Why is it worth actually practicing your communications skills? Why is it worth investing energy to learn techniques, to sharpen your messages, to spend time on the stage before the speech?
If you aren’t prepared you can appear pre-occupied and awkward, which is murder on confidence and fluency. If you put the headset microphone on for the first time thirty seconds before you go on stage for a speech, a whole part of your brain is going to be focusing on what that microphone feels like in your ear and how you sound through it. But if you have already tried the microphone and know what it’s like, you get your brain back and can focus on why you’re really there – to offer something valuable and interesting to your audience.
If you’re doing Q&A on your quarterly earnings call and you haven’t practiced answers to the challenging questions you expect, you might fumble, appearing dangerously inarticulate and wishy-washy. And no analyst likes that. Neither do your employees in an all hands meeting. Or reporters. Or your board.
Yes, practicing can feel sort of artificial and awkward. Especially practicing in front of other people. But practice does two vital things – it helps your body get familiar with the environment you’ll be in and it helps your brain learn what it feels like to hear tough questions and then to answer them. “I’ve done this ten times, I’ve got this” is much better than “Well, here goes nothing!”
Practice builds comfort. Comfort builds confidence. When you feel confident as a communicator, you become natural and articulate. And then, the magic happens. You can fluently deliver your best self and your best thinking. Who doesn’t want to do that? When the people you’re speaking to see you, you have mastered communication.
Practice in the shower. Practice on your commute. Get your team to hit you with the tough Q&A before the analyst call. Insist on getting time on the keynote stage with the lights on and the microphones at the right levels before you do any speech. Every extra minute practicing pays off great personal and professional dividends, because communication really is the power to scale. There’s nothing a master communicator can’t accomplish!
Communication is the essential last mile in finding and motivating the right teams, acquiring strong allies, powerfully bonding with customers, and capturing mindshare with compelling stories. Nothing will serve you and your vision better than developing exceptional communication skills.
