Legacy

I recently attended an annual conference of the Professional Speechwriters Association on Georgetown’s campus in Washington DC. It was my first time back at the conference following the plague of the early 2020s and it truly was wonderful to gather with other esteemed members of this tiny fraternity. Speechwriting is often called the ultimate “accidental profession” and it’s always fun to hear about how others fell into it, whether they work for a corporate executive or a university president.

One moment stood out to me above the rest: the group was asked to come prepared with one trick of the trade to share with the room during a “crowdsourcing idea frenzy.” In a room packed with introvert writers, it took some coaxing from David Murray, the head of the association, but eventually the dam broke and more writers got up to share their hard-earned wisdom.

Paraphrasing my favorite tidbit from a fellow attendee who worked at the Pentagon once upon a time:

“In the early days of December 2006, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent an email out to the senior members of his team. The same man who gave us ‘there are unknown unknowns’ chose a memorable subject line for the email: “What is my legacy? And what can I do about it?”

Keep in mind – this was two weeks before he was stepping down in disgrace, a concession to reality by President Bush after his repudiation at the polls in November’s midterm elections.

To which, the answer was obvious: “Your legacy is that you got us stuck in Iraq. And you can’t do anything about it.”

Since then, I have lived through a few leadership transitions. It’s one of the occupational hazards that’s inevitable in speechwriting – leaders don’t stay at the top for very long. If you’re going to survive this business, you need to get used to change at the top. Today, anytime I meet with a new boss for the first time, I set aside talking about speechwriting or communications or the upcoming Town Hall event. And I tell them that story about Donald Rumsfeld.

And then I ask them – “What do you want your legacy to be? Because if we start now, we still can do something about it.”