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Seven years ago, I suddenly found myself with an urgent need to upgrade my communication and presentation skills.
Almost overnight my first interview series, 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success, was getting attention from many corners because of the surprising and intriguing insights that were emerging from my interviews with industry experts.
I was receiving a sudden inrush of invitations to speak at conferences, local meetup groups, and in companies. At the same time, I was struggling to find ways to make sense of all that I was learning and then communicate it effectively.
I can’t recall how I first met Simon Heath, but he was exactly the coach I needed at the time. He helped me take my presentations and speaking to the next level. His ideas on how to organize and present my work have stuck with me and served me well. Simon’s thoughts on communicating and presenting are contrary to the way most of us communicate and present today, so I urge you to give Simon’s interview your full attention because they can have a significant impact on you and your work.
Recently, Simon posted an update on LinkedIn announcing his new web site. When I visited his new website, I spent several hours reading through his blog posts that share an abundance of practical and straightforward ideas to improve one of our most important critical skills. Yet this key skill is frequently overlooked and underappreciated.
As I was reading Simon’s articles and reconnecting with his work, I quickly realized that he had a great and powerful message to contribute to the Exploring Forward Thinking Workplaces conversation.
So what are Simon’s simple and powerful ideas?
Here are the six most intriguing takeaways that came up for me –
- The biggest thing that we can do is talk to people like human beings, and one way we can do that is by eliminating corporate speak.
- Remove tell and explain from your vocabulary and replace those words with inspire and convince.
- Communication influences and affects every single aspect of an organization’s success, but it’s often an afterthought.
- Every single interaction with another human being is a leadership opportunity, and your day is filled with them.
- Communication is the most important leadership and professional skill you possess. There is absolutely nothing that you can invest your time in that is going to have more of a direct impact on your career or your success.
- Structure your communication around a single idea. Make sure that you’re persuading as opposed to telling.
Please read my interview with him to discover why communication is the number one most important leadership skill you can possess.
To your great work life & success!
Bill Fox
Co-founder
About Bill Fox
I help leaders and teams ignite new strategic conversations that engage and leverage the collective voice, energy and wisdom of everyone. This approach helps people discover how to advance beyond best practices, working harder or even smarter in the post Industrial Era. In my interview series, Exploring Forward-Thinking Workplaces, I lead a new type of conversation for the 21st Century with global business and thought leaders that is uncovering exciting new solutions to our most vexing workplace challenges.
