Left Brain, Right Brain

The best speeches appeal to both sides of the brain. That is, they appeal to the creative, emotional aspect of the human mind as well as the factual and logical side.

This point was brought home to me recently when I watched the 1991 film Other People’s Money starring Gregory Peck and Danny DeVito. Only in this movie, Gregory Peck addresses his audience’s right-brain sensitivities with appeals to their humanity; DeVito uses left-brain facts to sell his point of view.

It’s worth watching these speeches. They are instructive on not only how to make different appeals, they also show how to handle a hostile audience and win them over.

Peck plays the role of the head of a New England wire and cable manufacturing company that is losing money, and DeVito plays a corporate raider who buys dying companies and liquidates them. The scene is a stockholders meeting, which is being held to determine who will take control of the company.

Peck speaks first and makes an emotional appeal to the audience, many of whom are his employees and neighbors.

“A business is worth more than the price of its stock,” he says. “It is the place where we earn our living, where we meet our friends and dream our dreams. It is in every sense the very fabric that binds out society together.”

Then DeVito, who just came into town in his limousine from the big city, takes the microphone and lays out a logical argument for voting his way. He tells them the company is dead and nothing can revive it.

“You know why? Fiber optics. New technologies. Obsolescence.”

His appeal to the audience’s self-interest won in this battle of speeches, which are excellent examples of how to effectively appeal to both sides of the human brain.