What does it mean to “practice how you play”? In sports, coaches and players do this all the time. But in business, most leaders spend more time on their content than practicing the delivery of it. In this video, Joseph describes how to “practice how you play”, from tailoring your content to its delivery method to practicing in front of a mirror.
“What message do you want to get across?” he asks. “Make it how it’s going to be in real life. The way to develop a good communication style is to practice it.”
Transcript:
You know, I’m always amazed.
I will tell you this, a lot of leaders that I have an opportunity to mentor, and some of this I’ve learned on my own; you need to practice how you play.
I coach a lot of basketball. To prepare for game situations, you need to practice how you play.
Most leaders don’t practice, and they spend all their time with their teams.
They do a presentation.
They’ll spend all their time on the content.
They get in as much as they can on the slide.
But when I say, “practice”, I mean stand in front of the mirror, or stand in front of a room, and actually practice your delivery, what message you want to get across, and make the environment how it’s going to be in real life.
A lot of leaders say, “I practice”, but they practice standing up when they’re actually going to give it via video in a chair, sitting down.
That’s a completely different communication and delivery style.
Or maybe you’re going to be giving it – which happens to me in a lot of cases – to a translator, delivering it in English, and it is translated into another language.
What does that mean?
That means that the amount of the information I can deliver has to be dramatically reduced.
So, I want to practice in that fashion.
In other words, how you develop a good communication or presentation style that fits you, is that you have to practice it.
Most people spend all of their time on the content of the slide or slideware and not on how they want to deliver the message.
