LE Part 2: the Right Speech. "We Need Courage."

 Hello, everyone. It's a friday night! Have some plan for this weekend? I have a plan to hung out with my best friend from my high school. So excited!

 Anyway, this time, let me write about the second part of Leading at the Edge, and I want to focus on "right speech" in this chapter. Dennis Parkin, the author, writes a wonderful story about the speech Shackleton made in the tough situation of the journey. Its description made me feel like I wished I could have been on the ship and listen to his speech directly.

 I have a similar experience with Shackleton's. While I was in a high school in Switzerland, I've represented my school twice in The Hague International Model United Nations (in Japanese, 模擬国連). In the case if any of you don't know the Model United Nations (MUN), there is an explanation about MUN cited from Wikipedia: MUN is "a conference similar to the United Nations in which students participate as delegates to various UN Committees. Participants research and formulate political positions based on the actual policies of the countries they represent.",

(This is where the conference, general assembly, is taken place, and ...)

(this is how the discussion goes on. Even though the guy in pic is smiling, the discussion itself moves on very seriously and actively.)

Doing this twice means I spent two out of three years working on the tasks required in the discussion in the MUN. Actually, it was quite hard because I needed lots of knowledge about any political movements in the world and also a function of any organizations under the UN. In the second year, I played a role as a leader of the school team since I had experienced Model United Nations once. I usually tried to be cheerful and active, make some jokes and have some fun conversations with teammates because I hoped them to be in a comfortable atmosphere or environment. However, in the middle way, members' morales were getting lower and lower since we had a five-hour lecture every week after class, which was held by a supervisor. In that case, I thought I needed to do something as a leader of this team, and what I did was the same, a small speech. I used quite harsh words, unlike I always talked to them, to express how it was going to be if we'd continue to work on the tasks as we did with the low motivations. But I never wanted to make it scolding and that's one of the things I was careful. I talked about what made me regret in the actual conference one year before: specifically speaking, I got an inferiority complex caused by the lack of information and lack of efforts I had made, which means my preparation for the conference was not enough. And I said I hoped they all wouldn't be feeling the same as I had felt and I knew we all could go through that tough situation as a team. After that, actually, I was worried about their reaction because I had been trying to make a cheerful atmosphere in the team, and then I kind of broke that by making a speech. However, my speech seemed to be working well. On the next day, many members talked to me and said they were motivated by the speech and realized they couldn't keep going like before.

 The page 32 of the book is about Franco Bernade, CEO of Eni, and he stated in his speech, "I had to learn as CEO how to communicate. I was used to writing articles and preparing reports, but those are not really very effective communication tools." I know many people want to express their opinions or their feelings on paper such as reports, or on e-mails especially in this modern world where technology has been rapidly developing and having their mobile phones all the time with them and communicate with others through texting. I really understand texting or writing is comfortable for us because we don't need courage! We don't see the reaction that listeners make like we see in conversations or speech. And I think this is the reason why I was kind of afraid to make the speech in front of the team members. I was scared to see bad reactions teammates would have make. However, as Bernade states, we really need to speak to people directly when we have something to tell and hope that message to reach that person's heart. We need courage, of course, but I think this is the only way to send a message you really want to convey if you hope the other to receive it or understand you.

Bye!