An executive I know wanted to pay tribute to a retiring staff member at a luncheon. He asked his team for anecdotes about this individual—and then built his impromptu remarks around those stories. At the end of the meal, he stood up and began his speech: “Chris is a memorable figure. One colleague will remember him for being late, another for his crazy sense of humor, and still another for his antics as a party animal.” Each point was fleshed out by the speaker in embarrassing detail, and he concluded by saying, “So we'll always remember you, Chris, for the things you may wish to forget!”

Everyone laughed—Chris the loudest—but no one was laughing inside. They were embarrassed for Chris, for the executive, and for those who had provided the comments.

Even though you want to be entertaining when you offer a toast or tribute, never let humor supersede leadership. Always adhere to the following guidelines that will help you delight your audiences.

Creating Winning Toasts and Tributes

The formula for a successful impromptu tribute or toast is simple: be positive, do your research, and use the Leader's Script.

Be positive. When thinking out your toast or tribute, stay positive. There's nothing wrong with humor—usually. It can make for a memorable wedding toast, but take care that your humor is not cutting. The executive in the opening example erred badly in collecting and using embarrassing stories about the honoree. If the speaker had instead asked for “a few inspiring stories about Chris,” he would have been more inspiring himself. Or—even better—if he had taken the time to think how he felt about Chris, and jotted down an upbeat message and a few supporting points from his own reflections, he would have sounded more sincere. Comments that are even mildly insulting, when delivered in front of a large audience, will be long remembered. So look to your heart for true and positive sentiments about the individual you're honoring, and stay on the “high ground” while speaking.

Do your research. No matter how good a speaker you are, there is a need to gather the best material. Knowledge of the person or group you're praising always counts more than impressive but empty words of flattery. No one will be impressed by generic, off‐the‐shelf comments. A wedding toast that announces, “Maria is a wonderful person. We all like her,” will draw yawns and lead to the surmise that you really don't know the bride. If you don't have enough information yourself, ask friends or colleagues. Remember that your mandate is to celebrate, not to roast that person.

The need to research your remarks is important even when you know a lot about the person you are honoring, because you have to sift through the knowledge you have and find the salient truths about that individual. I remember preparing my remarks upon my dad's death, and jotting down notes about how my dad loved to ride his motorcycle, drive his beloved Porsche, sail his boat, and serve on the National Ski Patrol, all well into his nineties. These were the things I focused on when I said my dad lived life to the fullest.

Use the Leader's Script. This template will serve you well—even in these brief remarks. Otherwise our minds can wander and we will find ourselves chattering away in front of a live audience, or worse still, blowing it by saying something embarrassing. You don't want to pay tribute to a bride by saying, “We're all so glad she found Ronnie, because the guys she was dating before him were real losers.”

Collect your thoughts before speaking to avoid such blunders. If you're the best man at a wedding, you'll ideally have time to develop your notes. If you're at a lunch and hear that in five minutes you're going to give the tribute, ask yourself, “What's my message about this person or event?” Once you have that, jot down a few supporting points. And even if you decide on the spur of the moment to “say a few words,” don't jump into high gear until you have your message. Otherwise your remarks might be a train wreck, as in this chapter's opening example.

Not all the elements of the script will be present in every toast or tribute—occasionally remarks can be as short as a single sentence. (That sentence will be your message. For example, “Let's toast to Louis—a great mentor to us all.”) Still, even in a brief tribute you should manage to incorporate most or all the components of the Leader's Script. Here's how to prepare a brief gemlike tribute.

Begin with your grabber. This statement draws the people in the room together and introduces them to your subject. For example, you might say, “It's a pleasure to have this celebration to honor Aditi's contribution to our company.” Or “Good evening. I know we're all delighted to be here for Brett and Stephanie's wedding.” Or “It's a pleasure to offer a tribute to my beloved niece, the bride.” Now you have a captive audience!

Next, move to your message. The message is the most important sentence in your remarks. It will shape and unify what you say, and it should be credible, inspiring, and uplifting. If you're celebrating the groom, you may want to say: “Alex has all the qualities one dreams of in a best friend.” Don't say, “Alex is the best friend I've ever had”—otherwise you might offend others in the audience who thought they were your best friend.

If you're paying tribute to an individual, consider some of the following approaches to crafting your message.

