Many years ago I was hired to write speeches for the CEO of an international hotel chain. Let’s call it Big Bucks Hotels and Resorts. Let’s call the CEO Nicolaus Pod.
With a major BBHR investor event coming up, I was also writing speeches for the executive VPs, one of whom we’ll call V. P. Peccadilo.
Peccadilo decided the focus of his remarks would be “Making the Most of Food and Beverage.”
Peccadilo had some novel ideas for maximizing the F&B bottom line, and I helped him make the case in my usual incisive manner, which an admiring professor once likened to “a razor to the cornea.”
Anyway, having left Peccadilo in prime shape for the upcoming event, I turned my attention to Pod. Pod, as always, was surrounded by Nervous Subordinates® as I interrogated him mercilessly about the claims he planned to make in his speech.
I should mention that a competent speechwriter functions as a one-person Red Team, probing for weaknesses in the executive’s argument.
I’m in the privileged position of a Medieval court jester, who was free to mock the king or deliver bad news without running the risk of being hanged, drawn, and quartered.
After raking Pod over the coals for the day, I gave him a brief synopsis of my content sessions with the VPs.
When I came to Peccadilo and his thoughts about boosting revenue from F&B, Pod’s brow furrowed and he wondered aloud why Peccadilo would be focusing on that topic instead of the proposed emerging market branding initiatives for the next fiscal year.
With that, I gathered my notes and made my way to the undisclosed location where I would pound the typewriter until dawn.
The next day, the BBHR offices were alive with plaintive bleating about how Pod had “gone ballistic” upon hearing of Peccadilo’s chosen topic, while all present cowered in terror.
The Nervous Subordinates® were gripped with fear that somehow Pod’s unconstrained fury would imperil their jobs, even though they had nothing to do with Peccadilo’s brazen foray into realms beyond his bailiwick.
Some of the marketing and communications people even feared that an unhinged Pod might transfer them to human resources.
I imagined that, after my departure, Pod had exploded into an obscenity-laced tirade, pounding his desk and and hurling electronic gadgets at the wall, if not at the hapless subordinates.
Wow, I thought, who knew that inside of Pod’s buttoned down, squared-away exterior lurked a madman?
In the days that followed I was able to ascertain that the furrowed brow and mild surprise constituted the entirety of the “Pod goes ballistic” episode.
The End
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