The following is an excerpt from Jock Talk: 5 Communication Principles for Leaders as Exemplified by Legends of the Sports World.
Success is all about the floor time. When it comes to a career trajectory, executives, like athletes, often come up through the ranks by earning more and more floor or field time, demonstrating at each step of the way that they have the necessary competencies behind them and a ton of potential ahead.
For executives, like athletes, the path is sprinkled, if not littered, with public speaking opportunities. Communication is the most basic currency of business and success — no one gets ahead without needing to speak or present in front of others. The persona you cultivate and project — the tone you strike, the voice you use, the attitudes you convey — can be career-markers or –breakers for athletes and executives alike.
At the end of the day, you, like a professional athlete, are responsible for building a franchise — by winning fans, fostering team and brand loyalty, motivating others, displaying and building enthusiasm, behaving admirable in the spotlight, and handling public criticism and praise equally well.
Trust me when I say that no one is "a natural" at speaking and presenting; even the best of the best think about it and work at it. So whether you're pretty close to the pro level or still an amateur, you can adopt and adapt the basic tenets here and being to move the dial on your performance, right away.
Below are five fundamental principles of communication that will give you the confidence to know that you're "doing it right," and it will give your audience the impression that you're an all-star.
The five principles are:
- Audience-centricity
- Transparency
- Graciousness
- Brevity
- Preparedness
Taken together, they send two really important messages about you to your audience:
1) That you care about and respect them
2) That you're real and therefore credible and trustworthy
Audience-centricity
It may be a new term to you, yet it's probably the most fundamental of the five principles. Simply put, audience-centricity is making the audience's interests and experience a top priority in the planning and execution of a talk.
