I spend a fair amount of time coaching executives on how to communicate more effectively and tell better stories about their businesses. And for good reason.
Study after study has shown that strong communication is one of the most valuable skills a business leader can have. It can make a difference in whether employees understand and embrace a strategy. Whether customers recognize a company's value. Whether investors have confidence in its leadership. And in how successfully an organization navigates challenging times.
In short, communicating well can be a superpower.
Most executives recognize that. But when they set out to become better communicators, their attention often goes to something other than what will make the biggest difference.
They focus on their performance.
How do I come across? Am I making enough eye contact? What should I do with my hands? Am I speaking too fast? What if I forget what I want to say?
All legitimate concerns.
But I'm always quick to point out that there's something far more important to focus on. Something that can have a much bigger impact on whether their message resonates with an audience and, perhaps surprisingly, how comfortable and confident they feel delivering it.
Here's the question I always encourage executives to ask themselves before preparing for any presentation, meeting, video, email, or other communication:
What am I trying to accomplish? And why should anyone care?
Contrary to what you might believe, you don't have to be a gifted speaker, a polished performer, or someone with a naturally dynamic personality to be an effective communicator. Sure, those qualities can help. But they're the icing on the cake.
I've seen plenty of polished presenters accomplish very little. They look comfortable. They speak confidently. Their slides, videos or other materials are beautiful. But when they're finished, the audience is left wondering – what, exactly, was I supposed to take away?
I've also seen the opposite. People who don't have a natural gift of gab who absolutely captivate an audience. Why? Because they have something meaningful to say. Something their audience cares about. They make it easy to understand. And they deliver it with genuine conviction.
So, here's the dirty little secret: If you want to become a more effective communicator, don't start by worrying about your performance. Start with understanding your audience and building your story around that.
What matters to them? What's on their minds? What do they need or want to know? Then figure out how to connect what you have to say to what they care about.
Flip the script. Build your story around what your audience wants and needs to hear, rather than simply what you want to tell them.
Next, ask yourself: what do I want people to think, feel, or do differently after hearing from me?
Maybe you want them to understand a complicated issue. Get behind a new initiative. Make a decision. Buy something. Or simply see a situation in a different light.
Whatever it is, write it down. Be clear about the outcome you're trying to achieve. Because once you know where you want to take your audience, it's a whole lot easier to figure out how to get them there.
Here's another biggie: don't bury the lead.
I spent the first eight years of my career as a television journalist. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was how to tell a story in a way people could understand quickly.
Start with a compelling headline. Follow it with a few key points that support the big idea. Then fill in the details.
There's a reason journalists tell stories this way. It works.
But when people prepare presentations or other communications, they often do just the opposite.
They start with background. Explain a process. Walk through a bunch of data. Pile on details. And somewhere along the way, they finally get around to making their point.
By then, they may have already lost their audience.
Tell people what you want them to know right up front. Then give them two or three key points that help explain it. Bring those points to life with examples, stories, or data that make them credible and memorable.
Think of it as giving your audience a map before taking them on a trip. They'll know where you're headed, understand how the pieces fit together, and have a much easier time following along.
If you're presenting, whether in person or remotely, remember: your slides aren't your script.
Here's something else I see all the time.
An executive crams everything they want to say into their presentation, talk, correspondence – what have you. Then they stand in front of an audience and read what's on the screen. Or pour the entire kitchen sink into an email, video or Teams or Zoom meeting.
What usually happens in live situations is people read along instead of listening to you. Which essentially renders you unnecessary.
And when you’re not in a live situation, you can easily overwhelm people with more information than they can reasonably digest. If people see a long email or video pop into their inbox, they might ignore it altogether, or skim through it. Which also nullifies or mutes the impact you were after.
The same “too much information” problem also apples to slides and visual aids. They should help people understand and remember your ideas. Illustrate something that's hard to explain. Highlight an important number. Show a trend. Make a complicated concept easier to grasp.
What they shouldn’t do is compete with you for attention.
One of my favorite pieces of advice is to give every slide or visual aid one job. One clear idea you want people to take away.
Here's another tip: make your headlines communicate a point, rather than simply announce a topic.
For example, instead of titling a slide or graphic “Q4 Results,” try “Q4 Profits Increased 12% Over Last Year.”
Replace “Customer Retention” with “We Retained 95% of Our Customers Last Year.”
See the difference? The first is just a label. The second tells a story.
And when every visual aid makes a clear point, your audience has a much easier time following your larger story.
Another huge piece of advice: practice until you can stop thinking about the words.
Now let’s talk about performance.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is trying to memorize a presentation word for word. Or recite it from detailed notes.
That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. Forget one sentence, lose your place in the copy, and suddenly you're scrambling to remember what comes next – and you’re a deer in the headlights.
It’s much better to learn the structure of your story. Know how you want to open. Know the key points you want to make and the order in which you want to make them. And know how you want to close.
Then practice. Out loud. A lot.
The goal is to become so familiar with the arc of your story that you can talk about it naturally, much the way you would if you were explaining something interesting to a friend.
When you know your story that well, you can stop worrying so much about what you're going to say next and focus on the people you're talking to.
You'll make better eye contact. Your enthusiasm will come through. You'll be more relaxed and confident.
And if you stumble over a word or lose your place for a moment, so what?
Your audience doesn't have your script. They don't know what you were planning to say next.
And because you know your story, you'll have no trouble picking up where you left off.
Bringing it back to where we began: you don't have to be a great performer to be a great communicator.
If you take away nothing else from this article, remember this. The next time you're preparing to communicate, spend less time worrying about how you'll come across and more time thinking about how you want to connect with your audience.
Because the real measure of a great communicator isn't how impressive they. It's what happens as a result of what they say.
