Taking on more responsibilities in my group and I noticed that I am quite weak at leading calls with certain types of external parties especially in a group setting. I was never a great story teller growing up and my delivery isn't smooth at all whenever I lead calls.
How should I go on about improving my communication skills related to leading calls and meetings?
Should I look to hire a speaking coach? Are they worth the money?
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we've all been there. it's a skill that you acquire overtime as you get more and more senior. you'll also find that even amongst MDs, each has their own style.
couple of tips for your consideration:
1. reps matter. and what you should do is raise your hands to lead "low-risk" calls, where it's routine and no topic is controversial
2. situation dependent but in a lot of cases i'd run the agenda by your team ahead of time. getting the team's buy-in on agenda gives you more confidence and vice versa, it never feels good when seniors take over the call because they think you are off track. worst case is that they dont respond to your email - but no one would blame you for running agenda by them. no downside here
3. in the beginning of the call, i'd walk through agenda to the client and ask if there's anything they'd add
4. never hurts to ask your client if there has been any material updates on their end in the beginning of the call; and adjust your agenda as needed
5. at the end of the call, good to ask if anyone else would like to raise anything
Thank you for taking your time to write this. This is really helpful.
How should I go on about practicing though? And should I stop myself from creating a script (I noticed that I try to remember and follow the script and mess up if I do)?
Just like anything, you'll get the hang of it and find your rhythm once you've done it enough times. What do want to do is get as many reps as possible as an associate so you've gotten good at it by the time you're VP or up, where there's higher expectation of you to be able to do this very proficiently. When you find a "low stake" call (i.e., internal call or routine update call), just ping the VP or MD and ask if you can lead instead (most of them will gladly say yes).
Script aside, what I'd say the most important thing that should guide you through these calls is clear understanding of what you want out of the call. Is it to get an important update from someone? is it to clear a critical question that's holding up the workflow? is it to give client update on workstreams?
if you don't have a clear understanding of this, then you'd need to check with your team or just cancel the call. Everyone's time is precious so getting on a call for no clear purpose is not a good idea. Once you've figured that out, it should guide your call easily: "we wanted to jump on this call because...and with that, we want to go over topics 1, 2, 3. if that's good with everyone, I'll kick it off..."
Solid take, especially #2 and 3. Nobody likes long rambling calls so staying focused on the agenda is key. Getting buy in from team and client ahead of time will guide you as to where to zero in and make the best use of everyone's time. Also helps you plan how to prioritize the agenda, run the call and who to direct questions/discussion to. That way you know what you want to achieve from getting all these people together, rather than having a nebulous list of items.
Being prepared will immensely help your delivery. I find a part of the nervousness and faltering comes from not knowing what to expect and what to say. You can prepare yourself out of that.
You mentioned a script - I think that’s tough because in situations like this you’ll mess little items up when you try to memorize something verbatim (as you hinted). Over time you will develop a flow. Someone once told me that practice makes permanent, not perfect. G’luck!
Yeah, that’s what I noticed as well so I am trying to stick to bullet points made up of just one or two words to prevent myself from trying to memorize things going forward.
Any tips on slowing down while speaking? That’s one area I will need to address as well. If I get nervous while speaking, I will start speaking faster to the point others have difficulty understanding me.
Just practice
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