My Mansion House speech
Making a formal speech with almost no time to prepare. Why learning about yourself is much more valuable than any form of expert advice.
Last week I was asked to give a short after dinner speech at less than 24 hours notice. It was a formal occasion with 170 guests at the Mansion House. I sat at the top table next to the Lord Mayor of London and had to speak a few minutes after he did.
The speech went over fairly well. Or at least I think I avoided total disaster.
I had very little time and virtually no information. So how did I prepare? What put me in a position to speak confidently without notes or any other props?
My “process” is fairly simple:
Juggle ideas in my head for a while.
Figure out the way in - easy in this case because no choice of first line. It was a formal event, so the brief told me how to begin the address.
“Master, wardens, My Lord Mayor, sheriff, ladies and gentlemen…”
That very first line makes all the difference. Usually for me, finding that is the hardest part.
Get out and walk for as long as it takes to figure it out in my head - roughly two hours in this case.
At the end of my walk, run through with rough timing - just by looking at my watch. Might take 2 or 3 goes at this and chop some stuff around. Was around 13 minutes at this point - way too long obviously.
Run through it again after a break of at least a couple of hours. Get the time rightish at this point and speak it out loud if possible.
Give it another break. Then do a final run to be happy that I have it straight in my head. Make myself a one word reminders list at this stage - never more than 5 or 6 words. For this it was Navy, wife, Sri Lanka, Bletchley Park, Ulez, ferries.
Try not to drink too much wine before I speak!
This is not best practice. It doesn’t reflect any standards, heuristics, or methods. It probably won’t work for you.
But its real. It took me a long time to learn. Not least because the received wisdom kept getting in the way.
The end process was quite hard to write down. The process is so ingrained and I never consciously learned it. It evolved from trying various things, from watching how others did it, and from getting up and doing it myself.
Why am I sharing this? Well my wife likes the picture at the top so it will make her happy. There are some general observations here as well:
You often need to act without time or information. Make the best choice you can and learn from the experience. Doing nothing is a recipe for stagnation and decline.
Learn about yourself. Without knowing yourself, its very hard to learn anything else.
Expert or generalist advice is never right for you. Learn to set it aside and do what works.
There are lots of ways to learn from experience. Doing things is one. Observing how others do them is just as important.
Reading:
Building in public forces true competitive advantage - Jason Cohen. You build a great business by serving customer demand, not on technical IP. IP generates a lot of friction and consumes far too much time in early stage businesses.
Discount rates in venture backed startups - Jerry Neumann. Makes the point that any startup valuation needs a discount rate of at least 40%. Realistically, investment decisions at an early stage are qualitative, not quantitative.
Due diligence checklist for pre-seed companies - Charles Hudson. Follows from the post above. The things to check are founders, cap table, corporate structure and burn. All should be simple and clear at this stage.
How freemium almost killed my business - Bobby Pinero. I can’t say often enough, business theory is a source of ideas, not a guide that will work for your business. Love this honest example of how an idea that works for some could be a disaster in the wrong context.
A decarbonised Iron plant in Namibia - We have a lot of the tech we need to address climate change. The challenge is one of execution. Its always good to see it being put into practice. Plus, I love Namibia!
Thanks for sharing your process Kenny!
I love the idea of instinctively going for a long walk. It's too easy to stay sat at the laptop.
Then getting those thoughts condensed down to 1 word bullets. I always carry the worry that I'll forget something important. But it's amazing how the pathways flow once you get going.
Not to say I don't forget things!
One thing I learnt and found useful was to try and always set it out as What, So What and So What.
Even if there's maybe 3 or 5 big 'Whats' I want to make... no one's complained since I introduced it, so hopefully it's not been too horrendous!
I’m sure it went well but you can’t post this and not share a link to the speech itself or at least the text !!