The SIXCOMMS Podcast

Jill's post on LinkedIn entitled 'The Gravitas Cocktail,' caught my attention and brought her here today.

If you’re looking to speak with more authority and gravitas then this episode is definitely for you! Jill will unpack the six essential ingredients to make a flavorful and perfectly-balanced “Gravitas Cocktail” that you can use in ensuring you connect deeply with your audience the next time you lead a meeting or make a presentation. 

Stay till the end because Jill answers this question: If you were to create just one shot with one ingredient for communicating with more gravitas and credibility, what would that one ingredient be?

I was drawn to a phrase Victoria uses a lot which is Communicating with Agility.  Or, in other words Agile Communication.  She works with mid to senior level professionals who are often working in English as their second language and they would like to strive for perfect communication.  But as she quite rightly points out we can’t become a TedTalk speaker every time we communicate with our stakeholders at work and let’s face it that style is often not the most appropriate style to use!

What is a communication agility mindset?  Victoria says a good starting point is to ask yourself: What are your communication strengths & areas to improve? Often we are very self-critical and don’t realize our strengths and miss those areas in which we can improve.

Once we have thought about ourselves, we need to turn our attention to thinking about others.  How can we best serve our audience?

We both work with clients who struggle with their confidence.  And I agree with Victoria that confidence is a journey.  I like how she compares it to a bowl of spaghetti.  And, I think the world of communication has become even more complex when we think of the virtual channel. So Communication Agility is now about:

• How to build virtual presence and connection?
• What intercultural differences should we be mindful of?
• How can we bring out the best in people so that everyone has a voice and is heard?
• What individual behaviours have we been noticing and how should we adjust our behaviour?

Stay until the end as Victoria shares her 3 top tips on becoming a more agile communicator and you won’t want to miss her PSS tool that’s so helpful when your communication goes wrong.  I think I’ve used this tool quite a number of times in my career so thank you Victoria for giving me the acronym for it!

Connect with Victoria Rennoldson:

In this episode, Sorelle shares with us some top tips on how to approach and write your Linkedin Profile, CV and Cover Letter.  I love the way Sorelle describes the LinkedIn profile as your “digital body language”.

If you want to grab the attention of potential employers or professionals to network with, make sure you listen to the top tips on how to craft an effective headline and about section. Also, don’t forget the banner photo which Sorelle likens to wearing a blazer at an interview.

We also talk about how we can make a CV persuasive and eye-catching, and what are personal statements and key words, should we include them and how should they be written with impact?

Sorelle feels passionately that you should always, when given the chance, include a cover letter as that’s your additional opportunity to pitch yourself!  Listen out for the tip on how you should approach a cover letter it’s counter-intuitive but powerful.

Stay till the end because Sorelle shares her tips for elevating your writing from just ok to great.

If you’re looking for a new role or you want to create a more attention-grabbing LinkedIn profile, this episode is for you!

Connect with Dr. Sorelle Henricus:

This episode comes at the start of a New Year and what better time to start thinking about our personal brand and how we want to communicate that to the world.  So what is a personal brand?  Darren thinks it’s: “how you project yourself, your values and how you want the world to perceive you.”

Thinking about your personal brand might seem too big a task and perhaps a bit overwhelming, but I agree with Darren in what he says that spending a couple of days on it, sharing it with some friends and writing it down onto a maximum of two pages is a great way to start.

Some questions we discuss include:

• How do we know we are clearly communicating our personal brand, and doing so in an authentic way?
• Is a personal brand something fixed or does it evolve?
• If you’d like to re-look at your personal brand or start working on it, what 3 steps should you take?

Darren shares openly and with personal insight his own learning journey when reflecting on, enhancing and becoming more confident in what his values are and how he would like to show up and communicate his personal brand.

We hope this episode inspires you to either get started or have a re-look at your personal brand and perhaps seek some feedback from others. 

Connect with Darren:

Yes, a lot of us have returned to our offices and are working more in-person.  However, there is still a lingering impact, from Covid times when we were forced to work exclusively online, on how well we communicate with each other in order to better connect rather than just to get work done.

This connection can't be left to chance; it needs to be designed.  But, everyone is so time poor these days!  So how can we ensure that space is designed for meaningful connection between colleagues?  The answer lies in designing purposeful rituals!

