Should I expand my vocabulary?
Should I maybe even read the dictionary?
So you have achieved the executive level position in your company, and
you're starting to attend a higher level meetings where executives are
communicating and making higher level decisions.
Chances are you have noticed that when it comes to attending these meetings, communication is so
crucial.
Being able to articulate your ideas, getting buy in for your ideas,
but communicating in such a way that the exec, senior most executives
all the way to the C-suite can understand it.
Short.
To the point.
Concise.
Articulation is a skill because communication is the highest level of
value in the marketplace.
And many new executives really feel the pressure and really feel a lot
of anxiety around demonstrating leadership through communications.
What I want to share with you is how do you become more articulate as
an executive by avoiding these five things.
Number one, don't just expand your vocabulary.
A lot of times I hear executives telling me that they need to expand their vocabulary.
They've been to a few meetings and they've heard some senior
executives use larger words, use very eloquent words or managerial
speak.
And this produces a lot of pressure.
And so I hear this a lot is, well, should I expand my vocabulary?
Should I maybe even read the dictionary?
So what I would say is that although reading the dictionary does definitely expand your
vocabulary.
One of the things about reading the dictionary is that really it does
depend on your rote memorization.
The dictionary is a list of words A to Z, and when you read it, the
onus is on you to memorize them, rote memorize them, over and over
again through repetition.
And oftentimes that is very difficult, especially if you're a kind of person that does not
do well with rote memorization.
And so the reason why rote memorization is difficult is because the
words in the dictionary don't give it the specific context that you
will use them in your workplace.
So don't just focus on expanding your vocabulary.
Instead, listen to what your executive peers are saying.
And if there are words that they do say and you hear them inside of
meetings, just make a note of it and then familiarize yourself with
those words.
So be more intentional about the words that you do learn.
But more importantly, the most important vocabulary words at the
executive level are words that denote business acumen, leadership through motivation and
effective communication and diplomacy, and words that are industry
specific.
And number two, don't just change or improve your pronunciation.
I hear this a lot, especially from executives, where English is not
their first language.
There's a lot of concern about accents.
There's a lot of concern about pronunciation and clarity of
enunciation.
I do hear this a lot, but focusing on improving or changing your
pronunciation is more of the mechanics of speaking.
It's all musculature.
Accents are produced by the way the muscles are contracting and
expanding in your throat, your tongue, your lips and all around your mouth as well.
So that's what produces accents that you hear.
So focusing on merely improving your pronunciation is also very
difficult because chances are you speak the way you've spoken since
birth and since you were very young growing up, and that's what
produces the way you spoke.
Now it is possible to reduce accents, but again, that revolves, that involves a lot of repetition, that involves a lot of discipline as
well and focus.
But I will say that from my experience, it is not about accent, it is
not about enunciation.
It is more about your articulation, being able to express yourself,
being able to move your own ideas away from just an intuitive
understanding of what you know and into a more conscious understanding that you can put words to it.
First of all, being able to communicate it with words to yourself and
then being able to communicate that with words to other people.
Because think about it, your ideas are clear to you.
They're inside your head, your expression of your ideas, and they're
intuitively you know what you know.
But can you put words to
it?
Can you have it so that other people can interact with your ideas and
not just yourself?
And that is more important than your pronunciation.
If you're listening to this and you realize that, yeah, maybe my
accent is not a hindrance, maybe I can learn to express myself and you
recognize how important it is for you, and you're serious about
developing this skill, then I invite you to work with me.
Every single week, I train executives on how to express themselves
clearly, how to get buy in for ideas, how to be able to articulate
what you know through epistemology.
How do you communicate what you know in a way that is clear and
concise, but also in a way that leads and motivates your team as well.
So if you're serious about getting that help, then click on the first link
below this video and that first link is for you to speak to with one
of my trusted career advisors to really explore whether or not this is
the right fit for us to work together.
And if it is, then I look forward to seeing you on the inside.
Number three, is don't just focus on the mechanics of speaking.
I mentioned this before, but what is the mechanics of speaking?
Mechanics is different from strategy.
Mechanics is just purely the mechanisms of your mouth, your nose, your
throat, your fingers when you talk.
And these include things like volume, pace, intonations and also
pauses in between.
So these are all mechanics. You produce these different changes in intonations, your voice going
up and down, the way that you sound, the melodic tone of your voice.
All of these is produced mechanistic, mechanistically through your
muscles.
And that's the mechanics of speaking.
So don't just focus on that, because what's more important is the
strategy of speaking.
The attunement
you have to your audience as well.
The way that you create and craft your message.
The way that you package your knowledge and your expertise and deliver
it.
Those, that is all strategy.
And that is more important as an executive.
And when you show up and you communicate your knowledge effectively,
when you show up and you lead through motivation, you lead through being able to communicate the inspirational vision, when
you show up that way, I promise you they, they won't even notice your
accent.
They, they won't even notice when you took a pause, when your voice
went up and went down, because it is all about showing up in a way
that, and delivering a message that really moves and impacts your
audience. Number four is, don't just focus on practicing more speeches.
Now, I hear this a lot.
A lot of new executives have tried practicing speeches, going to,
joining these clubs where you stand in front of a room and give a
speech and have your peers grade you and count how many ums and ahs on
a ticker that you've done and, and they, they, they have a stopwatch and they tell you how long
it took you to deliver that speech.
Now, a lot of times this is the way we practice.
And the reason why this is so popular is because there's been a
belief, a popularly held belief that practice makes perfect.
How many of you heard that before?
Practice makes perfect.
But I submit to you that practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent.
Practice makes permanent.
So if you notice that you are practicing certain things, and you are
scripting out your speech and memorizing your speech, and you're
practicing that, what you're practicing makes permanent. And when it comes to speaking in the executive arena, in the boardroom, you're not going to have speeches.
A lot of, you're not going to have scripts.
A lot of times what you say, is on the spur of the moment.
You're responding to discussions, you're responding to other people's
opinions.
You are expected to share your thoughts.
You're expected to share your ideas in a very high level way and build business cases around it.
And those things is going to be very different from the way most
people practice speeches.
So don't just focus on practicing more speeches.
It's more about strategy.
It's more about the art of communication, and it's more about
understanding.
How do I connect with my audience and how do I dissolve my inner struggles with communication as well?
The inner struggles around anxieties, feeling intimidated around
certain people, their perspective you have on yourself, and the way
that your voice sounds.
All of these things is self-governance.
So that is more important than just practicing speeches.
And the final thing, number five is don't just focusing on doing everything and everywhere all at once.
Because as an executive, oftentimes we are ambitious.
We are a players, we want results and we want the results yesterday.
And so all of these things, I hear it very often.
I've been practicing my speeches.
I've been trying to change my pace.
I've been working on my accent.
I have been practicing every day.
And that's, there's this level of intensity of doing everything all at
once.
So don't try to do all of these things all at once.
There is the most important things that are communication strategies,
the art of communications.
And it's an art because language is spiritual.
Being able to connect with your audience that self-governance, self-governance piece, all of these things is your personal growth
journey.
And your personal growth journey is more important than all of what I
shared with you earlier, focusing on vocabulary and mechanics and
accents and all of that. When you grow, your speech grows along with you.
When you grow in your mind and you grow in your visions, and you grow in within yourself and how you
govern yourself from within, the way you show up to speak changes as
well.
So don't just focus on all of these all at once.
In my next video, I have some talking points around communication
strategy.
What are some ways that you can show up and articulate in the workplace?
What are some strategies around public speaking in the workplace?
That video is coming right up next.
I'll see you there.