Commencement speeches: three lessons

Every year around this time, famous CEOs, politicians, actors and other hot shots ascend the stage en masse in America. Their assignment: give a speech with your best life advice to the newly minted graduates.

These commencement speeches are a fascinating competition every year. Between universities: who managed to snag the biggest heavyweight? And between speakers: who has the best, most inspiring speech?

It produces great stories and insights. But it is especially instructive to see how each speaker fulfills the task. Many times the life lessons are variations on the same themes. As a result, the form choices tell us all the more: what is a recipe for mishaps, what for success.

We analyzed three 2023 commencement speeches and drew our lessons from them.

Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in America. Exactly this notion seems to be playing tricks on Hanks. As a speaker, it is important to think about what you need to show of yourself so that your audience will be open to your message. Sometimes that is about authority: telling what knowledge, experience or achievements you have that give you "the right" to speak on a subject. Sometimes it's about sympathy: what can you say that makes your audience want to connect with you. Hanks chooses authority in this speech in a roundabout way, where he should have chosen sympathy (read: making it personal, crossing over to audience).

As one of Hollywood's finest, with a long track record, he is entitled enough to share some life lessons. Yet he doesn't seem convinced of that himself. With a few jokes about his own meager education, he first positions himself as the underdog. Then to overcompensate with a torrent of complicated words, sentence structures and comparisons.

Result: a hard-to-follow and impersonal treatise that, while sounding like a bell, barely understands the brain and does not touch the heart.

Compare this to Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement speech. Brilliant in its simplicity, with three personal anecdotes, captured in simple language, he delivers a crystal-clear core message.

Key lesson: think carefully about what your audience needs from you (rather than you from the audience).

Oprah is a true speaker's cannon. Key trademarks: personal stories, strong audience rapport and depth. Once again, she knows how to strike strings in Tennessee. At the same time, especially her commencement speeches (she gave nearly 20 of them) are sometimes very pregnant with wisecracks and quotes. As a result, they lack a central message and feel somewhat thrown together.

It is a trap that many commencement speakers fall into. For fear of bringing too little, life wisdom is drily piled on top of each other and thrown against the wall like spaghetti, hoping something will stick.

If you do it, do it right. Like Mary Schmich with her Wear Sunscreen column (1997), her hypothetical Commencement speech consisting of a long list of things that make your life more enjoyable. Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann turned the column into the mega-hit The Sunscreen song.

Key lesson: dare to choose. Ensure coherence by hanging your story on one rationale or core message.

A great commencement speech example: clear thread, colored with a historical comparison, personal notes and references to her audience's perceptions.

With facts and universal truths, she manages to create urgency for the problem she is addressing: imposter syndrome is being foisted on us (women) and "[...] is not our problem to solve." It all leads to her core message: "Focus less on fixing ourselves and more on healing the world."

Certainly with such a message essential that you stand there as yourself. That you don't assume a role and feel the story through (watch the speech here, no YouTube version available yet).

Not easy, since our coping mechanisms often overwhelm us in the spotlight, as we see with Jim Carrey during his 2014 commencement speech. It takes 10 minutes before he takes off his "Ace Ventura" joke mask and shows himself. This in defiance of his message: don't let fear guide you. It is only then that his speech becomes real (inspiring).

Main lesson: to touch, we as an audience need the speaker to show leadership (stand for his message and direct us through the story), be authentic (not play a role and show something of himself) and connect (with his story and the audience).

Are you also going to speak soon and want to be optimally prepared?
Contact us:
janneke@speaktoinspire.nl / 020-4204068