Alison and I discuss these questions:

• What are workplace rituals?
• What are the benefits of establishing them?
• What are some examples?
• What are the pitfalls we should be aware of?

This podcast episode is for you if you manage or lead teams and are struggling to connect in a consistent and dynamic way.  It could be that you need to establish some rituals.  It might be as simple as a check-in at the beginning of your meetings or a ritual at a kick-off meeting to a project, or an update meeting. Whatever ritual you design, you need it to be crafted collaboratively so that everyone buys in to it and it can sustain some momentum.

Alison says: “the process of behavior change is challenging, so start small.  Don't give yourself too much to do as a team initially because you'll just get burnt out! So start small. And some small steps taken consistently will lead to that progress.”

Connect with Alison:

One of the Six Cs of Effective Communication that SIXCOMMS promotes is Compassion. In order to communicate in a compassionate way with others, we first need to communicate in a compassionate way with ourselves; we need to be self-compassionate.  This episode focuses on the benefits of self-compassion not just for our own well being but how that positively translates to our relationships with others and how that impacts how we contribute at work.

I will be asking Dr Maike:

• what being self-compassionate is not
• what we say to ourselves and how we feel when we are being self-compassionate
• the benefits of self-compassion, particularly in how we communicate with others
• how self-compassion impacts our relationships at the workplace
• what practical tips she can share on how we can become more self-compassionate

I think we all struggle with that annoying self-critic at one time or another, I know I certainly do!  And the constant “I should have…” phrases we tell ourselves. For example, “I should have got that,” “I should have done that presentation better.”  Sound familiar?

This episode is for you if you want to understand more on the topic of self-compassion particularly how self-compassion acts as a catalyst in moving you away from feeling stressed and negative to getting you into a positive emotional state.

When you are in this place, you can become more creative, more innovative, more playful, more curious and experimental.  You can communicate more compassionately and have more flourishing relationships.

If you are leading or managing a team and you are being kind to yourself (being self-compassionate), you are granting other people more autonomy and freedom and that  builds trust and motivation. You allow others to make mistakes and are more forgiving, alleviating the pressure on individuals to always perform perfectly.

Connect with Dr. Maike Neuhaus:

Websites:

This is a perfect title for this episode as the way in which Kate and I first met was both creative and intentional.  It involved a networking platform called LunchClub and some Lego, more will be revealed about this in our conversation!

This episode is for you if you host online & in-person meetings and would like some inspiration on how you can connect with your colleagues in more creative ways.  Perhaps, you’re a manager who would like your team to have fun whilst playing and building deeper connections with each other.

It’s also for you if you would like to try out some new ways of introducing yourself and getting to know others at a networking event.  If you’re getting tired of your elevator pitch, then this episode will inspire you to experiment and make you stand out from the crowd!

Connect with Dr. Kate Raynes-Goldie

The creator of The SUPERCONNECT®Method:

Anita and I both feel that communicating with compassion and care has always been important, but never more so than now.  Communicating across cultures, across generations and tailoring our communication to suit different communication styles has always been challenging.  However, with the pandemic we have had to orientate ourselves to very different ways of working with added health issues so it is even more challenging now.

We explore what it means to communicate in a compassionate way with care, what it looks like in action, how the way we work now has had an impact, what it means to be professional as many of us continue to work from home and what boundaries there might be that we should consider.  If we want to communicate with more care and compassion, what might we need to keep in mind.

We are not experts in compassion, but we know it is essential to be effective communicators.  We hope this conversation will prompt further discussion.  So, if this topic resonates with you, please get in touch with us with your thoughts, ideas and questions. And, if there are any resources that have been helpful to you  in this area, then please share them with us. Here's to learning and growing our communication skills together!

Connect with Anita:

This episode is for you if you work with a lot of data and have to regularly present that data to your team and stakeholders.  You might be getting demotivated as you feel the content is just not engaging your audience and you just want to breathe some life into it and get your audience to pay attention!

I’ll be asking Thomas:

• what are the crucial elements of an engaging and memorable data presentation?
• what key questions should you ask when analysing your audience? 
• how do you decide which type of graph to use to be most impactful? 
• is presenting data as a story a good strategy? And, how should you structure such a story?

