Archive for category: General

What is Speech Coaching for Foreign-born  Executives & Non-native English Speaking Professionals all about?

Speech Coaching can take a lot of forms, and the key to what we offer at English by the Hour is that our programs are customized for non-native speakers of American English and foreign-born professionals, not general “one size fits all.”  This way we can blend elements of accent reduction (pronunciation, word stress, and intonation) with business related language (business conversations, presentations, meetings) in a way that allows people to fill in any gaps in their learning. This way clients don’t waste time on concepts they already know and don’t struggle needlessly to produce a result.

In traditional speech coaching, the focus might be on pointing out what you are doing differently, leaving you to figure out how to fix it. If you are talking too fast, for example, what can you do about it? Trying to talk more slowly often doesn’t work. Instead, you need to focus on breathing patterns  and  learn powerful pausing techniques that enable change. If feedback is received that you mumble, are not convincing or confident, or lack “charisma”, it may not be obvious what you can do about it. In our programs, we help you get to the root of the challenge so you can address it with specialized, targeted articulation, breath, movement, and delivery techniques.

Addressing “underlying patterns” is what leads to real change. If you just take advice about what to do differently, it can be challenging to integrate that advice into your daily speech and behavior. If you focus on voice quality, breathing, projection, articulation, and related muscle movement, you can enable changes at a much deeper level.

A speech coach can help you identify what you need and help you get there quickly with your specific goals in mind, monitoring your progress along the way and providing with you with tools that fit the task.

Rebecca Linquist & Bud Everts have years of experience providing coaching to clients with diverse backgrounds, including people from India, China, Latin America & Europe, facing a wide range of communication challenges in a variety of career fields from engineering to sales and marketing to management / leadership positions.

Our clients say we fast track them to success, accelerating the pathway to measurable results.  Often, they qualify for positions they wouldn’t have been effective in otherwise, and their managers and coworkers notice as well.

Don’t let your speech and communication skills hold you back! Enrolling in speech and accent coaching can provide what you need to get you where you want to go!

Guide to Executive Presence Coaching for Foreign-Born Executives & Non-Native Speakers of American English:

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What is Executive Presence? (EP)

At its core, executive presence is your ability to “show up” and inspire confidence in others, especially those who see you as their leader or part of their leadership team. Those who exude “presence” are viewed by others as trustworthy, capable and visionary, able to articulate their ideas with ease in ways that motivate, focus, and provide clear direction to their audiences, made up of colleagues, direct reports, customers, and the public at large.

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What are the specific components of Executive Presence? (EP)

Presence is viewed to have 3 primary components:

Appearance: How you appear to others; physically as well as emotionally, how others feel towards you when you engage with them. Do you look the part? Do you act the part? Is your appearance consistently professional? Do you “walk the walk and talk the talk”? Do people “see” you as their leader? Do you project an image they can embrace?

Communication: When you interact with others, how do you “sound”? Is your messaging clear? Is it inspiring? Respectful? Powerful? Is your speech impeccable? Do you use appropriate vocabulary? Do you “get to the point”? Is your voice strong, positive, pleasant, loud when it needs to be, assuring when it needs to be, intentional and controllable by you rather than random and unpredictable? Do others enjoy listening to you and come away with a positive opinion of you and what you can do for the company and for them? Do you speak with confidence and excel in front of audiences? Can you speak with little preparation, consistently, getting to the heart of matters in minutes?

Gravitas: Harder to define, but integral to having presence, is the ability to give the impression that you are on solid ground, sure of yourself and confident that others have what it takes to do what needs to be done. Qualities of projecting gravitas include: consistency, fortitude, steadiness, persistence, authority, knowledge, dignity, strength, compassion, drive, polish, political savvy, and charisma.

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How does one acquire Executive Presence? (EP)

Some people seem to naturally exhibit presence. It’s that person that walks into the room, and suddenly everyone turns in her direction, hoping to catch a few words of wisdom or a look of confidence. It’s the speech everyone listens to without looking at their smart devices, so glued to the speaker, they don’t want to miss a thing. It’s the leader you are so inspired by, you gladly start work in the morning, confident she is leading you in the right direction.

