One of the communication highlights of last week was the Reith Lecture by Grayson Perry. While he is known for his genius as an artist and his talents as a communicator, the august Lecture is different, potentially outside his comfort zone. Not so. From the Sunday Times:

” His lecture, Democracy has Bad Taste, was a deft, humorous and scholarly taking-apart of the art-world elite who determine ” good taste”. It more than filled the Reithian aspiration to educate and inform and entertain. One reviewer defied anyone to listen “and not be be entertained or illuminated or provoked”

How many business pitches inspire such a response? Of course Grayson is an original in ideas and thought but he did not take anything for granted.  He did what all the best pitchers do in his preparation. As Sue Lawley, who introduced him, said:

” He is one of the few lecturers to meet the agreed deadlines for delivery of the text and the only one, to my knowledge, to ask for full rehearsal. He’s also the first lecturer I’ve known not to read from a script.”

“The man is a pro.”