The Executive Speaks: An Executive Insider's 5 Power Speaking Secrets

By Philip Guy Rochford

Effective communication skills are vital to any executive's success. The Executive Speaks contains easy-to-follow guidelines that will help you polish your speaking skills and communicate more openly and successfully with employees.

The Executive Speaks aims to make you a master communicator by teaching the importance of:
Preparation
A strong opening statement
Choosing your words wisely
Maintaining eye contact
Relating to your audience

This easy-to-understand philosophy takes you beyond the technical aspects of effective speaking by leading you to a deeper understanding of your audience. Whether it is a one-on-one meeting with an employee or a presentation to the entire company, an executive must consider the audience's level of understanding. Knowing your audience is key to effective communication.

Author Philip Guy Rochford shows you how to improve your communication by polishing your existing skills, increasing your self-confidence, and teaching you ways to overcome nervousness. With its easy-to-follow guidelines, The Executive Speaks makes communicating simple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 19, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595786206

Philip Guy Rochford

Philip G. Rochford retired as Chairman and Managing Director of National Commercial Bank. He was trained as an Economist, Chartered Accountant and Chartered Banker. He has published nine motivational books and co-authored three other books. He has five children alive, married to Edlin, herself an author, and they live in Trinidad.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

The Prologue: The executive’s life is fashioned through speaking

1 Preparation: Rigorous preparation endears you to your audience

2 Opening: Relate with your audience at first interaction

3 Words: Words give life and power to your future

4 Eye contact: Eye contact bonds the speaker and audience

5 Relationships: Connect powerfully with your audience

6 Roles: Diversity of speaking roles

7 Informal speaking: Be always prepared

8 Vignettes: Storytelling as an alternative

9 The epilogue: Find your voice

References

Dedicated to my wife, Edlin, to my six children, Rory, Burt, Mark,

Simone, Andrea, Rachel, to my grandchildren, and to Valerie Andrew,

my coach and former business partner.

Acknowledgments

The Executive Speaks became a reality because of my support network and the 1,026 persons who allowed me to coach them in public speaking. My eternal thanks go out to them.

My special gratitude is given to the persons who made suggestions to improve the draft manuscript of this book. They are my wife Edlin Rochford, Teacher, my daughter Andrea Rochford-Douglas, Information Technology Consultant, and my friends of long standing, Justice Monica Barnes, Retired Supreme Court Judge, Anson Gonzalez, Poet and Author, Raymond Eccles, Entrepreneur and Businessman, and Eden Shand, Author and Environmental Consultant. However, I accept full responsibility for the final product.

My training over the years in public speaking was vital, and I specially acknowledge the training I received through programs by Dale Carnegie, Toastmasters International, and Landmark Education Corporation. Also, the communication workshops conducted jointly with Valerie Andrew generated the impetus to write, The Executive Speaks and I acknowledge my debt of gratitude to her.

THE PROLOGUE: The executive’s life is fashioned through speaking

The Speaking Executive

This book is different from many others in that it goes beyond the technical aspects of effective speaking. It shows how an executive should take up the communication challenges he faces on a day-to-day basis in the organization. The book also shows an executive how to handle the speaking required to satisfy the media in times of the organization’s public crises.

Forty-two years of organizational life confirmed that speaking is a vital ingredient for the executive’s success. These are some highlights of the author’s writings and training:

•   Weekly motivational column in the Trinidad Guardian for the past eight years

•   In 2003, published author of the book Live a Life of Virtual Success

•   In 1975, awarded the Humming Bird Medal Gold in the sphere of economics in the National Awards of Trinidad and Tobago

•   Business economics degree from Hull University, United Kingdom

•   Master of science (accounting) degree from the University of the West Indies

•   Chartered secretary of the United Kingdom

•   Chartered accountant

•   Reiki master/teacher

The author’s considerable experience in communication, in general and public speaking in particular, was gained through extensive work in both the private and public sectors as follows:

•   In 1993, retired as chairman and managing director of the National Commercial Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Limited, with its head office being in Port of Spain and eighteen branches spread throughout Trinidad and Tobago with eighteen hundred employees

•   Prior to appointment at the National Commercial Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Limited, he was corporate secretary of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago for three years

•   A former chairman of Trinidad and Tobago (BWIA International) Airways Corporation, Trinidad and Tobago National Petroleum Marketing Company Limited, and the International Industrial Merchant Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Limited

•   Director for fifteen years of Neal and Massy Holdings Limited, one of the largest business conglomerates in the Caribbean

•   Held other directorships in Federation Chemicals Limited, National Brewing Company Limited and the Trinidad and Tobago Export Development Corporation

•   In the 1980s served on the Council of the University of the West Indies and on the Council of the St. Augustine Campus of that University

•   In 2004, part-time lecturer in management for final year engineering students of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad

•   Able Toastmaster Bronze of Toastmasters International, and a graduate of Landmark Education Corporation, U.S. and the Dale Carnegie Program

Delivered over twenty-five hundred speeches, and conducted fifty-three communication workshops for organizations such as:

•   Republic Finance and Merchant Bank Limited

•   KFC/Pizza Hut Trinidad

•   Royal Bank ofTrinidad and Tobago Limited (now RBBT Bank)

•   National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited

•   Guardian Life of the Caribbean

•   Development Finance Limited

•   Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force

•   National Flour Mills Limited

•   National Commercial Bank of Grenada Limited

•   Youth Training and Employment Partnership Limited

•   The ACCA Caribbean Office Benefits

The benefits that you will get from reading this book are:

•   Your ideas will be communicated more clearly and powerfully.

•   Your self-confidence will increase.

•   You will become a center of influence in your organization.

•   You will position yourself to be a prime candidate for promotion.

•   You will become a champion at speaking impromptu.

•   You will handle any speaking role that you are called on to fill.

•   You will be a worthy public ambassador for your organization.

•   You will become known as a dynamic keynote speaker.

•   You will be sought out to speak by groups in the community.

•   Your interpersonal communication skills will improve.

•   You will generally be viewed as a master communicator.

•   You will be able to identify and speak to your audience’s needs.

Features

Principal features of this book include:

•   Is simply written with easy-to-follow instructions

•   Explains relevant material with little extraneous information

•   Shows you how to polish your speaking skills

•   Gives you tips to overcome nervousness

•   Demonstrates how to develop the content of your speech

•   Provides techniques for delivery of your speech

•   Emphasizes the importance of words, vocal variety, and body language in delivering your message

•   Teaches how to keep the attention of your audience through eye contact and gestures

•   Identifies the mechanics of building relationships within your organization

You need to communicate yourself to the people around you. This may be even more true in the case of an executive. There are many people inside and outside the organization whom the executive has to relate to daily.

The term executive used in this book covers both male and female executives. For convenience, the masculine pronoun is used in this material, but it covers both masculine and feminine, as female corporate executives are currently playing vital, successful roles worldwide.

The executive has to communicate his personal values and the vision, policies, and practices of the organization. To communicate well, an executive must develop skills that make his articulation clear and powerful.

Speaking successfully can be facilitated by using the concepts expressed by letters of the acronym POWER: •Preparation • Opening •Words •Eye contact •Relationship

The role of communication in an organization

Communication is the glue that holds an organization together. The people in an organization are from different backgrounds and have different values and goals for their lives. This provides a setting for disharmony that has to be