The challenge is that not every leader comes by this quality naturally. Some people have experience, education, and tenure, and prove themselves over and over again, yet they don’t inspire others to listen when they speak. They may have great ideas, work hard, and have the best intentions, but still, people don’t trust them implicitly.

The mistake people make is thinking that if someone tells a person who is struggling with presence to just do certain things, they will magically develop presence. This is typically not the case. Just knowing that others don’t trust you, don’t enjoy listening to you, or that you can’t keep their attention is a criticism that may be true, but leaves the receiver of this feedback with little to go on to improve.

Instead, executive presence is best acquired by learning what it takes to project confidence, inspire others, and lead with integrity and tenacity. It requires the learner to “dig deep”, taking a close look at how others see him and asking “is this really how I ‘show up’?” and “What am I doing to cause people to see me this way?” Once a person gets a sense of what areas are his strengths and his weaknesses, he can begin to formulate a plan to address his shortcomings and build on his strengths.

 

What is Executive Presence Training? (EPT)

Leadership training in general is preparation to be the driving force in your team(s) or target audience’s performance. Executive Presence Training is about developing the skills to improve in the areas listed above (appearance, communication, and gravitas). Specially, EPT is formalized way of addressing the underlying skills and patterns that make up how others see their leaders and experience them in their work. It’s about quantifying the skills required and assessing what skills prospective and current leaders already have and what skills they need to gain to be successful, such as driving performance, managing teams, hiring qualified talent, motivating and empowering them, and lighting the way with clarity and vision. While most leadership candidates have skills in these areas, they may be lacking in the three delivery methods: appearance, communication & gravitas. If you don’t look the part, can’t converse convincingly and powerfully, and lack the ability to convey depth, integrity, trust and confidence, you will not succeed in a leadership position. EPT is about acquiring those necessary skills, polishing the ones you already have, and fully developing as a multi-faceted leader.

When do I need an Executive Presence Coach? (EPC)

The beauty of coaching is that you get what you need when you need it. It fast tracks you. If you are struggling in a group to learn something, it can be discouraging. It is also time consuming and frustrating. Coaching addresses your deep, underyling issues in a transformational ways that allows you to develop the skills you need more effortlessly. Pushing ahead isn’t the best way to learn new things. Some times, you have to sit back and reflect on your deepest beliefs and underlying patterns and reassess and center on what’s important. An EPC will help you discover what you could be doing differently to create a greater result in a shorter period time. EPS escalates change and empowers you with tools you can use to change how others see you. It’s also systematic. Changing things randomly may to create the results you desire. An EPC can point you in the right direction and monitor your progress until you succeed. If you struggling to be successful in a leadership position or planning on upward mobility in your workplace, an EPC can help you pave the road to achieve your goals.

What does ENGLISH BY THE HOUR offer that helps non-native speaking professionals and foreign-born executives compete in the crowded leadership space in the Silicon Valley / Bay Area?

Experts in their fields, Rebecca Linquist & Bud Everts bring years of experience helping clients in the Bay Area, everywhere from San Francisco to San Jose, to Fremont, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Mt. View, Cupertino, Burlingame and surrounding areas achieve their career goals by improving their speech. How we speak is integral to how others view us.

In terms of Appearance, if you have a tight jaw and speak very fast, you won’t convey in the cultural context of American society that you are a strong leader. You may just appear aggressive, angry, or stressed. The EP coaching programs Rebecca & Bud offer help clients to learn to move their mouths, jaws, lips and bodies differently, allowing them to improve their executive communication.

In terms of Communication, having a strong accent can be distracting and distancing. If you improve your pronunciation, word stress patterns, and usage of American English, others will understand you faster, better, and with less “listener fatigue.” It becomes a joy to listen to you, rather than a challenge and burden. Working with an EPC can help you target exactly what you are doing differently and change it!

