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5 Steps to Speak with Clarity and Confidence at Work · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: To be able to speak with clarity and confidence at work makes you more effective in your role and being seen as more successful.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Studies show that employees rank good communication skills as twice as important as good managerial skills.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: 86% of employees blame lack of good communication skills for workplace failures.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Communicating with others clearly and with confidence can be achieved by anyone.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Early in my career I was shy and hated speaking in front of others.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Plenty of great communicators have similar stories.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking with clarity and confidence takes a little know-how and some practice.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is all.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: To help you learn to speak with more clarity and confidence at work, we're going through these five steps.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, know your audience, a vital step easily missed.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Second, prepare in advance.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: A little preparation goes a long way.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Third, tips to practice how you can improve your style of speaking.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, an exercise to make what you say even more concise.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, focus more on your body language than the words you say.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Practice each of these steps a bit each day and your communication skills will increase faster than you think.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first step to speak with clarity and confidence at work is to know your audience.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know your audience, it is very hard for even the most experienced speaker to communicate in an engaging and clear way.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Think carefully about, firstly, the job your audience does.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, what pressures they are under at the moment.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Third, think about the goals and objectives they have been tasked with achieving.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And fourth, consider what their personal situation is like.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Before you speak, put yourself in your audience's shoes and think through what your thoughts and feelings might be if you are in their place.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Demonstrate a little empathy and you'll get a lot more attention, acceptance and understanding from them.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: If your audience has been working hard, acknowledge this, thank them, praise them, and then communicate your message.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: When the company is going through cost-cutting initiatives, reassure your audience that you don't have any bad news before saying anything more.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: If they're worrying about their job security, they won't be paying any attention to you.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: If your audience values good relationships, spend a few minutes asking about their hobbies or family before diving into business.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: When your audience is more senior, get straight to the point so you take up as little of their time as practical.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know your audience that well, ask questions and listen carefully to what you're being told.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions about subjects that you think will interest the other person.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Their job or their hobbies are a great places to start.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Get them talking and then listening carefully, and you'll find out a lot in a short space of time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Flex the context, your approach, and the language you use to your audience so you're speaking to them in terms and ways that they are used to and understand.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have these skills, just be more conscious of using them to adapt to your audience.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: The second step to speak with clarity and confidence at work is to prepare in advance.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: A little preparation goes a long way.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the structure of what you want to say and get this clear in your head before you start speaking.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Think in terms of quick bullet points rather than long paragraphs of explanation.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Say your recommendation or the most important message first.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: This way the person knows what you want straight away and then you can add more information to justify your recommendation or message.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The structure I use is re-code.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Re stands for recommendation, C for context, O for options, D for data, and E for evaluation.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to use all the steps, the recommendation, context, and options are usually enough for most messages when speaking to colleagues and bosses.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: This structure is good because the most important parts of the message are first, plus, you then provide increasing levels of detail if it is needed as you progress through the structure.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: To speak with clarity and confidence at work, try to include in your message what you want, why you want it, and the impact of doing or not doing.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Practice structuring your communications, whether speaking or writing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The more you practice at including the elements in the shortest time, the more concise and clear you'll become when speaking to others.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to the podcast, enhance.training shares people management expertise, resources, and courses teaching you how to be a great manager and build high-performing teams.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've included links to additional resources in the podcast description which you'll find useful, so do take a look at these.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: The third step to speak with clarity and confidence at work is to practice your style of speaking.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: When we are nervous, self-conscious, or not confident in what we're saying, we tend to speak faster, blur our words together, and reduce the volume of our voice.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: All these factors make it much harder to hear and understand your message.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, you come across as not confident in what you're saying.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't appear to be confident in what you're saying, why should others be confident in what you're saying?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Make the time to practice speaking out loud.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Look in a mirror when you're speaking to check your body language.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Listen carefully to your tone and the delivery of what you're saying.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Speak slowly enough that you are easy to understand, but not too slowly.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Project your voice so it is loud enough to hear clearly.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: The more you project your voice, the more confident you will appear to yourself and to others.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fake it until you make it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the tone of your voice and how you use pauses.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: You are better being silent than filling pauses with filler words such as um make the time to practice speaking with clarity and confidence.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: The more you practice, the more confident you'll become, which in turn will improve how you speak to others at work.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth step to speak with clarity and confidence is to learn to be concise.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: The less words you use to get your exact message across, the easier it is to understand.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: The people you are speaking to don't have to process as many words, nor will be battling thoughts like where is this going, or what does this person want.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cut out as much of the fluff or unnecessary words as you can while still retaining the meaning of your message.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you currently ramble a lot, you can still become very concise.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Practice structuring your message and cutting out the tangents, the unnecessary detail until you're left with the essential parts and speak these.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You'll speak with a lot more clarity and speak with a lot more confidence when you become a lot more concise.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: The more senior your audience, the more concise you need to be.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are time poor and don't appreciate long explanations or lots of detail to back up what you're saying.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Be concise and clear.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: They will ask additional questions if they want the detail.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: An exercise for you to do regularly to build these skills.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Take a paragraph of text from a story or from a newspaper.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then write one to two sentences only that describe the essence of the story.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Keep practicing this exercise until you can write a concise summary.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then practice the same exercise, but this time speaking out loud your one to two sentence summary.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Be concise to help you speak with clarity at work, especially to bosses.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth step to speak with clarity and confidence at work is to focus on your body language.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you're speaking to colleagues at work, your body language is probably more important than the words you say.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you can say exactly the same sentence, putting the emphasis on different words and using different facial expressions, and your audience will take very different meanings from each version.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: When speaking, maintain good eye contact with your audience, which increases engagement with them.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hold yourself upright and confidently.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fidget or don't make a lot of erratic movements.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Keep yourself looking relaxed even if you've got butterflies in your stomach.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Be very conscious of what expressions you have on your face.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your own negative emotions off your face as much as possible, as a general rule, and communicate your positive emotions in your facial expressions.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Be friendly and open, but don't smile too much or be too accommodating.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your research has shown that the most confident or most senior person in the room tends to smile the least.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Adapt your body language to the situation you are faced with.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if the other person becomes angry, you should keep a neutral facial expression and use a calm, slow voice, which will calm the other person down.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're delivering bad news, show sympathy and understanding by lowering your voice and speaking in softer tones, while showing concern and consideration in your facial features.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Try to remain as conscious and aware of your own body language and the body language of your audience when you're speaking.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: This gives you the best chance of getting your message across and for your audience to hear it, understand it, and take it in.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Keep practicing these five steps to speak with clarity and confidence at work.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: In summary, to speak with clarity at work comes with a bit of practice and working at making your message clear and well structured.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Practice also makes you better at speaking and communicating.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Success builds your confidence better than anything else.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Keep practicing.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Make the time to put into practice the five steps we've covered today.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, know your audience.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Make the effort to put yourself in their shoes.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, prepare in advance, a little preparation goes a long way to speaking clearly.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Third, we've gone through tips to practice how you can improve your speaking style.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, we went through an exercise to help you become even more concise in what you say and write.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, focus more on your body language than the words you say.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on five steps to speak with clarity and confidence at work, please email me at support at enhance.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to visit us at enhance.training and take a look at all the resources and courses to help you communicate brilliantly as a manager.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.