Let me start with the person who inspired me this text. Raquel Izaguirre, from LaveuLavoz, has been on my personal “favorite people” list ever since I worked with her on my own voice, back in 2009. She appears already in my previous articles, for being a great vocal coach and an intuitive, highly professional and powerful woman.
I had the pleasure to share a coffee with Raquel this week. Long time no see, so we began the encounter by bringing ourselves up to date on everything modern life has to offer to working women. Ok, sarcasm admitted, let’s not lose track of the subject here. At some point we started chatting about work.
She has been in the road of ‘communication abilities training’ longer than me, so I really wanted to know about her experience in the last decade. My main question was whether she felt that, as a country or society, in Spain we had improved our interest for communicating better, especially in business domains. My impression was that we hadn’t, at all!, but I wanted to hear the opinion of a veteran.
Now, her answer was dismaying, in a way. In her experience, our culture persists in not giving sufficient importance to communicating effectively and with a minimum required quality. It is a dismaying conclusion, but it can also be seen as a great opportunity for improvement, of course.
But is this persistence maybe due, we asked ourselves, to the fact that the so called ‘communication experts’ are failing in their purpose to rise the public speaking level of the country? It could well be that we, the professionals, have some responsibility in this.
Or it can also be that in general, public communication preparation and performance in Spain –be it a conference’ speech, a team meeting or a sales opportunity with a client- is still a “last-minute” issue, an “oh, just copy-paste from last presentation, change dates and we’re set” issue or a “let’s have him/her do it because he/she can play the fool on stage quite naturally” issue.
To put it bluntly: I witness that, as a result of a general devaluation of ‘quality & efficient communication’ as an asset, we all keep attending awfully presented talks at the many congresses all over the country and we all keep suffering inefficient company meetings where the point is never easy or quick to grasp. Year after year, and I have been in business for over 20 years already, we keep encountering the same “good old mistakes in public speaking”.
So, an interesting question is maybe what is the price of not taking public speaking seriously enough? To me it seems that, in general, we are not getting just how much is at stake every time we walk out of our office and speak in the name of our companies to others. It seems also that we are not conscious that if we do not go for quality and efficiency, we will for sure lose good opportunities. Attention is a scarce resource nowadays. Patience as well. Just think of the generations growing up.
Or a harsher question perhaps: is it possible that, as a society, we are missing the opportunity to grow a set of abilities and skills that are truly relevant for this century, especially in business? Competition in any market is fierce, you will agree, and our messages need to find effective ways to stand out from the others. Thus, learning to communicate better is not an option anymore. It is becoming a relevant must in our careers.
The good news is that, like Raquel and myself, the city of Barcelona and the whole country is blessed with highly qualified professionals that can help you acquire, at your own pace, this so necessary skill for the 21st century.
And the even better news is that all these communication experts, each one from their own approach and specialty, are ready and eager to help you, because we share the passion for training anyone who is willing to reach higher levels in his/her communication abilities, convinced that it will boost his/her career.
So, this is why this article today is an open invitation for all of you to care about the way you communicate. Make it matter for you, because it is an investment that will always pay good return.