Modern technologies have provided people with an opportunity to hear others and be heard. This results in spreading progressive ideas that may influence the world and inspire people to contribute to the positive change and spread awareness of the negative issues in our society. One of the platforms that represent such opportunities and acts as a place where ideas can be communicated is TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Over the past two decades, the platform grew into a household name with events and speeches given in all parts of the world to spread the Ideas Worth Spreading – which is a motto of the company. Hence, watching TED Talks is important not only for increasing awareness and promoting change but for studying the art of giving speeches and leadership. The following essay analyses two TED Talks that are given by Melinda French Gates, and Jackson Katz on the topic of change in different areas. While Mr. Katz focused on the social change that can be initiated by changing the perspective of the agents involved, Ms. Gates elaborated on the idea of how studying Coca-Cola can enhance the effectiveness of non-profit initiatives.
Personally, both topics resonated with my career and social interests. Gender violence is a common issue throughout the world, with some cultures and nations revealing high rates of violence against one gender. Most often, gender violence is claimed to be a “women’s issue” since they comprise the highest number of victims. However, Jackson Katz, in his TED talk, dismisses the claims, and advocates for a paradigm shift to consider gender violence as a “men issue.”. For me, promoting gender equality and eradicating gender violence is a relevant issues that I would like to contribute to. Hence, it was crucial to hear about a new perspective on the way gender violence can be approached.
The speech by Melinda French Gates was another topic of interest for me, as it combines two of my interests – operations of huge multinational corporations, and operations of non-profit initiatives. To me, the success that Coca-Cola was able to reach is astonishing as it represents the pinnacle of the approach to building an effective supply and distribution chain across the world. At the same time, social injustices and disparities cannot be ignored, hence, it is important to study the non-profit initiatives and leadership in such organizations. Melinda French Gates is the leader of the most successful non-profit organizations Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a great source of wisdom and insight on the topic.
Jackson Katz does not introduce himself in the video and starts by introducing the topic and hooking listeners’ and viewers’ attention with his topic and his approach to it. The self-presentation is integrated into the speech and by the end of it, the audience knows that the speaker has a broad experience in training, coaching, as well developing programs that are aimed at eradicating gender violence in the military and school institutions, Jackson Katz is an anti-sexism educator, activist, and writer, but in the speech, he ensures his credibility without addressing his past achievements by introducing the topic in a way that is engaging and interesting. Hence, he receives applause within the first minute of the speech.
According to Katz, many people consider gender violence to be a “women issue,” the same way race is connotated to minority races. He claims that denoting gender violence as a “women issue” is in itself a problem since “It gives a lot of men an excuse not to pay attention” to a case they are a subject” (Katz). Besides, considering men to be at the core of gender violence, and addressing it by active voice eliminating victims is blaming – which does not solve gender violence. He argues that a solution to gender violence is achievable through leadership development for men, which begins by identifying that the male gender has a problem (Katz). Besides, Katz argues that the bystander perspective is the best approach toward leadership development in men within social institutions and is a potential solution to gender violence (Katz). Therefore, the speaker can sell his vision and message by providing analogies and referring to the key reasons behind the gender violence issue.
However, Katz’s argument reveals its most significant weakness in that gender violence from a male perspective is affected by demographics and culture. Leadership development and standing up against gender violence are viable solutions to part of the global cultures. That is, some cultures have inherent cultural constructs regarding the relationship between men and women, with some considering women as subjective to men. Therefore, Katz’s argument that gender violence is actual, but his suggested solution is not sufficient. Preferably, the intervention ought to extend the paradigm shift within cultures. The speaker did not integrate data in his speech, and anecdotes are used only once to introduce a distinction between sensitivity and leadership training. However, the objectives of the speech are achieved through passionate delivery, and appealing to the emotional side of the discourse. Jackson Katz delivers his message in a way that makes the audience feel empowered with the awareness of the issue and the knowledge and deeper understanding of how to bring change.
