The greatest asset speakers have isn’t their knowledge or “charisma”. It’s their adaptability and confidence to handle the unexpected.
How would you define an “Effective Communicator?” What are the characteristics of an effective communicator?
I have a background in acoustics so I define communication in engineering terms: sound is emitted, transmitted, then received. An “effective communicator” is someone who has mastered all three steps:
- They can clearly translate their thoughts into words.
- They can clearly organize their words to express a point.
- Their point is received clearly by their audience.
The key step is the last one: no matter how clear your words are, you must sufficiently understand your audience to get your point across.
How can one tailor their communication style to different audiences or situations?
Research, research, research. Here’s a garden analogy: if you want to put a new plant in your garden, you have to do research first. What is the soil, climate, and overall environment like? What’s already in the garden that could live harmoniously with this new plant?
The same goes for speaking. If you want to say things that are understood and remembered, you have to do research first. What are your audience’s beliefs and what is their level of knowledge? Are they technical or non-technical? What action do they need at the end of this presentation? What are their biggest pains and priorities?
Before communicating to any audience, do your due diligence to research what information they already know, so your new information can successfully take root.
Can you provide an example of a time when you had to adapt your communication style to reach a particular audience successfully?
I was invited to open a conference with a talk on presentation skills. I’d spoken about the topic several times before, and had all my slides and talk tracks from previous conferences. In theory, this new talk was a no-brainer.
But I kept a promise I made to myself when I started public speaking: Never go on autopilot.
Every opportunity is different and requires just as much care and attention. In this case, the audience for the conference was audit professionals, a group I had no prior experience with. I wanted to be sure the material was relevant for them, so I ended up crafting an entirely new talk with customized case studies they would find familiar.
The result was an incredibly engaged audience – several participants who I stayed in touch with afterwards were shocked to learn I didn’t have a previous audit background. It reinforced the number one tip I teach for communication: you can’t succeed unless you know your audience.
How do you handle difficult or sensitive conversations while maintaining open and effective communication?
This is my guiding philosophy: you can say anything you want, if you’re willing to accept the consequences.
I was working with one client who wanted to master her communication as a leader. She preferred communicating more passively to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. I told her the following: there are consequences for every style of communication, and you have to find what you’re comfortable with accepting.
- If you speak passively, you bear the consequences. You don’t express what you want, and nothing changes.
- If you speak aggressively, the other person bears the consequences. You may get what you want from them, but at the cost of your relationship.
- If you speak assertively (yet still respectfully), you balance those two extremes. You accept you won’t say everything on your mind, unfiltered. You also accept the conversation may feel uncomfortable because it’s more forward than you’re used to. But you acknowledge it allows you to handle the difficult situation in the most tactful way.
In your experience, how does storytelling play a role in impactful speaking? Why do you think stories are effective in communication?
While working with one technical leader on their upcoming presentation, I noted one weakness: there were plenty of compelling facts and data points, but no strong narrative connecting them together. It was as if they had painted the sky with a thousand stars, but forgotten to draw in lines for constellations.
- I helped them see that data is important to ground communication with precision and credibility, to help the audience zoom in to specific problems at a granular, analytical level.
- But to connect with people, you need story. You need to zoom out and show the bigger picture: “why” do those data points matter? What are we trying to do? Who is being affected?
When this technical leader updated their presentation and complemented their data with story, the impact was immediate. Her audience immediately got the point and understood what next steps were needed.
What are your “5 Essential Techniques for Becoming an Effective Communicator”?
1. Ground yourself in the objective data
Don’t take things personally. During one conference talk, for example, I was asked a critical question. Someone disagreed with the way I presented the information. It was tempting to take the question personally, get defensive, and monologue about why I was “right” and they were “wrong”. But I stopped and grounded myself in the objective data of the situation: I’m being asked a question and I need to respond based on my area of expertise.
What I ultimately said was I appreciated their perspective because it revealed alternative solutions. And that led to a great discussion with the rest of the audience about even more solutions that were possible. By “not taking things personally”, you can think clearly and respond appropriately.
2. Be aware of your interpretation and bias
Once our brain receives objective data from our environment, it filters it so we see what we want to see. In psychology, this is known as confirmation bias. One client I was working with, for example, was terrified of speaking to large audiences. She was worried everyone in the room who was looking at her was secretly judging her.
But I told her to look at just the objective data of the situation: people are just looking.
- They could indeed be looking because they’re judging you.
- But they could also be looking because they’re paying attention, since you’re about to speak.
- Or they could be looking at you positively because they regard you as an expert.
Realizing there are other ways to interpret the same situation helped her not take the situation personally, and enter her next public speaking engagement with more confidence.