• Choose a quality or attribute that distinguishes that person. It might be “values,” “loyalty,” “dedication,” or “exquisite taste.” For example, “Andrew is a person whose deep sense of character has been an inspiration to us all.” Or “Dimitri has a taste for the finer things in life” (culminating in his choice of his lovely bride).
• Focus on the impact that person has had: “I am delighted to offer a toast to our president, Gregory Munch, who has enriched the lives of so many students in this university over the past twenty years.”
• Build the message around the history of a relationship: “I toast to the decade‐long partnership between our two companies by offering the ten top reasons I'm so proud of it.”
• Explain what that person means to you (as a mentor, employee, sibling, or friend). “If there's one person I owe my career to, it's Louisa, who has been an inspiring and dedicated mentor.”

If you're paying tribute to the members of a team, focus on their achievements, their willingness to collaborate, or their dedication—choose one and make everything else a subset.

Whatever your message, make it compelling, because the rest of your toast or tribute will use that statement as its anchor. And make sure you have only one main message. You've all heard remarks that begin, “There are so many things I could say about Dan, but I've narrowed it down to three.” This kind of speech is a grocery list. The audience is left to wonder, which quality is the most important? Were there others? It doesn't hang together.

Provide proof points to support your message. The first example below uses the “chronological” model and the second uses the “reasons” model.

• Example 1: Proof Points for a Tribute
• Let's suppose you choose the following message: “Harvey is a quintessential entrepreneur.” Your proof points might look like this:
  • As a child he didn't just have a lemonade stand. He had several that he franchised.
  • He went to business school and developed a business right there.
  • He founded and grew the firm he's being celebrated for tonight.
  • I understand he's got a few more ideas he's about to “hatch.”
• Example 2: Proof Points for a Toast
• Let's say you are offering a brief toast during a holiday party. You would have only three or four proof points, and they would not necessarily be developed beyond a single sentence each. Suppose your message is, “Happy Holidays! We have so much to celebrate!” Here's what your proof points would look like.
  • This year has been a remarkably successful year for Techco Enterprises.
  • Thanks to the hard work of everyone in this room, we've become the industry leader.
  • We've welcomed eight new colleagues who have become key members of our team.
  • And we're well set to make next year an even better year.

Close with a call to action. In the first example above your call to action could be: “Let's toast to a true and dedicated entrepreneur.” In the second example you may simply ask the audience to join you in raising a glass and toasting to the celebrated occasion. A call to action may be more explicit. For example, you may suggest that “Salma [who is retiring] will be greatly missed by all of us, but we wish her well as she pursues her dream of becoming an amateur pilot.”

Choose the right moment to deliver your remarks. A toast or tribute is best presented when people have finished a meal or are at a crucial moment in an evening; for example, just before the meal is served. Don't speak until you have the full attention of the room. Silence the chatter and draw all eyes to you by tapping your water glass with a knife, clearing your throat, or standing up.

Remember to keep your remarks short and sweet. There's wisdom in the old vaudevillian advice, “Leave them wanting more.” Of course, you can be too brief, but the greater danger is wearing out your welcome.

Robert Kennedy's Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr

Some of the greatest impromptu tributes of all times give heightened expression to the genre. There is no more profoundly eloquent a tribute than Robert F. Kennedy's eulogy for Martin Luther King, Jr., on the occasion of King's assassination. Kennedy arrived at the Indianapolis, Indiana, airport on April 4, 1968, and heard the shocking news that King had been killed that day. Kennedy had a crowd waiting for him at a downtown rally—they thought they'd hear a campaign speech, because Kennedy was running for president. But Kennedy had only one thought in mind: to honor Martin Luther King. He was handed speaking notes by an aide, but according to a biographer, “he stuffed them into his pocket, preferring to extemporize”¹ He proceeded to deliver one of the most brilliant impromptu tributes the world has ever known.

Standing on a flatbed truck that held a makeshift podium, he delivered an address that lasted less than five minutes, but moved the world.

His grabber startled the predominantly black crowd: “I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.”

Kennedy spoke about the dangers of acting out of bitterness and hatred. Then he came to his inspiring message, which used repetition to underscore its importance: “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”

He quoted the Greek poet Aeschylus about wisdom coming out of pain. And he closed with an uplifting call to action: “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”²

This brilliant impromptu tribute had an immediate impact. Despite rioting elsewhere in the United States, Indianapolis remained calm. And a quotation from this celebrated speech would later be carved on the wall of the Robert Kennedy memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Few of us will have an opportunity to craft such long‐lived and inspiring remarks as Robert Kennedy offered for Martin Luther King. But we should keep that same passion in mind, and do our best to create toasts and tributes that resonate with the same inspiration that Kennedy showed—inspiration that derived from a heightened sensibility of the person being honored. My call to action to you is to follow the guidelines in this chapter. Be positive. Do your research. Use the Leader's Script. And your tributes will uplift and inspire your listeners.