Prime Minister Tony Abbott needs an elevator pitch. He needs to come up with a 30 second line regarding who he is, and what he stands for. And he should rehearse it.
Appearing last night on television in front of the ABC’s Leigh Sales, the question he really struggled with was the one that any leader – in business, politics, and the community – should be able to answer without hesitation. Who are you?
Sales asked Abbott the question multiple times, and each time it was awkwardly deflected as the Prime Minister returned to over-used policy slogans and pushing his party’s woes back on the previous government.
This was Abbott’s chance to speak up and stand for something – to declare that if “good government starts today”, as he said it did, then he’s the person to lead it because of X, Y, Z.
Granted this was always going to be a difficult interview for Abbott, who wouldn’t want to appear in front of Sales at the best of times, let alone after 39 members of his own party voted to go ahead with a leadership spill.
But the more likely you are to potentially get flustered in a situation, the more need there is to have some answers to carry around with you. No, not the three-word slogans or party lines but rather the statement you can draw upon to quickly and succinctly describe who you are.
Getting to know just ‘who you are’ is a challenging proposition. Learning how to explain it in thirty seconds or less is even more difficult. That’s why anyone schooled in the art of making good connections knows that the ‘elevator pitch’ is something that deserves a lot of attention. It should be carefully considered, worded and rehearsed.
The idea is that every conversation – whether it’s at a networking event, in an office or even in an elevator – is an opportunity. You don’t want the doors to open for somebody to leave, before you’ve had a good opportunity to make an impression.
While Abbott didn’t need to explain the fact he’s the prime minister of Australia (although perhaps an answer along those lines would have at least been a good start), nor did he need to necessarily explain how he ended up in the position, he did need to articulate his current leadership vision. He had, after all, declared himself a “changed man” that he was going to be “better”. So who is he now?
So let the challenge Abbott faced in answering this simple question be a lesson. A leader has to be able to back themselves enough to know who they are, before they can expect anyone else to follow.
You never know who or when you might be asked to look inwards and describe what you do. Be prepared for it to happen at any time.
As for that awkward exchange on 7:30, it went like this:
Leigh Sales: “Who are you?”
Tony Abbott: “Well, Leigh, let’s just focus for a second on the captain’s picks. There have essentially been two captain’s picks-”
Sales: “Can you actually just focus on the big picture there? Because there’s been three different Tony Abbotts. I just want to know, which one are you?”
Abbott: “Well Leigh, I will let the Australian people form their own conclusions, but let’s just go back to the captain’s picks. There’s been two of them. There’s the paid parental leave scheme, which we took to two elections, but I accept that good policy though it would be in different circumstances, now is not the right time for an expansion of paid parental leave. And then, of course, there was the knighthood. Now, all of these awards in the Order of Australia are now being handled by the Council of the Order of Australia.”
Sales: “How about my point though, that there’ve been … you know, we’re up to Tony Abbott 3.0? Do you accept that you’ve thoroughly confused the public about what your government is and what you stand for?”
Abbott: “Let’s look at the situation that we inherited, Leigh …”
Sales: “Can we just look at the big picture about you?”
Abbott: “I’d rather have a conversation rather than an argument,
Leigh.”
Sales: “I think it’s a reasonable question, and one that voters would be asking themselves, and it would be remiss of me not to put to you.”
Abbott: “And let me answer it by saying, going into the last election, the then-government was saying that the deficit would be $18 billion. It turned out to be $48 billion, there was a $30 billion budget black hole that the Labor Party had created, should have known about, and wasn’t telling us about. Obviously, when the circumstances change, there are some things that have to change with them. Now I absolutely accept Leigh, that I said the night before the election, that there’d be no cuts to the ABC. But let’s face it Leigh, that for 18 years, the ABC had no efficiency dividend, and when there are spending restraints across a whole area of government policy, surely under those circumstances, it is possible to revise a particular commitment.”
Sales: “But it’s interesting that you’re not able to answer the question to me. Who are you, what do you stand for? Which Tony are you?”
Abbott: “Well obviously, we stand for a government that believes in smaller government, lower taxes, and greater freedom….
And so on…