The Pope And The Pyramid

This blog was originally published on Forbes as The Pope And The Pyramid on Friday, September 25, 2015.

Yesterday, for the first time in history, a Pope addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress; and—just maybe—for  the first time in history, a speaker at that esteemed podium delivered a logical, well-structured speech.

With all due respect to our presidents, most of their speeches are State of the Union Addresses which have to summarize the actions and plans of the multitude of government departments, agencies, and constituencies, are nothing more than extended laundry lists.

Not so Pope Francis. He structured his speech as the classic pyramid, starting with a high level concept and then going deeper with various applications of that concept.

His Holiness’ high level was: “Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation.” The applications of his proposed legislative activity were: immigration, poverty, the environment, the arms trade and the death penalty.

The pyramid structure was pioneered and promoted by my colleague in coaching and authoring, Barbara Minto, in her bestselling book, The Pyramid Principle. It is also reflected in the classic top-down business models of Razor/Blades and Camera/Films.

To strengthen his continuity, Pope Francis added another structural element: human interest stories. He chose four citizens—President Abraham Lincoln, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, an activist who founded the Catholic Worker Movement, and Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, “a promoter of peace between peoples and religions”—and wove them into his speech as role models whose activities helped America “to grow as a nation.”

And to top it all off, he began with a simple but powerful introduction. His first sentence was “I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave,’” By referencing a phrase from the “Star Spangled Banner,” he not only created an instant bond with his audience, he also set up his main message.

Despite strong recommendations from congressional leaders to keep applause to a minimum, the sentence produced an immediate standing ovation from Democrats and Republicans alike. The ovations continued despite the fact that the Pope read the speech from a manuscript rather than the teleprompter that the presidents use, despite the fact that he read in a virtual monotone and with a heavy accent, and despite the fact that he used minimal gestures.

Perhaps Pope Francis can offer President Obama some advice before his next State of the Union.

This blog was originally published on Forbes as The Pope And The Pyramid on Friday, September 25, 2015.