. It just means that you’re more comfortable responding to this.

Kris Safarova  30:17

Do you prepare clients for a situation if they just go blank, they just forgot everything they wanted to say. What do they do in that situation?

Matt Kohut  30:25

So the techniques I just mentioned about managing nerves in advance are the best preventive medicine for that. So that is something that I that’s part of the reason I strongly recommend having a little warm up routine like that, because if you turn the volume of the nerves down a little bit in advance. That’s less likely to happen. Now, if that happens, you have to simply pick up somewhere. And there are all kinds of different situations where that’s happened. I was delivering a keynote once where this happened to me, and I realized the thing I had to do was repeat the last line I said, and say it with more emphasis, so I can’t remember the last line I said, but it was something like, this is a big deal. And then I just said again, this is a big deal. And I was giving, and I said it slowly, and I put a little bit of a pause around it. And just doing that gave my brain a little bit of oxygen, gave me a little time to think, and something came to me, and the next word came, and then the next word came, and when I was able to watch video of that, it wasn’t really obvious that this had happened. Now, one thing that’s really important to do, if you freeze up like that, is keep breathing. And I mean that because your brain needs a hit of oxygen, and the worst thing you can do is stop breathing, because it’s literally going to do the opposite. Now if you’re in a place where people can’t see your hands, one thing you can do is pinch yourself. So right now I’m pinching my forearm with my thumb and my index finger on the other hand. And if you do that hard enough a lot of times, that’ll startle you in some way into paying attention. It’s basically saying, wake up. And that’s another thing you can do, as long as people don’t see you doing it. So all of these will help. And like I said, mostly you’re just trying to give your brain a little bit of you’re trying to loosen it up a little bit so a breath. Can do that repeating the last thing you said. Can do that if you’re in a setting where it’s a presentation and it’s not a huge keynote in front of 1000s of people, you can say, let me just pause here. Does anybody have any questions at this point? That can be a great getaway in a situation like that as well. So there are a lot of different ways you can approach that one.

Kris Safarova  32:41

Thank you. That is very helpful. So in your book, you wrote that United States have experienced a long term decline in trust in institutions. And Gallup has tracked public confidence in institutions for over 40 years, and its aggregate measure of confidence in the range of major institutions fell by 44% between 1979 and 2022. In 2022 it was at 27% and these institutions include banks and public schools and newspapers and big business. And this is not unique to the United States, of course. And so as people lose trust in institutions, they look for credible authorities and sources somewhere else, including leaders within organization they work for. So leaders are also filling the leadership void out of necessity, rather than just ambition. What does that change mean for leaders listening to us right now?

Matt Kohut  33:40

I think it means that if people work for you, they may be looking for you to fill in some gaps that they’re not seeing filled by institutions. And it simply means being able to understand when they’re uncertain about what’s happening on a bigger level. So an example this might be when you when the COVID 19 pandemic broke out, people were looking in all kinds of places for guidance about what what’s next. And a lot of leaders talk to their teams, to their employees, very transparently, I would say about the fact that they had concerns too, that they had fears. And they weren’t saying this to say, My gosh, we’re doomed. They were more saying, You know what, I get that you have concerns. I have concerns too, and just validating those concerns oftentimes is a helpful thing. So I think that a lot of leaders have understood that this breakdown in trust in institutions means that their teams are looking for someone to help guide them, or at least give them a sense that things are going to be okay, and sometimes that’s the person. And the leader that they see the most frequently, and in many cases, that’s the person they work for.

Kris Safarova  35:07

I also have to ask you, because you were a speech writer, I feel that it will be disservice to our listeners if I don’t ask you this question, what are the key components of a great speech?

Matt Kohut  35:18

Well, the key component first, first and foremost is understanding who the audience is for that speech. Because if you’re not speaking at a level that’s going to reach them, then you’ve lost from the very first word. Beyond that, you have to be very clear about what it is they need to hear you say so you understand who they are, what you absolutely need to tell them is critical. And then I think on some fundamental level, you want to think about what’s the story here? Could you break this down to something that could fit on the back of an index card? Is it something that you have quote an elevator pitch for and being really clear about the big picture is important. Once you know that big picture, then I think you can scale what you’re saying. So who am I talking to? What do they already know? What are they concerned about? What’s my story? And if you can answer those questions for yourself, then the speech really can take form from there. Now as far as the things that make a speech good, one thing I think leaders often miss the opportunity to use are stories. They don’t have to be the leader’s story necessarily, but they have to be stories about people doing and feeling things that are relevant to whatever the topic of the speech is. And if you can lace in anecdotes, stories about people, or even use cases or case studies that bring people into the equation, as opposed to the speech being something that’s a little bit more abstract. That’s what people remember. People remember stories because stories stick in our brains, and that’s just the way we are wired as people.