Connect with Thomas:

I’m joined by Arunanjali Maria, a business storytelling coach.  She helps leaders use the organic power of stories to drive business results and bring humanity to the workplace.

She has over 25 years of experience as a powerful facilitator in designing and delivering Capability Enhancement solutions. Her forte is providing Learning Solutions that match her client’s needs and participant’s preferences. Arunanjali’s mission is to inspire people to unleash their full potential, through impactful facilitation and powerful coaching.

She has coached clients across geographies and cultures as an Executive and Life Coach. Closely working with Women Leaders and the Start up community as a Mentor to empower and build skills to grow and succeed.

And if that’s not enough, I would add that she is a charismatic and highly skilled storyteller as you will discover in this episode.  Arunanjali doesn’t just talk about the theory of storytelling, she demonstrates it by sharing her stories with us.

We explore:

• what business storytelling is
• the elements that make a good story within a business context
• the practical tips that will help you to develop your storytelling skills

I really like how Arunanjali describes storytelling as “the new verbal cue of connecting.”  I think many of us feel that to be a good storyteller you have to be really creative and have extraordinary things to share, but as Arunanjali points out it is in the everyday experiences that we can find our most relatable and impactful stories.  And in business it is about connecting those experiences to a clear business purpose.

Connect with Arunanjali:

I’m joined by Shanthi Cumaraswamy Streat who is a Business English and Communications Coach.  Shanthi helps senior business professionals become their confident selves when communicating in English at work.

She believes that instead of learning even more words, perfecting your grammar or trying to speak without pausing (is that even possible!?), you can communicate more effectively and confidently with the English you already have.

Before becoming a language coach, Shanthi spent 20 years in the corporate world of finance and was surprised to see that the coursebooks used in Business English classrooms were so far removed from her clients’ day-to-day experiences.

That’s why she developed her own signature approach to teaching effective communication in business English which she uses to help her clients feel comfortable and confident to apply for those senior positions, participate in meetings, present to key stakeholders and showcase their expertise.

Our conversation focuses around 3 key questions:

Firstly, what does it mean to communicate confidently and credibly?

Secondly, we discuss what the main challenges are for professionals speaking English as a foreign language in terms of their confidence and credibility?  

And finally, Shanthi shares how you can develop your confidence in communicating at work with some practical tips, so please stay until the end.

Through this episode it’s clear that the responsibility of communication should not be left to just one person.  Shanthi and I believe it is a joint responsibility shared by the listener and speaker regardless of the level of English language spoken.

Resources to explore:

Articles

Maria is a passionate coach, facilitator, writer and speaker dedicated to empowering people to do their best work by supporting them in focusing on their strengths and acquiring new skills.

Having spent over a decade in China and working with people and teams in several Asian countries as well as people working in Europe I asked Maria what she thought were the main challenges in communicating across these different cultures.

When first getting to know someone, one of the most common questions we ask is:

Where are you from? As someone who has lived in Asia, like Maria, for over a decade this can sometimes feel strange as we have been outside of our birth countries for such a long time.  For  others this can be quite complex and multi-layered.  We talk about the alternative and perhaps more relevant question: Where are you local?  Does this more accurately reflect a more intentional choice of where you live?

We talk about the need to develop self-awareness when trying to communicate with others from a diverse range of backgrounds.  Annette Dahl expresses this so well by saying: “cross-cultural understanding starts with self-understanding.”

Make sure you stay until the end as Maria shares a 3-step process you can take to develop your communication skills and ensure that collaboration thrives in your team beyond just cultural background.

Resources to explore:

Taiye Selasi: Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local (TED Talk)

In this episode, episode 16, I’m joined by Kate Jackson. Kate is a multi award winning Leadership, Learning & Development consultant and is the founder of Andragogy.  She is an accomplished strategic communication and learning consultant offering Institute of Leadership & Management accredited courses.  Kate has over 15 years of experience working across a range of industries designing and delivering training to executives, teams and whole organisations to improve performance, communication and collaboration.

For this episode, Kate and I explore the ways we are communicating now with a particular focus on the way we influence.  Some questions we consider are:

1) What do we understand by communicating to influence?

2) In the last 2 years how has the way we communicate impacted on how we influence?

