'Obamatic' Overtalking

Like many people, I can talk too much at times. My boss once told me, "you're not as concise as you think you are". She was right. So I've taken to strengthening a critical communication skill called...knowing when to shut up.

When you run into an overtalker and you hear them say, "and I'd just like to add..." - run!

Now I'm a huge admirer of President Obama as a communicator. This guy really knows how to talk. His speeches have informed and moved the nation. Even his opponents give him his due as an orator of tremendous skill and accomplishment.

Yet on July 22nd his press conference fell short of my expectations for him as a communicator. Like most Americans, I wanted to know the following about health care reform:

• Why are we doing it?
• What will I gain or lose?
• How are we going to pay for it?

The President is a master of the facts, has great presentation skills and has presence out the wazoo - and he did give us some of those answers. So, what's the beef?

I think the beef is this. His answers got buried under a deluge of detail, parenthetical points and extraneous explanation - so much so that you needed to take notes to get the real points. Unfortunately, we're not reporters, we're people - so many of us forgot our notepads.

I realize you have a background that includes lawyering and professoring Mr. President - two professions guaranteed to put everyone to sleep. So overtalking is expected. You're also extremely intelligent. Like former President Clinton, you have such a command of the facts that you sometimes can't resist telling us just one more thing. There's one big problem with that.

Bombarding us with more and more information doesn't help us understand the issue better and by the time you make your fourth point in an answer, we already forgotten your first.

Here are a few simple suggestions for you Mr. President before your next press conference.

• Dump the teleprompter. Even though they moved it to the middle so you can fake talking directly to us, it still makes you seem like you're running on 'Obamatic'. Your advisers probably want to ensure you get it right. Forget getting it right - get it real. This health care reform measure is one of the centerpieces of your presidency. You shouldn't have to read off a screen to explain it to us and if you do, how can you expect us to understand it if you can't explain it without visual aids. You spent 7:53 reading to us.
• Give shorter answers. Except for a brief reporter followup "is that your job", your answer to the first question on guidance to Congress was an almost unbroken 7+ minute monologue. That's half as long as President Kennedy's inaugural speech. This isn't a Harvard teach-in. It's an opportunity to connect with the American people on a critical issue between airings of Entertainment Tonight and America's Got Talent. We're used to sound bites and commercials, not PHD dissertations. It has nothing to do with our intelligence, it has everything to do with our attention span in this Twitter/You Tube age.
• Don't bury the Hook. You gave a 2-minute preamble about inherited deficits before you got to the question many Americans were asking "what's in this for me"? Later on at 13:04 you said "if someone told you..." and proceeded to make the point that the status quo stinks. At another juncture you talked about the stars being aligned between patients, doctors, hospitals, and big pharma companies to get something done. Out of all of that you could have crafted a quick straight-to-the-point Hook that grabbed our attention and set the table for the press conference, instead of starting out on defense.
• Inject some passion. I appreciate the No Drama Obama style that characterizes you and your administration. It's comforting to know that you don't shoot from the lip and you don't make decisions by the seat of your pants. It helps us sleep at night. In this context though, you needed to project some passion. You are not merely transferring information. You are transferring belief. There are some people who think you have no emotions - that you are all cerebral and no visceral. Health care is a visceral issue. Speak from your gut.
• Share the burden. Because some in your administration are not very effective communicators, you end up playing the role of Salesperson-In-Chief. Some of the least effective could be much better if they would make a few mechanical changes to their delivery style and engage in some deliberate practice. They can try to escape by saying they're too busy to practice - most busy executives do that. Yet if they could get the health care bill passed by winning a golf match, they'd be out on the driving range at midnight practicing. Don't let them skate.
• Use more "We" and "Us". I realize you are understandably the main focus of attention in your first year in office, so I hear a lot of "I" and "My" in your speeches and press conferences. As you constantly remind us though, "this is not about me". Make sure your words match that message.

I offer these suggestions with great respect for how difficult it must be to explain complex issues to an audience of 300 million people. You've done a terrific job so far but even you can raise the level of your game.

Mr. President, I wish you great success working with the Congress on this issue but if you choose to continue giving seven-minute answers, I hope to see you at the next Overtalkers Anonymous meeting. It's covered in your health plan - with a 300-word deductible!

Pull vs. Push

If Socrates only knew back in Athens that his teachings would be used in the 20th and 21st centuries to train salespople, he would have hired an agent. Socrates - like Sinatra, Elvis, Janis, Marilyn and Picasso - would make the Forbes 400 every year if they were still appearing 'live'.

