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Bosses who need speech coaches

Indianapolis Star columnist Matthew Tully has an article in today’s newspaper focusing on the oratorical skills of the Indianapolis mayor.  Politicians are often the subject of critiques—on everything from policy to polish. For city bosses, and all elected officials, it’s part of the territory.  Constituents are vocal.  And their comments can be damaging.

But there is another group whose communication skills are also critiqued—bosses in the business world.  Their constituents (employees) are also vocal. Maybe not voiced in a newspaper with a circulation of 250,000, but critiqued just the same.  And these corporate constituent comments can be just as damaging.

People judge their bosses on just about everything.  And that includes the way they communicate.  Employee comments may come over coffee, during the car pool ride home, in a discussion over the back yard fence, on Face Book, or in a blog.

Posted by Jean Palmer Heck in General articles. Leave a Comment

Obama Delivers Somber, Yet Uplifting Address

Barack Obama once again used his words and poetic style to inspire, motivate and bring together the nation and world as he gave his inaugural address just minutes ago.  While it lacked repeatable sound-bites, like Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” there was no mistake that it was time all Americans take a role and imitate the dedicated members of the military in a spirit of service.

Positive Things to Glean About Speaking from Obama’s Inaugural Address

1.  It was about the audience.  (My number one rule of writing speeches.)

  • He used the word “I” only 3 times, while using “we” more than 50.

Posted by Jean Palmer Heck in General articles. Leave a Comment