How Effective are your Communication Skills?

Are they helping or hindering your business success?

Communication excellence is essential when needing to create impact and instil confidence and trust in people – your teams, stakeholders and customers. Your words and actions, when delivered with conviction, can transform your organisation.

Having the technical know-how is one thing. But knowing how to communicate in a situation is crucial when you are a leader in a developing organisation. Especially during times of change.

Whatever your current position – CEO, Director level or management – to become known as a thought leader in your field and gain further success, sharing complex knowledge clearly and succinctly is vital. Whether you need to discuss major corporate and commercial decisions or nitty gritty finance details, communication excellence is key.

Storytelling has been around for many millennia. In comparison, data and spreadsheets only arrived yesterday, so it makes sense that telling your story will be understood far more quickly. That’s how the human brain works best. Capturing people’s attention by telling the story behind the data is paramount for information retention. Your teams will then understand what’s expected and your ultimate goals, and be able to work more effectively having that clearer message and vision.

Successful leaders have strong communication skills

Patrick Bird was a Financial Director and Project Director in a blue-chip company, is a qualified coach and trainer, and just happens to be an actor too. You don’t need to be an actor to effectively tell your organisation’s story or to lead your people. But you do need to communicate your story powerfully.

Patrick will help you learn those skills through his bespoke coaching and workshops. Combining his FD experiences, acting skills and coaching and training knowledge, Patrick will help you to find your own authentic communication style. He will draw out your inherent skills – everything that you already do well – and coach you on how to blend his techniques with your skills.

That way, instead of trying to be someone you’re not, you become a ‘better’ version of you. You will be your authentic self, which will help you to communicate effectively, create memorable business stories, and motivate your teams.

Critical skills that Patrick will help you and your teams with include:

• Communication
• Leadership
• Team building
• Strategy
• Presentation and impact

Some examples of what can be dealt with:

• Managing directors must be able to effectively communicate current business needs and future goals to engage your workforce
• Financial directors need to know how to communicate historical figures to inform future planning. You need to learn to provide those figures while telling a memorable financial story, without the need for a spreadsheet
• Directors and managers need to know how to clearly explain new project details and intended best results to your teams for their clear understanding

Communicating the Finance Story

How do you usually communicate your historical, current and forecasted figures? Finance is at the hub of every organisation, so everyone needs to understand the figures. Give them numbers on a spreadsheet and they’ll probably glaze over. But tell a story and you’ll capture their attention. People remember stories, not numbers.

Creating a story out of the figures – in other words, clearly explaining what’s happened, when and why – puts the financial situation into perspective. Stories help your teams realise that what they do has an impact. As an ex FD, Patrick knows very well the importance of needing the Board, stakeholders and teams within the organisation to comprehend the figures. That knowledge then leads to understanding why they need to keep doing what they do to help the organisation grow and succeed.

Communicating excellence also helps your teams to appreciate why they have to do certain tasks, especially during times of change. Understanding why the change is necessary is crucial for employees to remain on board and stay productive.

Patrick will work with you, looking at your planning, budgeting and variance analysis, amongst other key operational issues. He will then show you how the figures can be communicated far more effectively.

Finance workshop

Leadership Management and Communication Excellence

To be a strong, confident leader who engenders respect and transforms organisations takes both technical and communication skills.  

Whether you’re a managing director, financial director or HR director – or indeed any other leadership role – Patrick will help you and your people strengthen those key Personal Effectiveness skills by challenging existing behaviours. He will help you make better choices, achieve your goals and create significant change in your communication, culture and performance. And you will learn how to create an impact with your memorable messages.

Your enhanced combination of skills will help generate a thriving and successful organisation, where people work well together and business booms.

Leadership & Management workshop

Coaching and Workshops

Have you reached a stage in your career where you need to improve your soft skills? Such as strategic and critical thinking. Or how to effectually communicate operational issues. Or motivating and influencing others, as well as presentation and negotiation skills.

Patrick Bird is an expert in helping people to find and strengthen those skills within them, bringing the theory to life. Read the testimonials above to see how he’s helped others.

To achieve communication excellence and become an effective leader, you may need to be re-energised and motivated, which in turn will resonate throughout your teams. Our workshops and coaching solutions can be adapted to your personal or your organisation’s needs, helping to identify any skills gaps. We then use a number of powerful learning techniques to help you and/or your teams to successfully achieve your objectives.

For further information on how Patrick Bird can help you achieve communication excellence, please get in touch today – call 07836 201428 or email pb@patrickbird.uk