Have your communication skills & experience grown at the same pace as your organisation?
Imagine you're a teacher who specialises in working with children 1-2-1. You're so good you get asked to work with a group of four. Different, but no problem. Then ten. Next, a whole class. Followed by overseeing the entire year group. And finally you're asked to oversee the school...
You find yourself stood in front of 500 schoolchildren about to speak. You know what you want to say, but have the sudden realisation you're way out of your depth.
A common story
Now switch the teacher for a brilliantly talented CEO/Founder of an organisation. The skills and experience built by regularly addressing your team in a room small enough to hold thirty people suddenly feel inadequate.
Presentation skills will only take you so far
As your organisation has grown you've become more confident addressing those you lead. You've even been on a presentation skills training course. You're all set. Or so you thought...
Until you have to step beyond delivering information, and bring people with you, get your people to buy into the changes and new directions you want to introduce to the business. The stakes are now higher, if you get the communication wrong there could be costs:
Disengagement
Lower morale
Staff turnover
Vertical & horizontal communication
As well as your audience getting bigger as your organisation grows, you have to communicate at different levels. A message delivered to your investors, will look and sound very different to one delivered to your board, line managers, or general employees. Different rungs on the communication ladder.
What's the solution?
Aside from working with somebody like me to help you communicate in those high stakes face to face moments, do your research. There are countless examples of how leaders before you have communicated in similar situations.
Learn from the good and bad
The research literature is packed full of research, case studies, news reports of CEOs and leaders who have found themselves in high stakes communication situations and either sunk or swam:
Major organisational change
Redundancies/job losses
Site closures/relocations
Mergers & acquisitions
Major strategic shifts
Leadership change
Culture reset
Major investment, expansion or growth
Build a library of resources
Whilst your presentation skills training will help you in low stakes moments, when the stakes begin to rise its helpful to have a store of past examples to borrow ideas from. A high stakes communication bible if you like.
And if you need more help, somebody to work with you in those high stakes situations, you know where to find me...