3. Regulate your emotional response
Your brain’s interpretation of a situation determines how you feel about it. If your emotions reach a peak, you may regret the next words you say. Avoid this by pausing before you speak. See if you can re-interpret the current situation in a more positive light.
During one presentation, for example, my slides stopped working right at the beginning of the presentation. My mind immediately went into fight-or-flight mode.
“What do I do?! How could this happen?!!”
But before speaking, I paused, took a step back, and tried to reframe my circumstances:
“Yes my slides are broken. But the slides are not the presentation, just visual support. I can give my material without them”.
Thankfully the tech team helped fix the slides just in time, but that mental reset helped me complete the rest of the talk without freaking out.
4. Speak to connect, not to control
Once you’re ready to speak, let go of your need to control the outcome. Every time I give a keynote I remind myself: I cannot control if people like me or not. Yes, I can certainly influence that. But I cannot control it. Even if I delivered the most well-prepared, thoroughly-rehearsed presentation ever, it might still miss the mark if my audience isn’t having a good day. All I can do is be present and do the best job I can: in other words, focus solely on things within my control.
5. Observe and learn from the outcome
If there is something you did wrong (within your control), review, reflect, and revise for next time. When I was preparing for my TEDx talk, for example, I was so nervous to make a good impression on my coaches that I spoke at 2x my normal speed. Their feedback was:
“We didn’t understand most of the presentation”.
I took the feedback to heart and rehearsed over and over again to master the rhythm and manage my nerves. During my TEDx talk, I achieved the pace I wanted because I took the time to address my mistake and improve on it.
How do you integrate non-verbal cues into your communication? Can you provide an example of its importance?
One client I worked with wanted to improve her body language and develop executive presence. She had tried watching YouTube videos about the right place to hold her hands, the right gestures to look confident … none of it worked. I advised: Non-verbal communication should be a natural extension of your words, not theater.
We looked at what she was already doing, tightened it, and enhanced it. Instead of just raising her hands and moving them around while she spoke, I helped her use gestures for visualization – to break down complex ideas and bring each piece to life, one at a time.
The result: she was able to more clearly articulate her thoughts, and her audience was able to more easily follow along. All it took was closer attention to using gestures more purposefully.
How has digital communication changed the way you convey your messages? Are there any specific challenges or advantages you’ve encountered?
The advantage of digital communication is its reach. I can give a storytelling training to a globally distributed team. I can coach a client halfway across the world on their upcoming presentation.
But the disadvantage of digital communication is its excess:
- We can make slides at the click of a button.
- We can find all the facts and stats we want online.
- So we see business presentations with too much text, too many numbers, too much information all at once.
For that reason, I generally take a “less is more” approach. People are already overwhelmed with constant digital distraction. Be sure the content you communicate to them cuts the fluff and gets to the point.
Public speaking is a common fear. What techniques or strategies do you recommend to manage and overcome stage fright?
Here are three things I tell myself before every keynote or workshop I give:
1. The audience is rooting for you
After all, they don’t want to see a bad presentation. That would be a waste of their time! No matter how quiet your audience is, know they’re on your side, and want you to succeed.
2. It’s only a “mistake” if you make it one
If you trip and fall on stage, for example, you could freak out and make a big deal out of it, ensuring the audience never forgets that happened. Or you could calmly get up, even humorously play it off, and move on with your presentation, ensuring the audience focuses on your actual content.
3. Nervousness is the flip side of excitement
They have the same physical sensation, after all: shaking limbs, heat rising in your neck, a vibrating, pulsating knot in your stomach. You will interpret those sensations as “nervousness” if you view your situation negatively:
“Oh, I’m going to do horribly and everyone’s going to laugh and judge and criticize me…”
By contrast, you will interpret those sensations as “excitement” if you view your situation positively:
“Ok, I’m going to do great, I’ve done all the preparation, I know the audience is on my side and I can handle any ‘mistakes’”.
If you catch yourself feeling nervous, remember: you can flip the coin around, change your interpretation of the situation, and reframe in a more positive light.
What additional resources do you recommend for individuals looking to improve communication skills?
Record yourself. It beats reading about communication and watching other people communicate. In the safety and comfort of your own home, record yourself for 1 minute. Then watch it back (I know the hard, but necessary part), and identify one thing you want to improve the next time. Doing this every single day will improve your communication skills astronomically, because you’re actually communicating instead of thinking about doing it and practicing in your head. (And no one but you ever has to watch those recordings!)
This blog contains excerpts from an interview conducted by Athalia Monae. The full article was originally published in Authority Magazine on January 9, 2026.
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