Do you have high expectations for the next media interview you do?
I am often struck by how many executives I speak to who are very ambitious with everything else in their career- they want o quantify, have been the best in their schools, and are now the best in their fields, aiming for the stars- but now that they have the opportunity to do a big interview with the Wall Street Journal, what’s their goal? Not messing up. Not saying something stupid. Not saying a quote that gets them fired.
That is a very negative, low ambition goal. And I frankly think that it is pathetic. I believe that everyone, going into a media interview should have a very high, ambitious goal. The goal should be: not only do I want to look the very best and come across as comfortable and confident, I want to get the exact message across and get the exact word for word quotes and sound bites in the final stories that I had decided in advance. That should be your goal and expectation.
Your goal should be offensive, not defensive. Avoiding something bad is not the answer. The answer is in chasing what it is that you want out of this media opportunity.