communication skills


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Your Voice is Important. So What?

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CSPMy team and I are taking my year long communication empowerment training. And by taking, I don’t mean reviewing it and saying, “Oh, that’s nice.” I mean taking it and letting it challenge us. I mean taking it and letting it change us. I also mean taking it and letting us change it.

The process takes me back to that moment when I deeply decided to be a player in my own life, and that what I have to say is important. It was a kind of a Helen Ready, “I am woman, hear me roar” moment. Now, today, as I reaffirm that awakening, my commitment has a much different tone. The drive – the needing and demanding to be heard I once felt – has mellowed. I am my deepest voice’s most loyal listener. If no one else offers me as careful an ear, I am happy with my own listenings. I still strive for clarity to inspire synergy and communion with others. But the need for people to understand me immediately and completely and my frustration when they don’t has lifted. I listen much more now. I treasure my communication skills more for the way they help others have their say than how they enable me to have mine. 

My initial decision that my voice is important and my commitment to make my voice heard was a powerful initiation. At this stage in my life I enjoy the blessings from those efforts. I worked hard. I’m not working as hard at it anymore. The heavy lifting created a platform for a quest that isn’t a burden. My re-commitment to authentic communication is light, playful and fun. 

That’s me in the pic, receiving my “Certified Speaking Professional” award in 2006. Oh, boy. Did I ever earn it!

Where to Start

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So… now what?

If you’re ready to take your communication skills or your company’s communication skills to a dynamic new level with the SpeakStrong Method, here are some ways you can begin.

Individual

power phrases

Quick Start Communication Transformation Book Package

This book package provides hundreds of practices to build your ability to say what you mean and mean what you say, without being mean when you say it. 

SpeakStrong Method Quick Start Intensive

SpeakStrong Method get startedThis five week skill and knowledge development program walks you through the 9-step process of The SpeakStrong Method in partnership with me, Meryl Runion.

Together we’ll set your communication aspirations, assess your current skills and practice communication kata to build your communication strengths and moderate your communication excesses. It includes

  • collaborative communication assessments
  • a collaborated report of findings
  • a plan of action including training in how to upgrade your communication action plan as you outgrow yourself
  • The Quick Start Communication Transformation Package
  • five phone collaborations with me

More information is here. Cost is $500 but you can now save $300 on this fantastic deal by using the coupon code ISpeakStrong.

 

Organizational

Quick Start Communication Transformation Book Package in Bulk

If you’re ready to create a communication culture by design, not default, why not get a copy of The Quick Start Communication Transformation Package for your employees? We offer hefty discounts on orders of books by the box.

Or, bring me, Meryl, in for your next event or for training.

Collaborative Communication Keynotes

My keynotes create a vision of how dynamic a collaborative communication can be.

  • They describe the trends in business communication today that require a new dynamic of communication and leadership at every level. 
  • They shine a light on where we’re not embracing our full communication potential. 
  • Finally, they offer concrete steps to start the process of creating cultures where individuals, teams and entire organizations collaborate without compromise.

The SpeakStrong Method Training

The SpeakStrong Method training walks attendees through the steps of the SpeakStrong Method. Groups or teams learn the mechanics and principles of collaborative communication.

Together we develop a shared vision of communication excellence, assess the existing culture, note discrepancies and create both individual and group reports of findings.

From there we establish plans and practices to create a deliberate communication culture of your organization’s own design.

Who benefits?

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Who can benefit from The SpeakStrong Method?

who benefits from The SpeakStrong MethodWho is the SpeakStrong method for?

Who will get the most out of these principles and practices of effective communication?

Is the SpeakStrong method for you?

The SpeakStrong Method is NOT for Everyone. 

If you’re looking for:

  • ways to gain the upper hand,
  • tips to get the competitive advantage over everyone else, and
  • tools to put other people squarely in their place…

…I can tell you right now, this method isn’t for you. That’s not what we do here at SpeakStrong.

Qualifying Characteristics

We work with professionals and organizations who are:

  • forward leaning,
  • mission-oriented,
  • adaptive, and
  • customer focused.

Our clients are looking for the cooperative advantage, the way to inspire people to their full potential and tools to dissolve the hierarchical silos that are barriers to collaborative communication and hence to success.

Qualifying Challenges

You’re a great candidate for our services if:

  • You’re a leader ready to trade dominance for collaboration and truly develop your people.
  • You’re a manager who wants to get your staff members and yourself on the same page.
  • You’re an executive assistant ready to develop a partnership approach with your employer and associates.
  • You’re a forward-minded individual in any position who knows there’s a better way to communicate than power games and posturing.
  • You practice lean, continuous improvement and/or Toyota Kata, and seek updated communication skills and phrases to navigate in alignment with your new paradigm.

Embrace the New Dynamics of Communication

Times are changing, and so is the way to relate, communicate and succeed. If you’re interested in continuous communication improvement to turbo-charge your personal productivity or the productivity of your team or organization, contact us.

The SpeakStrong Method provides effective communication skills to help you adapt, align and collaborate without compromise to increase your effectiveness, bottom line and work satisfaction.

Communication Barrier #7: Habit

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The first step in changing any behavior is to become aware of it

communication barrier habitWhile developing effective communication skills, many of us realize that we have learned defensive or offensive communication practices that we are unaware of.

These communication habits often cause communicators to defend against non-existent attacks. Communication habits are not only automatic, but often unconscious, which makes them all the more difficult to change.

The SpeakStrong Method

  • identifies individual, relational and organizational communication cultures and the communication habits that make up those cultures.
  • provides communication standards to aspire to, to make existing habits apparent by contrast.
  • provides tools and skills to find alternative ways to communicate so when you abandon a bad habit, you have a skill to replace it with. 

Explore the SpeakStrong Method

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The SpeakStrong Method is a simple, powerful and systematic communication system to effectively express individual uniqueness in alignment with individual goals and shared aspirations.

Transform the way you and your organization relate, influence and succeed.

The SpeakStrong Method is your key to a new level of empowered, collaborative communication. It:

  • teaches new communication dynamics based on universal principles of effective communication, 
  • offers practical applications, including communication formulas, powerful phrases, and communication kata (practices), to meet the challenges of today’s business world
  • is lean-aligned (think Toyota Production System) and kata-based (think Martial Arts practice for skill development) and supports continuous communication improvement.

Communicate efficiently while relating effectively

When you communicate with an OBJECTive in mind, don’t let your listener become an OBJECT to you. The SpeakStrong Method recognizes the need for efficient communication, and aligns the objective need for speed with the importance of relating collaboratively with the listener.

Lean-aligned and kata-based communication skill

The SpeakStrong Method is lean-aligned (think Toyota Production System) and kata-based (think Martial Arts practice for skill development) and supports continuous communication improvement.

If you are ready to liberate your communication

If you want communication skills that are as dynamic as your communication challenges require 

If you are ready to take your team or organization to the next level of collaborative effectiveness…

 …check out what we can do for you at SpeakStrong. 

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”  -Henry Ford

The SpeakStrong Method: Dynamic communication skills to collaborate without compromise for clarity, innovation and success