3 Ways To Immediately Improve Your Executive Communication Skills

How are you reflecting on your communications this week? …Did your board meeting go to plan? …Did you get what you needed from your executive team? …Did you receive the expected feedback from your company meeting? …Was your press coverage from your interviews at Davos what you expected? …Do you think you really got your message across in that tough 1-1 conversation you had to have?

Think back to the start of one of those moments…

How did you feel as you started speaking? Did you feel in control, confident of your lines and excited to share your message? Or perhaps you were running between back-to-back meetings, hadn’t had time to clear your head or review your script? 

Maybe you have felt like a talking head where you can’t connect to the words that are falling from your lips that someone else wrote for you and you are wondering exactly what you will say next? 

Here are three ways you can immediately improve your executive communication skills. You already have started some of the work if you paused above and thought about what went well and what could have gone better this week. 

You need to focus on preparation, content, and delivery. Immediately you might know which you are great at and which needs more effort. 

1. Preparation: Your preparation needs to be done at a pace you are comfortable with. This will depend on the audience and the event. Preparing for your seventh Company All Hands will be different from your first. Some CEOs like to write their own talking points and scripts, then let someone else finesse and edit them. Others prefer to give a verbal download and let their communications guru craft the soundbites and stories. Others still prefer to be handed their full script and make minor edits. Any of these scenarios can work as long as it is intentional. Your preparation will also depend on your confidence in your communications team and their ability to “get” your voice and the voice of your company. This takes skill and ability to craft the unique angle of the company while also infusing the CEO’s voice throughout. Depending on the event you may need heavy support from your CFO or Legal team. The most crucial part of your preparation is blocking enough time in your calendar ahead of the event to allow for edits and revisions. 

2. Content: It is painful to watch when words are spoken but nothing is really said. Your content and messages needs to be relevant and real, with a connection to your audience and what they care about. Whether meeting an investor, journalist, industry peer for the first time or meeting an executive you have worked with for decades, knowing the right messages you want to deliver is essential. 

3.Delivery: Compelling messages and thoughtful preparation can be lost if you don’t get your message across. You can measure your delivery in three ways:

Convey: How well you command the physical or virtual conversation, your ability to succinctly get your message across in as few words as possible. Remember: “No one will thank you for being verbose.” 

Captivate: Whether 1–1, in writing, or in front of a live audience, your ability to enthrall, engage, and convince your audience will get your message across in a powerful way. The prolific use of vocabulary that provokes new thoughts and ideas, the impactful use of silence, pace, and enunciation will help everyone remember you and your message long after you finished. 

Connect: The interactive part of any communication is what sets apart the outstanding from the great. Anyone can practice and deliver a well-rehearsed script, but when it comes to the free-flowing interaction and questions, this is where you can build incredible results. 

So what happens when you don’t quite get it right?

Slick, empty words. Have you ever sat through an interview or conversation wondering exactly what you have been told? This happens when someone has prepared well and delivered flawlessly but their content isn’t powerful or memorable enough. Prior to every communication moment you need to ask yourself this one question: “What three messages do I want my audience to remember?” 

Fumbled lines: If you have ever winced on behalf of a leader who couldn’t quite get their words out, this is what happens when delivery is lacking despite ample preparation and strong content. This becomes a huge, missed opportunity as everyone focuses on the style and verbal mishaps and can’t absorb the messages. 

High-stress effort: Personally, with my work with CEOs this is the most common scenario that I experience. With strong content and usually a dynamic delivery, a lack of thoughtful organized preparation creates high-stress moments that are completely avoidable and unnecessary. This is caused by a lack of schedule planning by their executive assistant, not having a strong enough communications guru leading the preparation process, or, for external media, a harried public relations firm that isn’t prioritizing the opening night performance for their client. 

You can follow the Triple 30 Rule for intentionally communicating at every level. If you follow these goals for each of the three 30s, you will calmly get your message across right before the event: 

30 days prior: the purpose, audience, topics, and messages are clear. 

30 hours prior: the details, logistics, and script are confirmed. 

30 minutes prior: your free silent time to prepare. 

All of these gaps are fixable and now you can identify which one, two, or three areas you can focus on to improve your executive communications for any audience. 

Want to go deeper? My latest book Words That Work has additional tools and ideas for increasing the impact of your executive communications.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

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