I confess that I have never taken a Socratic Selling Skills Seminar. Who knows, maybe I should. They even have a Socrates Society at the Aspen Institute. I only know what I see as a communication coach - in myself and others. When we sell - we tend to talk too much, question too haphazardly, listen too little and miss too much.

I too have erred in this regard. Every time I meet someone, it's an opportunity to sell them on what I do for a living. Every time I push information, I kick myself afterwards. Every time I ask a few questions and shut up and listen, I pat myself on the back because I managed to pull information. It helps me target my message to their needs.

First off, we all sell and we're all actors.

We each go out everyday into the world and sell ourselves, our companies, our ideas, our products, our services, our skills, or our points of view.

Like actors, we also make people believe. We are not merely transferring information to the people we talk to, we are transferring belief.

The question is this. How do we do that best, pushing or pulling? I vote pull - with both hands!!

Now, if it's a 'dog and pony' show type meeting like a bakeoff for an investment banking deal, by all means give them the dog and pony by pushing information. If it's not, try the pull approach.

I roleplay client situations with salespeople all the time. I play the client. When we debrief the situation, I usually ask them to turn the message on its head to hear what that sounds like or I ask them to front the whole message with an open ended or high gain question for their prospective client.

Let's say the practice scenario involves a wealthy individual looking for a new money manager. Sound familiar?

What if the person pitching that prospect started with the ending instead of running though their professional resume or the firm's qualifications - namely what the prospect would experience with them as one of their clients and how that experience differs from the client experiences they may have had up to that point?

Could it work? Perhaps. The point is - it's worth trying it out in the practice arena to see what it sounds like and feels like. One of my jobs as a communication coach is to help people challenge their thinking to come up with options. Developing options is a worthwhile pursuit for salespeople or any communicator. It helps you design a better game plan.

I once asked a very successful manager who runs a sales desk how research analysts could make better morning calls when addressing the sales force. He said, "easy - lead with your conclusion". Try it once in a while. It's refreshing. Why take your audience on a long meandering verbal walk through the Forbidden Forest when all they want to know is - does Harry Potter die in the end?

Now finally to the pull vs. push. Isn't that the title of this post?

I also ask the person pitching that prospect to consider asking a question at the outset to draw the prospect out. A short open-ended or high gain question fronted by a simple reporter word - who, what, where, when, why or how. It helps:

• uncover previously unknown information
• open a door that was otherwise closed
• open up a line of inquiry or advocacy
• spark an extended conversation
• build a human connection

Most importantly, the salesperson can now target all of their well-prepared information to their prospect's needs. They may also get a glimpse 'behind the curtain' into a prospect's motivations, concerns, hopes, fears, and dreams.

Now, does every prospect open up like a gushing guest on Oprah or Dr. Phil? No, of course not. Yet the 'lead with a question' approach can get you much more than you thought you would. Sometimes the prospect opens up an avenue the size of Broadway to drive your points home if you simply ask a question like, "how are you feeling about things?"

Let's say the prospect responds with something like "Well, I haven't been very happy with the performance of my fixed income investments". Some salespeople would jump all over that opening and say "well that's actually one of the reasons why I came here today - our fixed income investments have out-performed in the last year."

What if the salesperson resisted that impulse and simply followed up with "why?"

Perhaps the prospect might respond by saying "because my current investment advisor didn't listen to me." The salesperson could even dig a bit further (as we all do in normal conversation) and say "how could that happen?" The prospect might even open up a bit more and say, "because he's a jackass!"

Now we're getting somewhere. All of a sudden the traffic on Broadway is clearing up bigtime.

Before you sell that prospect on fixed income investments, you now know why. You have a clearer glimpse into the prospect's motivation and you are better enabled to take advantage of the opening and serve the needs of your prospective client.

Bottom line - think of your next conversation - with a prospect, a board of directors, a client, a training class, your children, a group of new hires, or the PTA. What if you framed your entire conversation or talk around a few simple open ended or high gain questions? Isn't that better than going off blind throwing information at them to see what sticks. If they don't want to play along you'll know and you can always revert to the old "I'll be brilliant for 45 minutes and then you get to ask me questions" routine. If they do play along, you get an opening.

