Part of next week will be spent giving some Speechwriting Training.

One of the things I have been taught on my Mediation training is the technique of ‘reflecting back’.

In other words, a good mediator (so it is said) is not one who shows ‘neutrality’ by being aloof and detached from the feuding parties. That may work in winning some credibility, but it is not enough to win their trust.

To do that effectively you need to tune in to the emotional signals coming from the parties.

If they get angry and agitated, you should try to raise the tempo and ‘intensity’ of your reaction to their anger/agitation so that they feel that you are ‘with’ them – at least to the point of understanding why they are upset. For example by leaning towards them and raising your voice a clear notch.

The problem with someone giving a speech is exactly the opposite. Normally the speaker is quite interested in what s/he has to say, but the audience by contrast need to be convinced to tune in to the speaker and not play with an e-gadget until the dreary session ends.

So the speaker has the difficult task of quickly catching the audience’s attention and then gently pulling them up through the gears to raise them to somewhere close to where the speaker himself is.

The speaker in other words has a higher level of ‘intensity’ than the audience. And if that is not managed well by the speaker, it can lead to disaster!

For a classic high-profile case of two speakers failing to get this right and being roundly humiliated, check out this one:

Thus it was that as the speeches droned on, more and more Bosnians present simply tuned out and carried on chatting among themselves.

An unseemly competition started. Which was louder? The mass of Bosnian guests, or the VIP speakers?

When the German Foreign Minister got going, a mini-crisis was reached. He could not be heard at all other than by shouting.

Which he did. To little avail.

The louder he went, the more the massed Bosnians themselves talked loudly, almost as if (perish the thought) they spontaneously thought it would be a good Balkan joke to drown him out.

So we connoisseurs of the Diplomatic Grotesque witnessed a fascinating moment.

A leading European politician from a country which had given generously to the post-war reconstruction effort was left bawling at a large crowd of senior Bosnians that they should be grateful to Europe, and respond accordingly.

And they did respond. They just ignored him.

All not-so-obvious enough.

But can you train people to cope with this sort of thing when they are not necessarily good speakers and may think they have little to say? And where does the speech-writer fit in?

Good questions. Let’s see.