Kris Safarova  36:59

Martin, what are your thoughts on starting with a joke or not starting with a joke?

Matt Kohut  37:04

So if you were voted funniest in your class in high school, maybe you can start with a joke. I don’t tend to recommend it unless you know and are validated as somebody who’s really funny. Humor can be a great tool for people who are funny. I’m not that funny. I know that about myself, and if I start with a joke, I’m likely going to start in a hole and have to dig my way out, and that’s the risk with starting with a joke. Similarly, humor is really contextual. It’s really cultural. So if you’re running a multinational organization, this can be disastrous, because your joke, at best, just doesn’t make sense to people in other cultures, and at worst, it might actually give offense because it’s missing misunderstood, or your intent is misunderstood, and maybe you said something that actually was offensive even so it’s it’s a dicey thing to play with that said, if you’ve gotten feedback throughout your life that You’re a funny person, you know how to be culturally sensitive around this, and you can lighten the mood in a room with humor. That’s great. I think funny stories, especially self deprecating stories, can be wonderful as a way to make people, set people at ease. So it’s humor at your own expense, rather than humor at other people’s expense. And that’s where I think the person who genuinely has a good sense of humor about things can be very effective with it very true.

Kris Safarova  38:29

To wrap up, I wanted to ask you two questions. First is my favorite question to ask, and that is, over the last few years, were there two, three aha moments, realizations that you could share with us really changed the way you look at life, or the way you look at business, two or three ahas.

Matt Kohut  38:46

You know, I think that in some way the biggest aha was coming out of the pandemic and realizing that people really need to work in person together. And this is something I believed in before the pandemic, but I hadn’t had the great test case that we all had from 2020 into the subsequent year or a year and a half. And that, I would say, is my first and my second thing here. Really, it was a big aha that the way we learn from each other, the way we are able to transfer what we know to each other, really depends on spending time in the same room. This is a great 80% solution. What we’re doing over zoom here, and you can get a lot done there. The world didn’t grind to a halt when we had to rely on this exclusively, but our ability to understand each other, to gain context from each other, and to really get a sense of very intangible things from each other, that really depends on being in the same place at the same time, and so when I think about ahas that one really hits home for me. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work virtually some. Times, and there shouldn’t be flexibility about this. I’m a big believer in flexibility and making the most of these tools, but there’s no substitute for us being together. We are social creatures, and the knowledge we share is inherently social.

Kris Safarova  40:13

And the last thing I wanted to ask you is, are there specific, so to say, success habits that you rely on in your day to day life to really allow you to be effective?

Matt Kohut  40:24

For me personally, I meditate every morning. It’s the first thing I do when I get out of bed and I exercise as many days a week as I can. And for me, exercise is often walking in addition to a few other things, but the walk is the thing that I really depend on, and it helps me to think some of the best ideas I’ve had come to me during walking, while I’m thinking about exercise, but I’m actually my brain’s actually going in all these adjacent directions to whatever I’ve been working on, and so I can’t recommend that highly enough as a creative practice as much as a healthy one.

Kris Safarova  41:00

Matt, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. And everything you shared, anything else you want to share, maybe something you wanted me to ask you, and they didn’t. And also, where can our listeners learn more about you? By your books, anything you want to share?

Matt Kohut  41:14

I think you covered it all. And then some, if people are interested, they can find out more about me at matthewkohut.com and you can access all three of the books I’ve authored or co-authored there as well.

Kris Safarova  41:25

Our guest today, again, has been Matthew Kohut, the author of speaking out, Matthew, thank you so much. Great. Appreciate you being here.

Matt Kohut  41:32

Kris, thanks so much for having me. It’s been my pleasure.

Kris Safarova  41:35

And our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com if you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used in well managed strategy studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG Winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can download it at firms consulting.com forward slash resume PDF. And firmsconsulting is F-I-R-M-S consulting.com forward slash resume PDF. Thank you guys so much for tuning in, very important topic, speaking, communication skills. This is something that we need to continue developing, always being pursuit of mastery. I hope you enjoyed the episode, and I’ll see you all in the next session.