I just started working with a new colleague who is the most amazingly well-spoken manager that I can imagine. She is effusive with her praise, excellent at acknowledging people’s contributions, great at framing criticism, and amazing at moving a conversation or meeting along. It seems to me like she has surely undergone some kind of management training where she was able to really polish these skills
How do I get these powers? I’m not bad-- I’d say I am a pretty average communicator. But I find myself tongue tied on occasion, and definitely nobody would flag me as an elegant communicator.
Can you ask her? I’m sure she’d appreciate your appreciation
My advice is what you’d expect: read a lot, and speak a lot. Toastmasters? Teach a class at your local rec center or adult ed? Record yourself talking, and critique it, especially word choice and delivery. (It will be excruciating!)
I just read Managing to Change The World, which wasn’t specifically targeted to improving this skill, but I liked that it included lots of examples of the kind of work conversations being described.
I also read The Charisma Myth last year, which I found a bit touchy-feely in its approach (lots of visualizations, etc.), but had lots of exercises and techniques to improve communication. Maybe I should reread it.
I know the feeling of reaching for the right words, I’m sure it’s common to many.
Practice certainly helps, but what I think makes a bigger difference is slowing down and thinking about what you’re going to say. It’s similar to answering questions after a presentation - if you just launch into an answer immediately after the question ends, you’ll often stumble a bit while your brain is trying to catch up with your mouth. Instead, take a second to collect your thoughts and figure out what you want to say before you start speaking. It might seem awkward initially, but a beat or two of silence in a conversation isn’t a problem, and that second will get shorter and shorter the more you practice it.
The woman you speak of sounds like she’s had some training and/or extensive experience in sales. Being able to say just the right thing at the right time to the right people, is characteristic of good salespeople.
There’s also this, from acting/theater.Uta Hagen’s 9 Questions. Seems odd to use this in the business world, but if you can answer these questions for every person you deal with, you’ll be further ahead in your workplace communications.
What this individual has is a certain polish that goes beyond the simply bring bright and well spoken. I have to think she’s done some very specific training. Indeed, I’ve done training a (for a very specific, limited purpose) for then type of thing she does so well, but whatever she’s doing goes light years beyond.
Do large consulting firms do this type of training? Or is this something you learn in business school?
I went to Kellogg and worked for a dozen years at Accenture. Yes, those communication skills sound like some of the training I had access to while I was in consulting more than b-school.
One example is Active Listening - using playback techniques to demonstrate you are listening - and, by listening, knowing how to frame your response and make your own points. It sounds forced at first, but once you truly get a feel, it really does improve your ability to slow down and engage.
Aha! As I suspected. Do you know the names this type of training might go by? My workplace offers great professional development, but it can be hard to described which management trainings are worthwhile and which ones are fluff.
It’s parly just confidence. If you know your subject backwards and forwards, and act and speak with authority, you’d be amazed how differently you’ll be perceived. Also, there’s a certain jargon used in each industry and company. Have lots of casual and professional conversations with people you admire and you’ll just naturally pick it up over time. Network.
You might want to see if there is any kind of emotional intelligence training available at your workplace. That is what we call it when it comes to building relationships, being a more effective communicator and being the kind of person others want to be around.
Don’t discount that communication is something which can a natural talent. Her answer to “what sort of training did you receive to become such a great speaker?” might be, “What are you talking about? None.”
I’m not saying you can’t learn and improve, but all the training in the world can’t make a Bob Dole into a Bill Clinton, ya dig?
Overall I think you’d have better luck improving your “think on your feet/project competence” skills with an improv or acting class or Toastmasters/speechmaking class than some bullshit half-day management seminar that’s all theory and no practice. You can’t improve in an afternoon, if your native skills are just average it takes months if not years of polishing.
Project yourself into the person you are talking to, and address the person the way you would want t be spoken to.
Become conscious of non-standard words you use, and make a concerted effort to correct yourself when hear yourself using them. Words like cuz, jist, yup. “Yup, jist a sec, cuz I gotta git somethin.”
The one I took specifically about Active Listening was 20 years ago and I can’t recall the name. I believe AL is “official training jargon” so if you look around, you would find courses in it.
Also, it may sound cliche to business folks, but Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and the courses built around it, are really effective. I say that they took common sense that is self-evident once you hear it, and figured out how to charge for it - and more power to them! One of the Habits is “Seek first to Understand, then to be Understood” and is, at its essence, an overview of Active Listening.
For folks who are saying “it’s confidence” or “some folks are just good at this stuff” - yes those are both true, but to be clear: these types of behaviors are very, very trainable. It is life-work - you don’t just walk out of a class and all of a sudden you Seek To Understand™. But if you get the principles and you try them on, awkwardly at first, you can start to make them your own.
It is no different than learning how to provide workplace reviews in the form of a Critique Sandwich: Praise sincerely first, then offer critiques, then praise their ability to build on their success. Classic technique that can be acquired, and once you are comfortable with it, makes you seem all thoughtful and wise…and shit.
It is fascinating to read some of the posts to this thread. Ill-informed and seeking to portray this as some moral or ethical challenge. “You will speak well if you were raised correctly and are an honorable person!”
Piffle.
That is simply not so. While Corporate Training is often a racket, and I am sure that Sturgeon’s Rule that 95% of everything is Crap holds, some training makes great sense. Active Listening, How to Conduct Work Reviews and Provide Feedback, Structured Problem Solving and Work Planning - all of these have the potential to shape who you are as a Business Person, and, ultimately, as a Person.
Companies that are known for investing in their people - e.g., General Electric’s management rotations, many consulting firms like Accenture and McKinsey - are ones where the training is more likely to be in the top 5%. I learned some basic blocking and tackling about work management, writing and communication that have proven to be invaluable - far more worthy than many things I learned in b-school.
There are pros and cons to consulting, but the post-grad training you can get is superior.