In terms of Gravitas, you may find you have been labeled as someone who talks too fast, lacks conviction, is always in a hurry, lacks confidence, or isn’t an inspiring public speaker. The EPC programs Rebecca and Bud provide at ENGLISH BY THE HOUR will delve into how you breathe, what your posture is like, how you use and manage your energy and your body when you communicate. By changing your deep patterns, you will begin to improve your vocal qualities, changing your pitch when needed, grounding more successfully, increasing your volume when needed with less effort, using your whole body to inspire confidence in others in your messaging, and communicate more fully in public speaking using your body as a whole, integrating breath with articulation to its full potential.

With an EPC at ENGLISH BY THE HOUR, you’ll incorporate the “big picture.” It’s not really about “slowing down” or presenting better. It’s not only about communicating more clearly. It’s not simply your appearance that isn’t perfect. It’s the whole picture. How can you best integrate clarity in speech with how you show up overall? How can you eliminate areas of weakness and embrace new areas you hadn’t explored before with open body language? How can you convey receptivity to new ideas? How you put energy on your voice to impart messages with passion and inspiration? How can you use a wider range of pitch to convey emotion more effectively and engage your audience in a multi-dimensional way, more fully expressing yourself? How can you add resonance to your voice, making your messaging more heart felt and holistic? This is the power of EP coaching. It can accelearte you to the next level.

How does the EP Coaching program work at ENGLISH BYTHEHOUR?

Your Coach will meet with you weekly on a regular basis to ensure you make progress, highlighting specific areas of focus and monitoring your progress along the way, giving you feedback and correcting areas that require intervention. Each week builds on the last, so that after 10, 15, 20 or 25 weeks, you will achieve different levels of success.

These coaching programs include focused, individual, one-on-one sessions over video conferencing with participants who wish to improve their speech, clarity, diction, voice quality, and presence (how they “show up”). The sessions are customized to fit each individual’s needs and skill level and include elements of pronunciation, word stress, and intonation, as well as vocalization and projection, mouth movement, posture for speech and breath-enabling exercises, as well as feedback to improve the ability to speak up in meetings and business conversations, give presentations in American English with confidence, and/or engage in public speaking more effectively.

 

Process & Content: The individual meets with a Coach to make sure it’s a good fit and assess which package will be most effective. Packages include:

10 sessions: Pronunciation (vowels, consonants, words), articulation, mouth movement, word stress, endings on words, intonation, and free speech practice

 

15 sessions: Everything included in the 10 session package, plus postural elements and breath enabling exercises to help with pacing, projection, voice quality, and delivery, as well as elements to support public speaking in corporate settings.

 

20 sessions: Everything listed in the 15 session package, plus an additional component, such as vocabulary usage, business conversation practice, and integration of concepts learned through practice

 

25 sessions: Everthing listed in the 20 session package, plus 2 additional components, such as vocabulary usage, business conversation practice, and integration of concepts learned through practice

 

Note: Pacing of customization will differ depending on which package is selected, so more sessions allow the participant to excel at a higher level. Those who wish to improve public speaking and how they show up in meetings will need more sessions than those who merely wish to create clearer speech.

 

Progress reports are included with all programs.

CONSULTATIONS ARE AVAILABLE:

• There is an option for people who are unsure about the benefits of coaching or want more detailed information about their specific issues and how coaching will address them.
• Schedule a private 1-1 Zoom consult with a Coach (a Coach will follow up with you to schedule after you purchase)
• Get feedback on your speech and a full diagnostic session
• More deeply understand your underlying behaviors and patterns and what you need to do to create success
• Get a systematic view of what occurs in coaching as it relates to your specific issues before committing to enroll in one of our programs.