Melinda French Fates is a well-known public persona, so she connects the introduction of her speech with sharing personal insights that she made during her experience of interacting with women from developing countries. The message about using the experience of commercial operations for enhancing non-profit initiatives is conveyed by identifying and analyzing three things that Coca-Cola uses to reach its success of being available in every place of the world. It is the use of real-time data, tapping into local entrepreneurial talent, and doing incredible marketing. Non-profits do not use such an approach, as they tend to evaluate their programs at the end when the data analysis becomes irrelevant. On the contrary, Coca-Cola manages to learn from the real-time data and adapt to it quickly. Secondly, Coca-Cola relies on local entrepreneurs that are interested in making a profit and, therefore, do their best to sell the beverage. Finally, adapting its marketing strategies to the local environment is another essential part of Coca-Cola’s success.
Although the heavy impact and emotional language are not broadly utilized by Melinda Gates, she can evoke emotions by addressing the common values for all human beings – which are health and happiness. Therefore, the audience can easily relate and feel the emotional connection to the subject as it provides opportunities to save and improve the quality of life of millions of people in developing countries. The speaker uses anecdotes that refer to the examples of successful non-profit campaigns. As such, the topic of ‘the use of toilets’ was brought about as an example of how non-profit initiatives and actions remain unused without a proper marketing campaign (Gates). Sanitation remains a problem in the areas, where the need for it is not communicated. On the contrary, in regions, where toilets (or rather their absence) became symbols of social status, the number of people who suffered or died from diarrhea lessened drastically.
Finally, the use of data is another source of evidence that was important to the speech. Melinda gates utilized the media to enhance her presentation and frequently referred to the data that reflected the success of the Coca-Cola distribution strategy. In addition, the data about the relevant cases of successes and failures of non-profit initiatives was used at the end of the speech. This had an effect as if the audience was part of a process of tackling diseases and social inequalities, and the speech was some kind of meeting between the business. That is an example of an inspiring speech that advocates for taking a proactive position and having a positive perception of non-profit initiatives.
After studying the two speeches given by Melinda French Gates and Jackson Katz, one can learn many things about leadership. First of all, both of the speakers conveyed a strong sense of vision of bringing change to their subject. Although the topics were different, the speeches had certain similarities. For instance, both speakers had implied an ethos as a part of their strategy to engage the listener. As the speeches lasted for slightly more than five minutes, keeping the audience engaged and interested is a challenging task. Yet, the speakers managed to achieve more than engagement during the speech as the audience felt inspired and empowered to bring change after finishing listening. This is a crucial goal of the speech, as leaders must be influential and convey their message in a way that has a long-term impact and shapes the audience’s perceptions.
As seen by the differences between the speeches, the message can be conveyed by different measures, yet achieve the same results. The example of Jackson Katz shows how important passion and charisma are for an effective leader. Charisma is a critical element in transformational leadership and plays a significant role in the achievement of change. Williams, Raffo, and Clark (36) define charisma as the combination of enthusiasm, communication, personality, and influence that allows leaders to motivate and achieve organizational transformation. Williams, Raffo, and Clark (37) argue that leaders who possess the power of charisma during organizational transformation achieve greater results. In his speech, Katz did not rely on graphs and tables or data to convey his vision. Yet he delivered his speech with precision and emotional appeal, which encouraged the audience to make the change and accept his vision.
However, it is important to note that people who are not overly charismatic can still be transformational leaders. Although charisma is a critical element in transformational leadership, overly charismatic leaders tend to mainly focus on the audience and developing a status quo instead of focusing on transforming organizations. The speech by Melinda Gates was more focused on the data and providing insights into the findings that she made from studying Coca-Cola and the way its approach can be applied to the non-profit sector. Her speech was highly informative, which was the key to conveying her idea and vision to the audience.
Works Cited
Gates, Melissa F. What Nonprofits Can Learn From Coca-Cola. TED Talks [Video], 2010.
Katz, Jackson. Violence Against Women—It’s A Men’s Issue [Video], 2013. TED California: TED.
Williams Jr, Ralph, Deana M. Raffo, and Leigh Anne Clark. “Charisma As An Attribute Of Transformational Leaders: What About Credibility?.” Journal of Management Development, 2018.