REMINDER - KEEP YOUR QUESTIONS OPEN AND SHORT! We tend to get stuck in close ended or leading questions or we overframe open ended questions with all sorts of qualifiers. The best questions in the English language (in my opinion) tend to be only four to eight words (i.e. "what do you think?" or "how did that happen?" or "where do you think it went wrong?") and they always start with who, what, where, when, why or how.

Now some people say that's OK one on one but you can't have a conversation with 200 people in an auditorium. I say, why not?

Many times I'll walk up in front of a room an ask an audience "by a show of hands, how many of you experience some level of nervousness or anxiety before you speak in public?" You will get hands raised on that one - guaranteed. Then I follow up and ask a few individuals, "how do you handle that?" After I get 3 or 4 responses I'll try to find the thread among them and use it to begin my talk. I haven't started a presentation - I've started a conversation - with 50 or 200 or 2000 people. Later on, I can also use this conversation to say "remember what Mary said about using anxiety as an asset..."

I contend (and so do a lot of people who are smarter than I am) that we all prefer to talk first and listen second. Try reversing that order and try not to jump all over the first response you get. Play reporter and follow up. When you are finally prepared to speak, you will be in a much stronger position to target your thoughts and be more helpful to the other person. At the very least, challenge your thinking as you gameplan a sales call or a speech or a talk or an interview or a meeting. Either flip your message on it's head and hear what that sounds like or start the whole deal with a question.

If you go with a question, the royalty checks still go to Socrates. And if you can't find him, find the best salesperson you know. They do this stuff every single day of their lives.

Sonia the Supreme

For a moment, forget about which political party you belong to; forget whether you're a man or a woman; and forget whether or not you will be supporting Sonia Sotomayor's nomination as the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, click on the URL below for a video clip from today's New York Times and join me to celebrate 7 minutes of 'presence personified'. You can move the slider to the beginning of her remarks at 11:35 if you don't have time to hear President Obama's introduction.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/05/26/us/politics/1194840503914/obamas-supreme-court-nominee.html

Here is a woman who came from the humblest of beginnings but who is now being nominated to the highest court in the land. An honor, as she reminded us, beyond her wildest imagination.

What I found particularly striking and instructive for all who are called upon to speak in public was her unassuming yet masterful ownership of an incredibly difficult stage. She confessed to being nervous (and who wouldn't be under the circumstances). In spite of her understandable speaker anxiety though, she talked to the audience calmly and confidently, showing a wonderfully understated command of her message and her emotions.

The good news - Judge Sotomayor provided an outstanding example for the rest of us to follow when we're put on the spot in front of an audience. A few areas to focus on when watching:

• She had notes but used them sparingly. I'm guessing they consisted of 'thought triggers' rather than a speech written out in prose. In any case, she spent most of her time up and engaged with her audience.
• She had magnificent pace. I never heard her rush and her slow pace lent strength and power to her words. It made her words seem considered, thoughtful and significant.
• She punched specific words with her voice and this made them all the more impactful for our ears. She elevated certain words above others making them paramount.
• She had a level head and set her feet while speaking. These two factors helped her radiate confidence by focusing her physical energy in the audience's direction.
• She wore a simple yet striking outfit using contrasting primary colors to frame our attention on her face.
• She spoke from the three places every great speaker talks from - her head, her heart and her soul.
• She matched her message to the historic opportunity by speaking about a moment in time where her personal history meshed with the country's.
• She projected enormous power, albeit in a very modest way, even though she shared the stage with a man viewed by many as a speaker for the ages.

Some may think that what Judge Sotomayor did today on that stage was easy. I think not. To climb to the pinnacle of success in the blinding spotlight of the White House and the national media and still manage to maintain your calm, your poise and your presence is incredible. Moments like this would make many a man or woman shake with fear and lose their voice, their message and their cool.

The great news - what Judge Sotomayor did as a speaker today on that stage is something we can all do as speakers with a little bit of planning, preparation and practice.

Does being an Appellate Court judge help - absolutely. But don't let that stop you. You can get there (as a public speaker) if you put in the work.

I used to suggest to people that they watch John Roberts in his confirmation hearings in the Senate when he was nominated to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I'm sure I will be watching Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings as well. They both 'own their stage' and give us all a great model of how to communicate in difficult circumstances while projecting quiet and humble 'here I am' strength.

Judge Sotomayor, you rocked the house! This time it was the White House.

Bravo. Thanks for showing us all how it's done.

P.S. Next time remember to brush that wisp of hair off your face. Your eyes are hugely expressive. We need to see both of them.