3) How can we create more coaching style conversations in order to influence, rather than just  telling others?

4) How can we ask better questions to create psychologically safe spaces?

5) How can we help others to commit to action?

6) What are the 3 things that someone can do to make them a more influential communicator?

Both Kate and I think that the first and most important element of influence is connection.  But as Kate points out: “People are like water.  They always take the easy route, so we’ve found that people default to email.”  This is understandable as our working lives have changed considerably over the last couple of years; remote, online and hybrid trying to connect with people in multiple locations - it’s not been easy! And telling, advising and delegating seems to be the quickest way in which to get others to do what we want.  But is this really influencing?

To influence is the ability to change someone’s behaviour or attitude, so shouldn’t we be considering what other communication channels are available to us to ensure more positive and deeper connections are made so that our capacity to influence improves?

We hope this episode will encourage you to step back and consider where you are on the communication continuum from the authoritarian telling someone what to do do through to advising, guiding and opening up conversations and asking questions.  As Tony Robbins says: “successful people ask better questions and as a result they get better answers.”

Check out this article:

https://hbr.org/2013/07/connect-then-lead

Connect with Us on LinkedIn:

In this episode I’m joined by Jess Flack. Jess is a commissioner for skills development at Essex County Council in the UK.  She spots gaps in skills and employment provision for Gen Z those aged 18 to 24 years and commissions projects to close these gaps.  Jess has been a graduate recruiter for KPMG and Cisco and a project manager for Hobsons where she interviewed graduates in China.  She has worked in Higher Education for 15 years teaching employability, work based learning and professional development.  She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

For this episode, Jess and I talk about the challenges that Gen Z face when communicating with others in the workplace and how we can communicate more effectively across the generations.

We explore these questions:

1) What is a Gen Z?

2) In what ways are these labels helpful / not helpful?

3) Is communicating across the generations about finding common ground or something else?

4) What role does community play in connecting and communicating across generations?

5) What can older generations do to contribute to better communication at the workplace now?

6) What 3 top communication tips would you give to a Gen Z wanting to connect more with their teams / managers at work?

Both Jess and I had early work experience in customer-facing roles and these early professional experiences gave us a variety of workplace skills such as being able to effectively communicate with customers, colleagues, managers and supervisors and being able to handle a range of front-line service situations raising our ability to think on our feet and building our resilience and confidence.  To this day, I refer to experiences I had as a young adult.  However, the 18-24 year olds today have not had these kind of opportunities.  We have been busy dealing with the pandemic which has forced us online and into our homes; often disconnected from others. It’s not surprising then that talking with people face-to-face leaves these younger professionals filled with anxiety and dread.

There are things that we can all do across the generations to open up connecting conversations and alleviate some of this anxiety.  Isn’t it incumbent on all of us to help each other navigate this ever-changing world of work and find common ground across all generations so that we can learn from one another and work more effectively?

We hope this episode will give you some ideas and inspiration on initiatives you can take both inside and outside your organizations as both young professionals, managers and leaders.

Jess recommends:

In this episode, I’m joined by Kim Page. Kim is a Communication Trainer, TEDx Speaker and Vocal Coach who helps professionals increase their impact and influence. Her method, the Right Kind of Loud, is all about expanding your comfort zone from the inside and out. You learn how to adjust to the person you are trying to reach, fine-tuning your message to the specific situation at hand.

With the Right Kind of Loud you make your mark, connecting with people in the room and on the screen. Kim’s gift is to make you glow, leaving your audience hungry for more.

For this episode, we focus our attention on one of the Six Cs of Communication, which is Curiosity, specifically in relation to growing your network.

We explore these questions:

1. What does it mean to listen with curiosity and what do we gain from it?

2. How can listening with curiosity help us expand our network and build connection with others?

3. What practical tips can we share to build our curious listening capacity online?

In our conversation we fully acknowledge the difficulty in listening curiously.  It is a fundamental skill in building positive relationships and takes so much more energy and bandwidth than speaking.  There are a lot of factors at play that prevent us from communicating with curiosity, such as when we are in pain, when we feel afraid that we will be judged, when we are tired, distracted, recovering and healing.

The fact is that everybody is struggling to listen!  As Kim so eloquently expresses: “we cannot really listen when our inner noise is loud.”

