Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business. We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both for the firm and in their personal lives.

Goldman Sachs Annual Report 1999

One must remember that every time a national corporation takes a step which is, or appears to be, against the public interest, it reacts on all corporations and is detrimental to our whole system of private enterprise.

Sidney Weinberg, Chairman of Goldman Sachs, 1930 to 1969
(thanks to James Kristie’s “Boards at Their Best” Blog

The latest edition of my column in the Washington Business Journal, Speaking to Rise, focuses on the role of speeches and presentations by senior executives in the government contracting business. I interviewed Tim Dowd, the CEO of Input, which helps companies develop business with federal, state and local governments; and Kevin Parker, CEO of Deltek Inc., which provides enterprise software for project-driven businesses, including many of the nation’s largest government contractors.

Interesting observations, including:

“I can say things at staff meetings, but the organization tends to react more to things I say publicly than internally,” Dowd said. “The message often has more power when people hear me say it at a public event or see it in the press.”

Parker revealed that he’s not “a deep technical guy.”  “But one of the skills I do have”, he explained, “is the ability to take something very complex and distill it down. I can explain it in a way that will resonate with a large group of people so a complex idea becomes a compelling idea.”

What I have found is that the more people that really understand where you’re going and how you’re going to get there and what is expected of each of us, then the faster you make progress. So this communication is not just about me telling them, it’s about creating an environment — like the business plan review process — where everybody knows the plan. The more that everybody knows what’s going on, I think that you really accelerate individual performance, and you accelerate team performance.

Ford CEO and President Alan Mulally in an interview with the Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein

When I’m asked whether CEOs should use humor in a speech, my answer is always, “Be careful.” Humor is very tricky. What works for one audience may backfire with another. Some CEOs can carry off humor well. Others are terrible at it. And in a down economy, humor is even more risky.

If executives do use humor, I tell them the safest form –especially these days–is the self-deprecating variety. Most people get it, and being self-deprecating is a way to break down the barriers between the CEO high up on the podium and the people down there in the audience.

Irony or sarcasm on the other hand…that’s a different story

Consider what happened to Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs. In an interview with the Times of London, he said he was just a banker “doing God’s work.” The Times reported that he said it with “an impish grin,” and I’m sure he meant is as self mockery. But coming from a guy who is make millions (and whose executives are making millions) while millions of people are out of work – it made everyone’s blood boil.

Bloggers and columnists went wild. And I mean wild. Maureen Dowd stuck in this dagger: As far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.

So learn from Lloyd and keep the humor in check.

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you will find success.

Tom Watson, the founder of IBM