How I coach
In the real world, one plus one doesn't equal two.
Engineers think in fact patterns: get the facts right and the answer follows. It's a real strength. But I've watched a project room swing completely one way, then the other, while the facts stayed exactly the same. People decide on feeling and justify with facts. That gap is what I coach.
Why communication first
The most important skill an engineer will ever have
Engineers are trained to stack technical skills, and you can keep doing that for an entire career. But no matter how many you collect, they only create value when they reach other people: a client, a board, a crew, your own team. That happens through communication.
Leadership comes from communication. Storytelling comes from communication. So everything I coach starts there.
Two halves
Mechanics, then range
The mechanics
- Structure: point first, rule of three
- Pace, pausing and breath
- Clear language and consequence framing
- Preparation and rehearsal
A fixed path. Read it, practise it, measure it, improve it.
The range
- Voice: pitch, inflection, warmth, energy
- Body: stillness, gesture, presence
- Intention: what you are doing to the listener
- Story: making people care
No fixed path. It grows in leaps, through play and being stretched, the way actors train.
Mechanics without range sounds rehearsed. Range without mechanics sounds lost. You need both.
Three parts
Communication is words, voice and body. Words alone aren't enough.
Words decide what people know.
Structure, clarity, the operative word, the story.
Voice decides whether they believe you.
Pitch, inflection, pace, pause, volume, breath.
Body decides whether they trust you.
Face, posture, stillness, gesture, eye contact.
When the three disagree, people believe the voice and the body.
Same words, different message. 33 seconds.
A note on the numbers
Why I don't quote "93% non-verbal"
You'll hear that communication is 7% words, 38% tone and 55% body, or that body language is 70%. Neither holds up. The first comes from two small 1967 studies of single words about liking, where tone and words contradicted each other. The second traces to an anthropologist's estimate with no data behind it. What does hold up: when channels conflict, people believe voice and body; and hearing a pitch, rather than reading the same words, makes people rate the speaker as more capable.
From the stage
Tools I borrow from actors and directors
Drama schools have trained range for centuries. None of this is mysterious. It's rehearsal, play, improvisation and deliberate discomfort.
Keep the ball in the air
Inside a paragraph, hold commas and sentences up so the thought stays alive. Land it down only at the end. A falling pitch tells listeners you have finished; they relax, and in meetings it is the cue for someone to jump in.
The tip and drillThe operative word
One word per sentence carries the meaning. Choose it, then give it weight with a pause, a lift or slowing down.
The tip and drillGive every line a verb
Decide what you are doing to the listener (warn, reassure, challenge, educate) and the voice and body follow. The words stay the same; the message changes.
The tip and drillImprov: yes, and
Improvised theatre trains listening, quick thinking and calm when the plan falls apart. It is the fastest way I know to build range, and you do not need to be funny.
The tip and drillStillness
The best actors can stand perfectly still and still carry emotion. Stillness reads as control; a gesture then means something.
The tip and drillStory
People don't understand the world in facts. They understand it in stories.
Every good project has an objective, and the objective is a story: where we are, what's in the way, what we'll do, where we'll end up. On struggling projects there are usually four stories running at once: leadership's, middle management's, the office's and site's. The further they drift apart, the more rework and friction. The leaders people follow can spot the different stories and tell one everyone can get behind.
In a session
What actually happens
- Bring something real. A presentation, an interview, a meeting you are dreading.
- Watch and find the one thing. You run it. I look for the single change that will make the biggest difference.
- Practise it live. We work that one thing until you can hear and feel the difference.
- Record and take it away. You leave with a fix and a drill you can use that week.