Speak As Well As You Think

Some people can captivate an audience when they speak. Others, the audience walks away while they're still speaking.

Many factors can influence this, but one key determinant of audience engagement is the speaker's ability to stay on message.

Being clear and concise is a skill. It's important to understand:

1. Why it can be so difficult to accomplish
2. Understanding what your audience wants or needs
3. Knowing what point you're trying to make
4. The ability to practice purposefully

In this episode, you'll hear how you can approach the coming holidays with clear, concise, and on-message conversations.

This month, we're exploring the 'empty boat' mindset parable and how it relates to effective communication and relationship building.

The parable basically states that if an empty boat runs into yours, you navigate around it. But if someone is in that boat, you tend to react negatively, even though the same situation occurred.

We discuss the importance of:

1. Separating intent from impact
2. Responding not reacting
3. Assuming positive (or neutral) intent
4. Focusing on understanding vs. placing blame
5. Creating safety so relationships can thrive

Approaching interactions as if they are "empty boats" allows you to have more control over your reactions and emotions.

Sometimes the hardest people to coach aren’t those who struggle with communication; it's the ones who think they’ve already mastered it. Not because they lack skill, but because their blind spots are often more ingrained.

In this episode, we'll take years of experience and explore:

• The Blind Spots of “Good Communicators” — from dominating conversations to resisting change.
• Coaching Without Clashing with Ego — using rapport, curiosity, and concrete evidence to open minds.
• Common Pitfalls — like over-talking, under-listening, or failing to adapt to different audiences.
• Shifting the Mindset — reframing communication as a lifelong practice, not something you 'complete'.

Whether you lead, manage, or mentor, you’ll learn practical ways to help even your best communicators keep getting better.

Some organizations have excellent communication cultures, while others struggle in this area.

The organizations that have it down tend to do 3 things:

1. They have access to communicate with anyone within the organization, no matter their title or role.
2. They focus on development opportunities.
3. They lead with a growth mindset, and their leaders "walk the talk".

Listen along for more details on each of these topics and what you can do, either as a leader or an individual, to identify opportunities within each space.

The sooner an organization or team can create a culture of good, open communication, the more successful they'll be.

Keeping an audience engaged can feel like an uphill battle some days, but it's of the utmost importance when it comes to being an effective communicator.

In this episode, we'll discuss our top 5 tips for keeping your audience engaged. We recommend:

1. Make the talk about your audience
2. Ask questions
3. Give them something to do
4. Change up your delivery at times
5. Shorten sections

Focusing on these five things will help keep your audience focused, interested, and most importantly, engaged with you and the content.

Have you ever wondered what evidence to bring to the table in your meeting?

Evidence, or forms of influence (FOI), are necessary to engage and persuade your audience. We spend a lot of time talking about the physical and vocal skillset, which are extremely important in how you show up. But FOIs are equally important. As soon as you're done making those first impressions, the evidence and knowledge we provide is what keep people coming back for more.

This month we'll talk about:

1. What we label as evidence or FOIs
2. How to consider the audience when choosing which FOIs are most effective
3. Ways to think about blending stories and data to be impactful and memorable

Skillset and knowledge are necessary to be a successful speaker!

Digital communication is all around us. In our world today, it's very hard, if not impossible, to avoid it. Whether you want to or not, you're a part of it, so we need to understand how to be effective with this medium.

We want to help your digital communication get noticed, read, and engaged with in some way. There are a few ways you can do that:

1. Consider the look of your digital communication: Does it look easy to read? Would you read it? If the answer is no, it's not ready to be shared.
2. Put your key message at the beginning: No one wants to read an entire article or email to find out the purpose at the end.
3. Determine what needs to be shared: Not every detail is important. This ties back to #1, if it's too long or detailed, chances are your reading audience will skim or skip it altogether.

This topic will be in constant movement as it continues to evolve and be used in different ways. We'll continue to talk about digital communication as more recommendations come to light.

At some point in your career, you will disagree with someone.

It probably happens quite often already. Sometimes, it's just a different opinion on an approach, and sometimes, it's a stark disagreement with what's being shared.

The size of the disagreement isn't as important as knowing how to approach these situations with professionalism, an open mind, and an appropriate way to move the conversation forward.

This month, we'll discuss two areas:

1. Responding when you disagree. How to consider the right questions to ask, ways to keep emotions in check, and focusing on the issue, not the individual.
2. Internal work to avoid disagreements hijacking your ability to listen and keep an open mind.

Everyone should be prepared for disagreements at work and have a process in place to preserve the relationships you have.

This month we're discussing notes and other techniques for when a PPT deck doesn't seem the most appropriate or right fit.

Repeat after me, PPT is not the enemy, but there are other options for you to use like an organized note template, a whiteboard, a flipchart, or some form of brainstorming technique.

If you're not going with a PPT, you have to decide 3 things:

1. What are you going with? Choose your medium.
2. What do I need to share? Create a plan before the meeting itself.
3. Who am I speaking to and how long do I have? Know your audience and timing.

From there, our biggest suggestion is to avoid scripting. You don't want to get stuck dropping your head and reading from your notes. This episode will provide some suggestions for how to organize effectively for this type of setting.

Practicing a new skill is vital. But knowing we should practice and actually taking the step to practice are very different things.

Listen in to hear us discuss these recommended techniques for setting yourself up for success:

1. Do a self-assessment. Understand where you're starting point is.
2. Practice the new skill anywhere and everywhere you can, not just in the setting it needs to be used.
3. Set realistic, manageable goals.
4. Expect an implementation dip (things feeling harder/seeming worse before they feel better) and keep pushing through!
5. Make it fun and give yourself small 'wins' to keep it up.

Putting a successful process in place for practice is just as crucial as following through on the practice itself.