Boyle's Law

The old Boyle's Law had to do with traditional chemistry. The new Boyle's Law has to do with a subject near and dear to the heart of this coach - audience chemistry.

When we speak in public, I think we all long to have presence in front of our audience - to really 'own your stage' as the name of this blog suggests. If you are one of the 46 million people who have seen Susan Boyle on You Tube singing I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables on the TV show Britain's Got Talent, then you saw an object lesson in owning your stage from a woman who was previously known only to the inhabitants of her home town in Scotland. To say that her performance was remarkable is an understatement indeed. It lifted us up like the end of a movie like Rocky or Hoosiers. Many of us erupted like the live audience, cheering for the everywoman we saw on that stage.

So what can we learn from the new Boyle's Law?

First, it's OK to be nervous. Susan appeared nervous backstage but she seemed determined not to let it get to her. She decided to channel her nervousness into performance by proclaiming that she wanted to "rock that audience". Many among us want to make our nervousness and anxiety as public speakers disappear forever. It's a useless effort. We can learn to manage our anxiety and use it to our advantage in front of the audience. I call it 'befriending the butterflies'. A few common sense tips:

• Clear your mind, close your eyes, focus on a single point and breathe


• Visualize yourself taking the stage or the podium and succeeding famously


• Remind yourself that you know what you're doing because you practiced


• Know that the audience wants you to succeed - failure is painful for them too


• Remind yourself of the first sentence you will utter when you get out there


• Remind yourself that no matter what happens you will live to speak another day

Second, it pays to practice. If you think that Susan Boyle took to the stage without knowing how that song would come out, you're dreaming. She had the confidence of a professional knowing she had done the work to prepare and own her material. She had already heard herself sing it and knew what the notes felt like and how she would gesture to the crowd. If you are afraid that practice will make you sound rehearsed, don't worry. The very act of rehearsal makes you sound unrehearsed. The practice gives you confidence to succeed, so put in that effort if you can find the time. If you can't, make the time. It will show on stage.

Third, stand your ground and own your stage. If you saw the video, Susan Boyle had to stand there on TV being ridiculed, laughed at and forced to tell her age to millions. Now I know if she was a lousy singer, we would not be talking about her now. I realize that her talent has a lot to do with her success that night. But her presence was there ahead of her talent. To my mind, she won the day before she had ever sung a note because she had the guts to stand there and hear snickers and laughter directed at her and she didn't flinch. She owned her space and did not relinquish her personal power to the judges or the audience - the magical power of knowing that she belonged there.

There are famous and accomplished people who don't have Susan Boyle's presence. The good news is that they can - if they just would try. The best news about the new Boyle's Law is that all us can stand in front of an audience and look like we belong there. We simply need to befriend our butterflies, practice out loud, and stand our ground in the face of adversity.

Whether singing or speaking, presence counts!

Bravo Susan. You rocked the house!

Postscript to our last post - Larry Summers did it again. On Fox News Sunday (4/26/2009) he appeared again on video feed like the week before on Meet the Press. Chris Wallace never laid a glove on him.

Good show Larry. Keep up the good work!

Beat the Press

Finally, someone in President Obama's administration nailed an appearance on Meet the Press. It was Larry Summers on today's show (April 19, 2009) on NBC. The host, David Gregory, tried to put forth his very best Tim Russert impression, complete with the usual assortment of 'gotcha' quotes and video clips, but he didn't lay a glove on Summers the whole show.

This is surprising since on a previous MTP appearance, Larry Summers had turned in a less than stellar performance back in January when David Gregory seemed to have the physical and adversarial advantage in that interview and Mr. Summers seemed to be in a prevent defense.

Not this time.

Whether it was him making a few key adjustments between MTP appearances, or taking advice from Secretary Geithner's new speech guru, Michael Sheehan, or simply good luck, Mr. Summers clicked on all cylinders and provided an example for all the President's men and women to follow on the Sunday interview shows. He also served as an example for executives of how even mechanical changes can make meaningful improvements in your communication style, especially on TV.

Let the pundits both right and left argue the content. Here's why I think Mr. Summers delivery choices worked so incredibly well.

First, he looked us in the eye. Due to the fact that Mr. Summers was on satellite video hookup from the Americas summit in Trinidad, he was forced to look straight into the camera. He looked through David Gregory and spoke directly to us - the TV audience. It helped him connect with us in a way he wouldn't have been able to if he were sitting in the studio in Washington looking at David Gregory. This was significant since the last time he was on MTP he looked away almost every time he answered a question. If you want to connect, you have to look at people, especially on the tube.

