FCCS News & Insights

Communicate With Confidence, Increase Your Influence

07/15/2021

Communication is the cornerstone of leadership. Expressing yourself with clarity to motivate your team to deliver on your goals is essential to leaders at every level. How we communicate is how we operate, so it follows that if we have poor communication, we’ll have poorer operation.

“Go from A Leader to THE Leader,” an FCCS communications program built and delivered with World Champion public speaker and world-wide Keynote speaker Ryan Avery, develops communication skills and offers simple tools to express yourself with more confidence. It teaches tools to develop connections with others to create a foundation for communication, and skills to clarify and deliver your message for maximum impact, including very simple approaches to help your conversations be more productive, your presentations more effective, to feel more confident in networking and social situations, and to deliver feedback that people will listen to, rather than resist.

“No matter what position you’re in, all of us can communicate more effectively and efficiently,” says Ryan. “Communicating is different than talking – talking is about getting out what you want; communication is about getting people to focus on what we want. Fortunately, there are very simple ways to improve your communication and your leadership impact.”

Effective communication is valuable for every individual in any role, and for every organization regardless of industry. According to the Holmes Report, companies today lose an average of $26,041 per worker, per year due to poor communication. On the other hand, organizations with highly effective communicators at the helm saw 47% higher total returns than firms with the least effective communicators as leaders. In a survey of more than 1,200 full-time employees, 85% said they would feel significantly better about what they did at their job if they had better ways to communicate, but 75% had never been offered communications training by their employer.

“Go from A Leader to THE Leader” was launched in 2020 and included 42 participants representing a variety of roles, organizations and seniority. Each week, they watched short video lessons in their own time and completed simple activities in the program’s Workbook for Workplace Application. The group then attended facilitated weekly calls, with small-group breakouts, to discuss their learnings and how they apply to real-world situations, and to practice their skills.

“The greatest benefit of the program is that there are takeaway lessons, tools and skills every single week that are applicable to communicating with coworkers as well as family and friends,” says Stephanie Barton, Vice President of Marketing for FCCS and facilitator of the “Go from A Leader to THE Leader” program. “Speaking with confidence makes your decisions more trusted and helps you create deeper connections with, and have more influence over, other people.”

Participants in the 2020 “Go from A Leader to THE Leader” program rated it very highly, with 96% of respondents saying that they’re very likely or likely to apply the skills and tools. One said, “This is the best program I have attended virtually or in-person. The tools are useful and can actually be put into practice every day. I enjoyed the storytelling and the breakout sessions. I would recommend this program be mandatory for all FCS employees.” Another said, “This was an exceptional course that made the most of our time and worked well in the digital format. I learned something meaningful every week and will continue to incorporate the lessons into my life.”

The 2021 “Go from A Leader to THE Leader” program is open for registration. The program will begin in August and culminate in a one-day workshop in November in Denver. Space is limited so register soon; registration closes August 6. For more information, or to discuss a dedicated program with your team, contact Stephanie Barton by email or at 303.721.3217.