Words to avoid when speaking

Five Phrases to Avoid when Speaking

George Torok Communication skills, Insights, Leadership communication, Public Speaking Leave a Comment

If you are a leader or hope to be a leader in your company, organization or community – your words matter. It matters what you say and were wise enough not to say.

Are you paying attention to your words and implications? Guess what? Your audience pays attention and draws inferences and conclusions from your words. Here are five phrases that are counterproductive to your message because they can confuse or distance your listeners. People might not consciously notice these flaws, but these phrases can cause unconscious dissonance in your message.

Mind your words because they matter. Be precise and prudent with your choice of words. Remove words that are wasted, distracting or annoying.

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Executive speech coach interview

George Torok interviewed on KAG Masterclass

George Torok Communication skills, George Torok, Insights, Leadership communication Leave a Comment

What I do for them is I observe how they come across and I think about who’s their audience. What does their audience need?  What’s the mindset of their audience? And I help the executive deliver the message in a way that the audience gets it and understands it and acts on it. I saw one of your videos where you put it nicely. These senior executives are technicians. They know what they know, and they don’t know how to convey that effectively.

They’re not effective communicators. Yeah it’s true many leaders are leaders because of their technical expertise. They could be an accountant, an engineer or operations person and that’s how they got to lead their department and maybe eventually the company, but they are grounded in the technical part and that’s the language that they use. When they become the leader of an organization they need to speak the language of the common person the common person in the company and the common person in their market.

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Worst presentation ever manure

Worst Presentation Ever: Silly Phrases pt 3

George Torok Communication skills, Insights, Leadership communication, Presentation Tips Leave a Comment

What can you learn from the worst presentation? There is no Perfect Presentation. The goal is to deliver an effective presentation. An effective presentation is one that informs and moves the audience. As a presenter you can learn from the techniques of effective presenters. What did they do that worked well and you might be able to use in your presentations?

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Worst presentation ever from Harvard professor

Worst Presentation Ever: Part Two: Clear?

George Torok Communication skills, Insights, Leadership communication, Presentation Tips, Public Speaking Leave a Comment

We Can’t Hear You. The next flaw was that we didn’t hear or understand many of his words. Why? He mumbled often. Mumbling is a sign of incomplete thoughts and the lack of editing your words for a clear message.

His voice often trailed off at the end of his sentences. That’s a common mistake made when a speaker is thinking about their next thought instead of finishing the current thought. He wore a lapel microphone and often turned his face away from the mic which meant that his voice faded. That’s a mistake made by novice speakers. He didn’t know how to use a microphone.

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Worst presentation ever Ram Charan

Worst Presentation Ever: Harvard Professor

George Torok Communication skills, Insights, Leadership communication, Presentation Tips Leave a Comment

Imagine the worst presentation ever. Now, read this post to compare. Read on to discover what not to do during your presentation. Learn from the mistakes of this Harvard professor.
He had impressive credentials. He was Harvard educated and a Harvard educator. He’d authored at least 15 books. He was endorsed by Jack Welch and had spoken to business executives around the world. Wow! Sounds impressive! But… he was a lousy speaker. Calling him “lousy” is being kind and polite to him but not to his audience. He certainly wasn’t kind and polite to the audience.

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CEO says silly things on Linkedin profile

President says silly things on Linkedin profile – nonsense

George Torok Communication skills, Insights Leave a Comment

People say silly and ridicules things in their Linkend profile.
This is an example of both silly and ridicules. Would you hire this person? Would you even invite this person to have a conversation? The Linkedin profile is vague, cliché  and lacking in accomplishments.
This could easily be text that was lifted from a university text book.
Notice that not a single accomplishment is stated nor measured.

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speak to hostile audience

How to Tame a Hostile Audience: Lessons from Marc Antony

George Torok Communication skills, Insights, Leadership communication, Public Speaking Leave a Comment

What can you do when facing a hostile audience?  How can you speak so they listen? How might you connect with them so they see your side of the message? Those are difficult challenges that we can learn to face by learning from Shakespeare – in particular the speech that Marc Antony gave after the death of Julius Caesar.

Notice the shift in tone of the audience and the techniques used to persuade the audience to change their thinking. Let’s visit the scene and listen to the speech and the changing tide of the audience.

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