Imran Khan - Analysis of 3 Recent Speeches

Imran Khan’s three speeches (1) Election Day Speech (2) Parliament Speech and (3) First speech to the nation are being talked mostly within & outside the country at the moment. As a researcher of Charismatic Presence subject, I am sharing technical analysis based on world's leading communication best practices & rhetoric devices being used

There are three parts of the mind which Leaders are required to win, to be seen as true Charismatic Leaders, Out of three, the most important part of our mind is “Instinctive Mind” which manages 95% processing of our overall mind (ref. Winning Minds by Simon Lancaster), the primary focus of this mind is to feel safe & avoid dangers. Whenever somebody interact with us, first step is to feel safe and assuring comfortable by understanding, the person is here to resolve my problems not his/her own

Second part is Emotional mind, which is also crucial for the Leaders, all of us have emotional cravings. Many of us watch emotional movies, cries while watching them but still continue watching the similar movies. This uncontrolled emotional mind needs spikes in certain kind of hormones including Oxytocin (Connection Hormone), Dopamine (Comfortable Hormone) and Serotonin (Feeling Accomplished Hormone). These hormones are mostly spike up through Emotional & Personal stories which connect with people and create empathy

The third part of the mind is Logical, which requires true facts and figures, if the stories aren’t get supported by the Facts, this part of the brain rejects the whole speech and it moves to non-credible category and mind resist to take any action for the Leader

Imran Khan (Victory Speech on Election Day – 26th July)

He has a natural style of Conversation which is the very modern technique to engage people in masses virtually or face to face, era of key note speakers and one-way speeches are becoming obsolete rapidly. Technological Advancements including Augmented Reality, Virtual Conferencing & Telepresence are also promoting the conversation style presentation. The whole speech was designed as a conversation between Imran Khan and every citizen of Pakistan.

He touched the Emotional mind in the beginning by appreciating Baluchistan including other election martyrs. One of the tools to win instinctive mind is by using the Metaphors wisely, which he introduced initially by referring “Medina” as a reference welfare state as his vision which people can visualize and relate quite easily (and agreed without doubts)

Alliteration is a powerful rhetoric device introduced by Aristotle, Imran Khan has used it as well by repeating the word “Pledge” to give a message of Promise to Deliver, “Policies for low income category” demonstrating that, I am representing lower middle class. Alliteration remains memorable due to repetition of the message. Few Global Speakers including Gordon Brown and Barack Obama were quite famous in using this technique

He created common grounds with all people, including the examples of simplicity, talking about female death during pregnancy & 2.5 crore kids out of the schools. Since, these are the challenges of a common people, everybody felt connected. Talking more about Simplicity also resonate within common people who are struggling with food, electricity & health services and expect it from Leaders, this helped Imran Khan to win their instinctive mind comprehensively

He won Logical mind by sharing the facts as 45% kids not growing properly, 2.5 crore kids out of the schools and female death during pregnancy. Stories & Narratives without facts can’t create the credibility, he managed that quite nicely

Overall speech was built constructive framework without any direct criticism to politicians, it also connected with the three parts of the mind successfully, a lot of people appreciated and acknowledged it for several days

Learning for Leaders include creating common grounds, using rhetorical devices to win sub-conscious mind of Audience during business presentations or political speech

Imran Khan (Parliament Speech – 17th August)

Breathing is a very powerful tool which great leaders used intelligently, when we breath with calm, the audience copy it, contrary to that, rapid breath generates anxiety within presenter as well as within Audience. Copy is instinctive which we can’t control ourselves, a newly born infant copy her mother stuck the tongue within 41 minutes of the birth, so instinctive !

Leaders inspire people through calm breathing and comfortable body language, referring beautiful example of King Martin Luther’s speech “I have a dream”, long sentences and taking deep breath. People felt relax as well

During, Imran Khan speech, there was a lot of noise and shouting resisting him to speak what he has prepared, due to a lot of noise, he unintentionally putting more efforts to speak louder which started making him anxious, heart pumping faster which required more oxygen as well. He was continuously looking at his right and influenced by the noise created by the opposition people. He tried to ignore initially but couldn’t overcome their impact. This anxiety has brought anger & unhappiness within him and he started talking only to them evident by focusing on corruption, accountability & rigging, the topics related to revenge & politicians only.

Since, he was receiving high resistance from opposition, his mental reward system initiated which required appreciation to spike “serotonin hormone” to feel successful, to feel accomplished, as soon as he talked about Accountability, his team members (Specially Fawad Chaudhry) started shouting loudly in his support, this has proven as encouragement to him and he converted his focus only the topics related to opposition ignoring the common citizen’s issues.

