What we can learn about how to work smarter, based on how we feel and behave in speaking situations where we don't deliver

When I'm working with people - and writing about it here - I'm usually talking about enhancing your speaking skills in order to enhance your work: you'll have a better experience in meetings, presentations, and important conversations, if you speak more effectively, convey a sense of value, communicate your passion and commitment, show how much you care.

But it's worth asking: why?

If you're good at your job and happy in your job, why do you sound boring, or hesitant, or disengaged, or lacking confidence, when you talk about it?

There are many possible reasons, of course. But consider this: maybe it's not you.

Change how you sound? Or change how you work?

Maybe the way you work needs to change.

I had a fascinating discussion recently with a client, about some changes he and his team had made to the way they conducted meetings.

And the inspiration behind these changes came from the work he and I were doing to improve his speaking skills as an individual.

This person (lets call him F) is a senior manager at a large organisation - he manages a team of over 100 people.

They're in the process of outsourcing most of their customer services operations to a call centre in another part of the UK.

F had been giving his team in London a daily update on the changeover: how it's going, the volume of calls and customer enquiries being dealt with, any issues to report.

He had noticed that during this update, his team seemed bored, disengaged, and distracted - showing signs that they would rather get on with work that felt more important.

He was worried that, as the meeting lead, his delivery was causing this, so I got him to deliver a typical daily update to me, as though I was one of the team.

And yes - he was speaking in a monotone, not connecting with me (making little eye contact), and because he was aware it wasn't going well, he was then overcompensating by saying more, repeating himself, waffling... which just made it worse.

It emerged from our discussions, that part of the reason for his 'bored' tone was that HE WAS BORED!

He knew he didn't have much to say.

On a daily basis, there wasn't actually much to report; he was doing the meetings 'to be seen to be doing them' (who's ever held a meeting to be seen to be holding one? Everyone say AYE!)

His feeling that the updates were a bit pointless was having a major impact on how he delivered them - unintentionally, he was making the updates SOUND pointless.

So his listeners were behaving as thought the updates WERE pointless: that's the feedback they were giving their manager, F, through their distracted behaviour.

Here's the crucial thing F took away from this: the solution was not to just speak with more enthusiasm.

It was to rethink the daily updates. What was the purpose of them? Were they really necessary?

F decided to restructure his communication around the customer service handover: updates are now less frequent, and more succinct.

They now have 'a defined end point', which means F is less prone to waffling on in the hope that he'll eventually feel like he's got the message across.

Fewer, shorter, more focused meetings will only make it easier for his staff to give their full attention. These new meetings also save time, so staff are less preoccupied with all the other tasks that they'll have to get on with when the meeting ends.

This is what 'doing the listeners' work for them' really means. Those of you who've worked with me will know that I bang on about this all the time.

This is also what 'work smarter, not harder' really means. I can show you how to improve your speaking skills - book a free online taster session with me today to find out how - but why use these skills inefficiently, working harder, or speaking more, than your listeners need you to?

If you work with me, you can potentially learn as much about what and when to communicate, as how to communicate well.

Thanks for reading - have a high-efficiency, high-productivity, low-work day :)