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How to Stick to Your Talking Points
When you’re trying to get a point across, embrace your inner candidate
Everyone knew the question of “electability” was going to come up at last night’s Democratic presidential debate. And when it did, Sen. Elizabeth Warren — fired up after reports emerged that Sen. Bernie Sanders had told her that no woman could win the presidency — was ready to strike: “Can a woman beat Donald Trump?” she said. “Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women! Amy [Klobuchar] and me.”
But Warren, intent on hammering home her argument about electability, didn’t stop there. “And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the last 30 years,” she added, “is me.” It was a powerful real-time lesson in how to stick to the point: Warren avoided getting sidetracked and stuck to her sound bites. Even those of us who will never set foot on a debate stage can glean some wisdom from this. Whether you’re prepping for a big meeting or a tough talk with a friend, here’s how to make sure you stay on message and say exactly what you mean to say.
Avoid getting sidetracked
According to the debate coach Jacob Thompson, a professor of communication studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, two pitfalls are common during debates. One is a lack of preparation, which includes anticipating how your rivals might respond to questions or attacks. The other is playing to your opponents’ strengths, instead of your own.
“I think this is most obviously illustrated by the Trump-Clinton debates in 2016,” Thompson notes. “Trump, as a reality TV star, tended to treat the debates as a reality TV show, and when Clinton got into it with him, that played to Trump’s advantage, and not hers.”
Thompson points out that we can all glean ways to improve our speaking strategy from the experiences of the candidates in Des Moines: “If you’re going to have a difficult conversation, you need to think through what the contents of that conversation are going to be,” he says, “and be ready for any eventuality that may come up during the conversation, or that the other side may…