However, when we can quieten that inner noise, lean in, really listen with open curiosity and warmth some magical and meaningful conversations can happen and deep connections with others can be made.

Kim recommends you check out her resources:

- registration for monthly Masterclass - real-time communication coaching and dialogue; a great way to network with depth

In this episode I’m joined by Hari Haralambiev who is the co-founder of Tochka 2 and is developing a platform called SoftSkillsPills.com focused on soft skills for IT people.

One of those soft skills, a fundamental part of being an effective communicator, is giving feedback.  Even the word feedback seems to strike fear in many a professional and “feedforward” has become an alternative term to use for this often-challenging professional skill.

However, is it really the word that’s the issue or how we deliver and communicate feedback to others?

Feedback is a gift, but be careful of the wrapping!  This seems to sum up our conversation well.

The content of the feedback can be very helpful to develop professionally, but how that feedback is delivered “the wrapping” is crucial in whether the content is accepted or rejected.

In this episode, we discuss the principles of giving feedback that should make the experience a positive one for both the feedback giver and receiver.

There are so many approaches, models and frameworks that you can follow and it’s difficult to know which one to use.  We argue that one size does not fit all. However, there are a few we prefer and we will share these in the last part of this episode.

Hari’s recommended resources:

In this episode I’m joined by David Pullan of The Story Spotters to chat about a form of communication that sends all of us into a state of anxiety and fear.  Yes, that’s right – PRESENTATIONS!

For a lot of us, like me, that word conjures up very unpleasant memories of my school days. You cringe as the teacher calls you up to stand in front of the class.  Your peers are all staring at you and all you want is for the floor to swallow you up and for this nightmare to end!

This word presentation doesn’t just strike fear in us as students, but also as accomplished and highly experienced professionals.  David and I have worked with many such professionals so in this episode we wanted to break down why this word can have such a negative impact on us as communicators and discuss:

· How we can reframe our approach and thinking towards our audience

· How amplifying our communication superpowers can help us connect authentically with our audience

· How we can make presenting numbers more engaging and compelling

Please, stay until the end because you won’t want to miss David’s top tip for showing up and having real presence on screen; a technique he terms “discovering your inner UFO” and it’s not what you’re thinking!

This is the first episode of season 2 and I’m joined by the lovely Susanne Heiss. You might want to reflect on the past year or last 6 months or the last 3 months of a project you've been working on.  This episode is jam-packed with some fresh ideas and inspiration on reflection activities (otherwise known as Retrospectives) that you can include in your next team meeting or learning event.

How do we learn? Well, one fundamental aspect of learning is taking the time to pause and reflect with your colleagues and this is where “Retrospectives” are highly beneficial.

Susanne and I discuss:

· What retrospectives are and why they should be part of any meeting, workshop, or project big or small

· What the fundamental principles of setting up retrospectives are so that everyone can share openly and honestly AND

· What our favorite retrospectives are, we guarantee they are simple, don’t have to take much time and are packed full of opportunities to learn, grow and celebrate with your colleagues

And, don’t miss the end when I will be sharing my own creation – The Compass Retrospective!

Would you like to explore more Retrospectives?

In this episode, I’m joined by Prakash Mathur who is an EQ coach, training consultant and CEO of Transformative Training in Singapore.  We share a passion for learning and professional development.  We recognize the need for all professionals to develop their Emotional Intelligence in order to be more effective communicators in the workplace.

The questions we answer in this episode are:

· What is EQ?

· Why is it so important now?

· How can it be used to enhance our communication skills?

· What steps can we take to develop our Emotional Intelligence?

In this episode I’m joined by my friend Emma Konopka who is a co-active coach. We are both self-confessed learning magpies! This means we are curious about everything to do with learning and development. In our professions as coaches and facilitators we need to be able to hold spaces for meaningful conversations to take place. We need to be able to build connection and rapport quickly so that people can open up and explore ideas together. In Emma’s words we need “space to be human!”

Creating such safe spaces are essential, especially now as people are working remotely and perhaps feeling less present and connected with one another. Emma suggests that we need to “dance in the moment more” and become fully present for each other.

