“Dr. King Can Give Us the Courage to Speak Up, Take Action and Champion Inclusion”

FORMAT: Speech

CLIENT: Executive at a North American company with 65,000+ employees

INDUSTRY: Automotive

OPPORTUNITY: To celebrate and honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January

CHALLENGE: To move “good people” from the safety of silence and passive agreement with fairness to the riskier, personal choice to speak up and act whenever they see something that isn’t right, especially in everyday workplace moments that leave others feeling excluded.

SERVICES: Speech strategy/alignment to corporate strategy, planning, interviewing, research, message and framework development, speechwriting, line editing, executive speech coaching

APPROACH: Build the speech around a simple backbone: Dr. King’s words, a vivid childhood story about the neighborhood pool, and present-day moments at the company, all reinforcing the question, “Is it right?”

Lean hard into storytelling, using sensory detail, contrast (silence vs. speaking up; talk vs. walk), repetition (“DO SOMETHING,” “Is It Right?”), and direct questions to pull listeners out of abstract agreement and into personal moral choices in everyday situations.

SAMPLE: Read the speech, which won the 2023 Cicero Speechwriting Award in the Social Justice category

“Thank you, Teresa, we make a powerful team! Your words and process were excellent.”  

THE SPEAKER
Executive at a North American company with 65,000+ employees