 

When you are speaking, you probably don’t have time to worry about how you sound. For that reason, you have to practice on a regular basis so that when you speak, you come across clearly, fluidly and articulately. Here are a few key items to remember:

• Record yourself speaking at least once a week. How do you really sound?
• Are you finishing your words? Many speakers drop sounds and volume near the end of their statements.
• Are you comfortable pausing? If you pause often enough and long enough, your audience will not complain about your rate of speech, even if it’s a bit fast, because you are giving them time to process your meaning.
• Notice what words you use. Are you talking too much to explain your points? Sharpening your vocabulary skills will allow your audience to understand more quickly and allow them to stay engaged longer.
• Notice what expressions you use. Do you repeat the same expressions over and over again? For example, some people say things like “At the end of the day …” or “Essentially what I mean is …” or “When everything is said and done …” so many times that the words lose value. If you must use an expression like this, do it once, not multiple times in any given speech.
• Do you make mistakes when you speak? Often non-native speakers use excuses like “English isn’t my first language” or “It was just a small mistake”. While what they say may be true, it doesn’t prevent your audience from judging you. For instance, if you say “How it looks like” instead of “What it looks like,” your audience will notice you made a grammatical mistake. In fact, they may even miss your point or judge you unfairly. Why take the risk? Polish your spoken English so these seemingly minor issues don’t sabotage your success.
• Do you sound passionate? If you are speaking in a monotone, you may sound tired. If you can’t control your pitch, you may not sound confident. If you are screaming, you may sound overly aggressive. If you are exaggerating too much, you may lose credibility. Make sure you are doing enough with your voice to sound passionate without overdoing it.

Need some coaching to improve? Contact one of our coaches!

Most people would agree that self-awareness is key to change, but for many of us, it is elusive. We know we aren’t getting the results we intend to get, or we may not know until others tell us their perceptions. Often a gap exists until we learn to self-assess.

Examples in business include being told you are too aggressive, demanding, or hard to work with, or the opposite:  too timid, too reserved, or too passive. You might also be told you don’t get to the point or you give too much detail or that don’t give enough detail and jump from one topic to another. Regardless of the advice we get, if we don’t have self-awareness, we won’t be able to apply it in a meaningful way that will help us improve continually.

Here are some steps to improving yourself awareness and ability to create change that matters:

• Know what it looks like. If you get feedback that you are too aggressive, for example, ask for some concrete examples so you can visualize what behaviors others are pinpointing. Did you raise you voice and someone felt threatened and reported you? Did others complain that you are hard to work with to your boss? Did you get physical with someone? Did you use offensive language? Often people are reluctant to tell you exactly what they heard for a number of reasons: they may not want to offend you; the person telling you might not feel the same way the recipient of your behavior did, but nonetheless, needs to pass the info along to you; they may not want to start an altercation with you. For whatever reason, if you can ask the person to share the details, you will gain more than if you don’t get those details.

 

• Know what it feels like. First, ask yourself what it feels like for the recipient who is complaining about your behavior or asking you to behave differently? What did s/he experience? For example, if your boss tells you to speak up more, s/he may be feeling frustrated that time has to spent explaining your actions to others or s/he may be concerned that you won’t be strong enough to do other parts of your job. Second, ask yourself how it feels to you? When you were engaging in this behavior, did you feel “safe” and maybe that’s why you didn’t take a risk by speaking up? Did you realize when you yelled at the other employee that s/he felt scared or were you perhaps only aware that someone wasn’t doing a good job and it upset you? Tying together your feelings/perceptions with others’ impressions is a step towards greater awareness and a deeper understanding of the consequences of your actions. This alone can lead to change.

 

• Know the process. There is in most cases a prescribed way to get results. You can start by Googling your question to get suggestions on how to deal with most issues, including anger management, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, dealing with grief, how to be more assertive, and much more. Once you have sufficient awareness to know what you want to change, inform yourself of the typical processes a person goes through to create change. It may not be evident to you, especially if you don’t handle something in a way others are comfortable with. It’s ok to seek help, and knowing what you should be doing in detail can help you to change.

 

• Know yourself. Not everyone responds to things in the same ways. Just knowing the process may not be enough for you. You may respond better to Coaching or taking a group class. You may need to read about it or take time to think about the situation on your own. You may need to talk to a friend about it. Honor your own process by knowing what works for you.

 

• Know you can do it. Even if it requires work and change, you can do it by being aware of the successes you have had in life and what it took to get there. You can recreate success by believing in yourself and your ability to learn new behaviors and use them.

 

Developing awareness is a process that you can learn to engage with to gain powerful insights over your life. Start today!