Note: It didn't hurt to have the flowering bush waving in the breeze behind him. For someone who can occasionally come across as a hardass on TV, it was serendipitous set design and softened his image a bit.

Second, he turned around most of David Gregory's 'gotcha' questions into opportunities to further his own message. A case in point was his answer to a fairly tough question about Paul Krugman's 'depression still lurking' editorial in the paper, which Gregory quoted. Summers first stated that he disagrees with Krugman a lot, yet acknowledged Krugman's "we're not out of the woods yet" point and then explained why everything the President is doing and saying makes sense in light of that point. Whether you agree with the logic of his response or not, it was a classic example of not taking the interviewer's bait and staying on your own message.

Third, when he wanted to emphasize a key point in his answer he would shift gears, slow down and punch his words for effect.

Fourth, for the most part he kept a nice level head. Combined with looking into the camera it gives the television audience a nonverbal sense of strength, forthrightness and transparency.

Fifth, because he was only present in David Gregory's TV studio on a video monitor, it neutralized the physical advantage Gregory has in the studio. He actually had to look up a tiny bit to Larry Summers to ask his questions and due to Mr. Summers aplomb in deflecting the hardest of his questions, at times Mr. Gregory seemed like a student trying to 'stump the prof' in an economics class. He tried and tried again but never did any serious damage to his guest.

Sixth, Mr. Summers kept a nice conversational tone throughout versus his more formal tone the last time he was on Meet the Press. He just talked to us and sounded like a reasonable man making reasonable points. He also spoke in 'human tempo' versus Secretary Geithner's 'trader tempo' which helps us keep up with him and lets his words sink in.

Bottom line, if this was a prize fight it would have gone the distance with no knockdowns but Larry Summers would have walked away with a unanimous decision on all the judges scorecards. It was by far and away his best TV performance in my view and underscores how important it is to make good choices when communicating in an adversarial interview setting.

The Irish Priest

Six months after 9/11, I was riding the #6 subway train in New York City. I was straphanging. There, straphanging next to me, was a Catholic priest. He looked to be in his early 60's. He had the map of experience on his face. We started talking and it turns out he was an Irish Catholic priest, from Ireland, who was temporarily stationed at a monastery somewhere up the Hudson.

At the time, I was managing a VP leadership development program at a major investment bank. After a bit of conversation, he said, "Well, there seems to be a lot of similarities between what you do for a living and what I do for a living. After all, aren't we both helping people to improve in their lives?"

I didn't know just what to say, so I fell back on my Irish Catholic genes and replied, "Yes Father".

After a little more conversation as we passed stations on our way uptown he said, "All this development stuff you're doin', well it all goes back to the Greek philosophers don't ya know. It's the three great lessons - Know Thyself, Accept Thyself, Overcome Thyself".

I said, "Well Father, after all these years of trying I think I finally have the Knowing Thyself part down and I'm working really hard on the Accepting Thyself part - but that Overcoming Thyself part is a real pain in the ass...."
(almost by reflex, I asked his forgiveness for my language)

He smiled, and in his magnificently understated Irish Catholic priest manner, paused and said, "isn't it though".

We came to our stop and parted company, wishing each other good luck. I guess my lesson from the #6 train was - we're never really done with this development stuff and in this wonderful life that we all share; change is a process, not a transaction.

I'm guessing that Saint Peter might have a little Irish priest in him. We'll all come up to the pearly gates and he'll ask us how we found our lives on Earth and one of us might say:

"Well, it wasn't all that bad, except for the Recession of 09'. That was a real pain in the ass".

Saint Peter will smile, pause and say, "wasn't it though".


The Global Coach

Accents are Beautiful

The French have a saying, "Vive La Difference". It was coined by a man giving thanks to God for having created women.

Yet when it comes to accents, it seems that everywhere in Corporate America we are shouting "Vive La Boring".

Sometimes it appears that we want to put everyone through a kind of Cultural Cuisinart and have them emerge sounding like a newsreader on CSPAN. Everyone stops being a Rich Roquefort, or a Sharp Cheddar or a Racy Romano and we become American Cheese, with no flavor, aroma or bite. It's bland-by-design.

Managers call coaches like myself and report that they or their clients cannot understand one of the employees because of an accent. They want to send them off for 'accent reduction' or something called 'accent neutralization'.