This speech was not appreciated by the common man, since Imran Khan wasn’t talking to them directly, not taking care of their issues, not connecting with their instinctive mind proving them that he has ignored the 20 crore citizens at that time.

Due to a powerful speech by Bilawal, people went into comparison and scored Bilawal higher marks due to the reasons I am covering below. I am comparing only with Bilawal's speech since that was considered as best of the day. This is because, focus of this article to evaluate Imran Khan's recent speeches.

Bilawal Bhutto (First Parliament Speech – 17th August)

His biggest win was “having pin drop silence” from the very first sentence till the end of his speech. He started with the tribute to the people who has given sacrifices, appreciating the Parliament (indirectly respecting the elective members of assembly) and mentioning his grandfather & mother by creating connection with constitution & the national assembly. He created common grounds with parliamentarians by proving "I am like you" - Connection

His speech included several rhetorical devices, used intelligently throughout the speech, which successfully won the sub-conscious mind of the people, evident widely on social media including the people against his party

He started his speech by directly addressing the 20-crore people and matching their “thinking level at the moment”, by saying, the people of Pakistan are disappointed with the behavior of both parties. This message made everybody comfortable that, here is the person who understands us, acknowledging our desire at the moment. This created a wave of matching mindset between Bilawal and 20 crore citizens of Pakistan

He successful used the Rhetorical technique of “Tricolon – Rule of 3” and “Repetition” several places including “We loose Lives we never get back, the dead never get justice and survivor never get answers”, these tools help to win emotional part of the mind of the Audience

Emotional mind is also touched through Rhymes used carefully including “List is Long, List is shameful”, when we share something in Rhymes, our emotional mind believe its true. Shahbaz Sharif is also famous in using Rhymes during his speeches.

Our bodies are working on the basis of balance, so does our mind, our Logical mind is convinced that something is true, when something is presented with a balance, this tool was also used at several places including “We got media hype for few & media blackout for others”, “some candidates got their results in 2 hours and others took in 3 days”. People believe its correct, which might not be correct sometimes

His overall speech was able to inspire a common man and even the critic of PPP couldn’t stop appreciating the speech, this is the Charisma which always win the sub-conscious mind of the people.

Contrary to that, this creates short impact and must be supported by Character (trust comes with Evidences & Facts), which require from him in future. People unconsciously have developed certain expectations from him now (which logical mind will never admit), and they will be interested to hear another speech and the evidences of delivery from his government, otherwise, this can bounce back badly since Credibility & Character are most important elements to become a Truly Charismatic Leader.

Imran Khan (First Speech to the Nation – 19th August)

A speech for more than an hour and people didn’t mind to carry on for another hour or so, the core reason was, it was full coverage of winning all parts of the minds and specifically using his strength of “Conversation Style Speech”, everybody was feeling that, he is talking to him/her only, that’s a very strong connection ability. The pattern he follows is proven to be one the best and commonly used by Elon Musk during his presentations, where he shares the Problem first with the facts, introduced hope and shared the promised land, obstacles which need to be removed & finally the solution to resolve the challenges.

Talking about widows, kids, simplicity & child abuse etc., he created common ground with common people successfully. Cost saving initiatives including announcing Parliament House as University was evidences for Instinctive mind to prove he is here for us. He engaged every person of the nation by saying, you are my team and join me to overcome these challenges. This was the winning over 95% part of our minds, honestly, we can’t control this part of the mind as an Audience, but as as Speaker/Presenter we can, Imagine what a Great Opportunity !

The way he used metaphors, people sub-consciously inspired and ready to act and follow his vision, including “Tax should be paid like a Zakat”, like you are paying for others. The other Metaphor used is “Medina kind of welfare state” also created the religious visualization for the people.

He used the widow story who needed justice and wrote the letter with her blood, that spiked up the Oxytocin Hormones which is powerful hormone to trigger sympathy, love and connection within us, once leaders are able to trigger these hormones, people want to achieve whatever leader is saying, as an evidence, visit the comments of people on social media who have become crazy about taking actions. As an example, I read one saying "Khan, you can't achieve all this without me, I am coming to Join you"

He won the logical mind beautifully, whenever he builds a story, he took the paper out and shared the facts & figures (including UNDP numbers), which are evidence that his stories are backed with the facts

As an overall speech, he managed the damaged created during his last speech and created the connection with 20 crore people & with 26th July speech successfully. He achieved this, by referring several priorities and facts from that particular speech and he didn’t criticize anybody politically.

Learning from these speeches for the Leaders of today include, design your presentation in the form of conversation, focus on winning 3 parts of the mind which are instinctive, emotional and logical and finally, wrap your facts/data within personal stories. This will help you to become a Charismatic Leader which is a big need of today’s world