75 High-Impact Speeches and Remarks
Proven Words You Can Adapt for Any Business Occasion
By John Kador
McGraw-Hill, $23.95
John Kador, a prolific corporate speechwriter, author and ghostwriter, knows a good speech when he reads one. More importantly for the edification of the aspiring business speaker, Kador's ability to dissect and interpret the discursive underpinnings of a memorable address makes this collection more than worthwhile.
Jack Welch and Lee Iacocca offer stirring lectures and apologias for plant shutdowns, corporate mismanagement, as well as the winning future of American business, while actor Tommy Lee Jones and master storyteller Steven Spielberg spout finely crafted tributes to Al Gore and Stanley Kubrick. Interestingly, the most effective speech is not from a celebrity, but a relative unknown at Charles Schwab & Co. Tom Seip was passed over for president and, rather than resigning, he stayed on. His speech to Schwab's executive committee is a heartrending explication of wounded honour and unfailing loyalty, peppered with wry but revelatory jokes.
The range of speakers and the subjects to which they put their voices—motivational, futurist, educational, celebratory—provides the reader with innumerable rhetorical devices and strategies for not only rousing but illuminating oratory.
This is not a how-to book about professional speechwriting. The selected speeches are offered primarily as inspiration for the speaker struggling with his or her blank page. But Kador does provide a unique inside look. Each selection is divided into two columns: on the left, the speech; on the right, Kador's "Talking Points," an absorbing exploration into how the speaker has structured his address to garner maximum effect. These decisions vary according to the audience and/or topic, but generally they are guided by the effective use of metaphor, anecdotes, alliteration and carefully placed humour. In other words, all 75 speeches are masterworks of storytelling. The reader comes to understand that the key is the telling of a tale—as truthfully as both the speaker and audience can bear.