Emma and I explore:

1. What curious conversations are and what they involve

2. What “dancing in the moment” is

3. The benefits of holding “agendaless” meetings

4. Connecting to people in different countries and time zones

5. Techniques to help us be more present and show up fully to a virtual meeting

6. What “thinking beyond our brains” means!

7. Getting clear on why we are meeting and having a loose structure to the meeting

8. Spacious listening – the importance of silence & allowing others to expand on their answers

Resources to explore if you’re still curious!

Dance in this Moment

To have listening skills is a crucial element of being able to communicate effectively.

“Listening is a positive act: you have to put yourself out to do it.” David Hockney

There are a lot of resources out there about listening and it can be quite overwhelming! So, this is the second part of a series of solo episodes I have recorded focusing on the discipline of listening.

I completed Oscar Trimboli’s Deep Listening Quiz and in this episode, I will share with you my primary listening villain AND:

• which tips resonated most with me and why
• my time at Singapore Airlines as a communication skills trainer for the newly recruited cabin crew

I will also share my STOP, THINK, CHOOSE approach to listening and what 3 steps you can take right away to start developing your listening skills.

Resources:

To listen well requires a lot of effort. It is worth making the effort if you want to be an effective communicator. And I believe it has got a lot more challenging and complex since the world has moved online and we are working in a number of different ways with the distractions of working from home and communicating through screens for most of the day.

There are a lot of resources out there about listening and it can be quite overwhelming! So, this is the first part of a series of solo episodes I will be recording dedicated to the art of listening.

Hi, I’m Lisa, your host and I have been a teacher and learning facilitator since I graduated in 2002. I know first-hand what a crucial part listening skills play in understanding learner needs and successfully collaborating with clients to create impactful learning experiences.

I have been delivering learning experiences focused on developing communication skills for a range of professionals working in a variety of organisations over the past 12 years in Singapore. Organisations I have worked with include Singapore Airlines, Marina Bay Sands and TikTok.

In this episode join me as I explore:

• A technique that will help you prepare to listen attentively
• Julian Treasure’s R.A.S.A listening framework
• how our positioning in front of the camera impacts our capacity to listen and to be listened to

Resources:

Silence by Lemniscates

As a graduate of Psychology, teacher of English Language and now a Corporate Learning Facilitator I have an insatiable curiosity and thirst to continually develop and learn. So too does my friend Yee Lin who is an advocate for continuous learning and is Head of Programme at a leading private institution in Singapore.

Yee Lin works with young professionals and students. She believes, like me, that curiosity is essential to succeed in a professional environment.  She says that “for someone new in an organisation what is very important is to find out how their everyday work relates to the overall objective or mission of the company. Being curious allows that to be discovered.”

Yee Lin and I discuss these fundamental questions:

1. What is curiosity to you and why does it matter?

2. How does being curious help young professionals?

3. What stops young professionals from being curious and asking questions?

4. What can leaders do to invite curiosity into the work environment?

5. What personal examples can you share when leaders have encouraged curiosity?

6. What can all professionals do to develop their curiosity?

It's not just Zoom Fatigue we're suffering from, it's Email Fatigue too! 

The emails we send need to make the reader feel positive. But, how do we do this? What are the key ingredients in writing an email that is clear and compassionate at the same time?

Hi, I’m Lisa, your host and I have spent over a decade designing and delivering professional email writing skills workshops. In that time, I’ve shared some techniques that have helped many professionals improve their email writing significantly!

In this episode I will share:

• the 3 fundamental questions to ask yourself before writing any email
• what to include in the opening section of an email
• my thoughts on adapting our writing style to suit the reader’s style
• The Case Study of “Rachel”
• how to write clearly & customize our language to the audience
• the 3 elements of a compassionate email reply to a complaint

Articles I refer to in this episode are:

• How to Manage Email Overload at Work by Caroline Castrillon

Hi, I’m Lisa your host and I would like to share a little bit about me and how I came up with the Six Cs of Effective Communication. From a young age I was fascinated by people – how they behave and communicate with each other. This fascination led me to study English and Psychology at University and then become an English Language Teacher travelling to several countries before settling in Singapore where I pivoted to corporate training, working with clients such as Singapore Airlines and Marina Bay Sands.

In this episode you will find out about:

• how I came up with the Six Cs of Effective Communication
• what each C means to me
• why I think they are important now
• how they can be used to help you develop your communication skills