Commanding officers! Admirals! Retirees! Ever want unsolicited advice from someone who has absolutely never been in your position? Boy, have you come to the right place! I’ve never retired or transferred command, but I’ve been in the audience for more than a few of these ceremonies. Let me just say . . . the situation is grim.

Recently, I attended a change of command and the speeches by the presiding officer and the outgoing commander were positively dreadful. Simply awful. Trivial, wandering, maudlin, and just plain uninspiring. No big ideas, no vision. Unfortunately, this is not an aberration in my experience. In the latter half of my career, at least, I’ve been sitting through more and more of these. Somewhere along the way many senior Navy leaders stopped learning how to give a good speech. So here are a few tips:

1. Write a speech. Practice and refine it. Make sure it flows well, and finish on a high note. Please don’t think you can “off-the-cuff” a 15–20 minute speech and sound coherent. You can’t. You may think it comes off as folksy and down-to-earth. But it actually comes across as something from someone who either (a) can’t write a good speech; or (b) someone who is too lazy to write a good speech (or get someone to do it for them). I say again: WRITE. A. SPEECH.
2. When you get to the podium after getting your award and being introduced, please don’t start with “Wow.” You didn’t just win a Golden Globe. You knew this was going to happen. It smacks of false humility.
3. Keep the acknowledgements of VIP guests to a minimum. Please don’t start telling sea stories about what you did with Admiral so-and-so before you even start delivering your speech.
4. Keep the acknowledgements of family brief and do it first, not last. This is a change of command, not a family reunion. And when did the giving of flowers to every female in your extended family start? Did Arleigh Burke do that? Please don’t call out every single one of your cousins by name with a short vignette about them. No one but you cares about your third cousin Harriet from Tadpole, Missouri. And please don’t make us listen to you tell your 12-year-old son he’s the reason you’ve gotten to where you are. That’s complete nonsense. You’re the reason he’s here, and if you don’t shut up he’s going to wish he wasn’t!
5. If you’re funny, opening with a joke is fine. But just one. If you’re not funny, don’t do it. If you’re not sure if you’re funny, you’re probably not (try starting a blog to find out for sure).
6. Please don’t wander through the audience looking for people to thank. First of all, this would never happen if you actually wrote a speech for the change of command you knew was coming for probably months. (If you didn’t know it was coming, you wouldn’t be having a ceremony, thankfully.) And second, it gets tedious real fast. You’re boring people to death. Your 12-year-old son just walked out.
7. Before you write a speech, think: What are the best speeches I’ve heard and why? What are the ones that I remember, that stick with me long after I’ve heard them? Then, sit down and try to do that. Unless you’re completely daft and incapable of recognizing compelling language that inspires your audience (in which case, good job skating through your command tour), you will come up with something the audience will enjoy and remember.

Hope this unsolicited advice helps! I’m always here for you with honest feedback, and I appreciate yours. Email me at tsm@saltyherald.com if you want to tell me how these amazing tips changed your life!