Now I'm sure these are legitimate corrective measures taken by professionals in the field of speech. I do not mean to denigrate their profession. I want to offer common-sense alternatives from someone who listens to people speak for a living.

#1 - Go buy some French champagne and celebrate your accent. You might even yell "Vive La Difference" while you're doing it. Your accent is part of who you are as a person. It makes you sound distinctive and memorable. We are drawn to listen to you.

#2 - Slow down. Buy a $20 microcassette recorder and a $20 digital metronome. Then set the metronome on it's slowest beat and record yourself reading stories from a newspaper at that slow beat. You are now retraining your ear. Or click here on http://americanrhetoric.com and click on Movie Speeches. Then try to mimic the pace of one of the really slow speeches. A real good one is Billy Bob Thornton's Being Perfect speech as Coach Gaines from the movie Friday Night Lights or Kelly MacDonald's reply to the Prime Minister from the movie The Girl in the Cafe. The best slow speech out at the movies now in my opinion is Philip Seymour Hoffman's sermon on Gossip as Father Flynn in the movie Doubt. The technique is about speaking slower and pausing and breathing. Try it. People will hear you better, even with your accent.

#3 - Vary your voice. If you have a constant high pitch, add in some bass or alto to give your voice more authority. If you have a constant low pitch, add in some tenor or soprano to give your voice more life. In any language or any accent, what kills is sameness. We love to listen to variety, as in a piece of classical music - up and down volume, high and low pitch, fast and slow pace, passionate and peaceful delivery. If your voice always sounds the same, we will lose your personality - and you will lose our attention.

#4 - Move your face. Many people with accents speak with a tight jaw which exacerbates our lack of understanding. Words get swallowed, sylabbles disappear and messages get missed. Whether you're from Ireland or Belarus or Pakistan or Japan or West Texas - if you never move your lips when you talk, people will have a hard time hearing you. Relax your jaw and your facial muscles and engage them when you talk. It may seem strange at first but it allows the air to come up from your diaphragm and escape your lips. Add in some deeper breathing as you talk and all of a sudden a weak voice becomes a lot more powerful - and we hear you better.

#5 - Gesture with purpose. Some people are deathly afraid of being seen as someone who 'talks with their hands'. But there is a simple guideline for gestures. If they have purpose, keep them. If they don't, get rid of them. At times though, punching words with gestures help us hear you better. It's great for phone calls. The counterparty can't see you. You could be standing there in a Speedo doing a Samba while you speak. They don't know. Try it. Not the Speedo and the Samba. Just the purposeful gesturing. It gives your words bite and it acts as a natural speed governor when you sync your gestures to a key word in a sentence, like "assets got crushed".

#6 - Examine your speech. Have a native English speaker listen to an audiotape of your voice and help you to identify missing articles of speech like the or a or English words you may be mispronouncing because you emphasize a different sylabble or sounds that come out differently like a d sound instead of a t or th sound. For example, if a sports talk radio host with a New York accent says the phrase "we'll be back after this" it becomes "we'll be back after dis". If that person retrains their voice with a tape recorder to get used to the th sound, they can eliminate one of the tell-tale signs of a New York accent.

#7 - Be conversational. This is why offshore (and even onshore) call centers make some people upset. People hear a person reading a script. "Of course, I can help you with that problem. May I put you on hold for a brief moment?" If you have a script to adhere to, practice it and internalize it to the point where it sounds conversational. It is doable and people will react to you more favorably and they will hear you better. I once sat next to a 'cold call' salesman for a month. We both had the exact same sales script. People hung up on me but they talked to him and he made hundred of sales. Why? He made the script his own and sounded like he and the person whose name he picked out of a phone book were long lost friends. Disingenous? Perhaps. But he argued that he was simply being friendly and talking to people as people, not as blind prospects. Whatever you think of the strategy, it worked. When we go across cultures, we tend to lose our native personality that exists in our native tongue. I know it's extremely difficult to be yourself when you are simultaneously translating in your head as you speak, but try. When we like you, we listen better.

Even if you only do these 6 things (I'll let you decide on the champagne), I believe colleagues, clients and audiences will begin to hear you better and your boss may stop trying to send you off to have your accent neutered. After all, we're not cats. We're human beings.

OK, enough of this English-Centric approach to communication.

Anyone want to help someone get rid of a Brooklyn accent when speaking Hindi?


The Global Coach