Why Leaders Must Master the Art of Speaking with Diane DiResta
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
In this episode of The Better Leadership Team Show, I sat down with communication expert Diane DiResta to explore why speaking is one of the most critical leadership skills. We discuss how strong communication can impact everything from team trust to billion-dollar business decisions.
The Leadership Power of Communication
Trust is the foundation of every effective leadership team.
Speaking isn’t just for professional speakers—leaders are on a platform every day, whether they're leaving voicemails or addressing a team.
Communication is a business skill, not a soft skill—it directly influences performance, trust, and ROI.
ROI of Speaking Well
Effective communication leads to measurable business outcomes.
Diane shared examples where strong communication resulted in:
$1 billion in profit from a well-pitched initiative.
A record stock price increase following investor presentations.
Leaders who communicate well deliver up to 47% higher returns for shareholders.
Everyone Can Learn to Communicate Effectively
“Gifted speakers are born. Effective speakers are made.”
Strong communication is a teachable skill rooted in both art and science.
Delivery relies on structure, and structure helps reduce verbosity and increase clarity.
Speak in Sound Bites
Originating from media training, sound bites are now critical in all communication due to short attention spans.
Use concise phrasing, purposeful pauses, and clarity to make messages memorable and impactful.
Practice summarizing points in 140-character tweets or one-sentence slide summaries.
The Four Styles of Talking Too Much
Verbosity – Too many words, even within time limits.
Time Misjudgment – Not knowing when or how to stop.
Over-Detailing – Getting lost in the weeds, sharing too much unnecessary data.
Rabbit Holing – Tangents that derail the message.
Self-awareness is the first step toward eliminating these habits.
Listener-Centered Communication
Avoid speaker-centered messages. Begin with what the audience cares about.
Always answer: “What’s in it for them?”
Use inclusive language and reference prior contributions from the team to foster alignment and buy-in.
This mindset shift—“from self to service”—also reduces speaking anxiety.
Communicating Vision and Goals
Don’t just present the vision—co-create it. Involve your team in the conversation early.
Align messaging with the team’s goals and values.
During delivery, link the broader company vision to tangible individual benefits.
The Rule of Three
Structure messages in sets of three (e.g., three benefits, three agenda items) to improve memorability and clarity.
The rule of three is used in advertising and storytelling because it sticks.
Asking for Better Feedback
Don’t ask: “How did I do?” Instead:
“What should I keep doing?”
“What would take me to the next level?”
Be specific: Ask about eye contact, brevity, or clarity.
Create a culture of honest, constructive feedback by modeling it yourself.
Thanks for listening!
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Mike Goldman (00:05)
Diane DiResta is a certified speaking professional and the founder and CEO of DiResta Communications, Inc. They're a New York City consultancy serving business leaders who deliver high stakes presentations, whether one-to-one, on stage, or from a virtual platform. Diane is the author of Knockout Presentations, How to Deliver Your Message with Power, Punch, and Pizzazz, and has spoken on four continents. Diane is past president.
of the New York City chapter of the National Speakers Association. That's actually how we know each other. She was featured on CNN and quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street and the Wall Street Journal. Diane, welcome to the show.
Diane DiResta (00:47)
Thanks, Mike. Great to be here.
Mike Goldman (00:50)
Yeah, I'm excited about diving into speaking, not from a professional speaker standpoint, but from a member of a leadership team or a senior leadership team and how important it is. Before we do, Diane, from all of your experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Diane DiResta (01:11)
To me, it's trust. You have to have trust on a team. You have to trust your leader, but you have to trust your peers because in the absence of trust, not much is going to move forward. And then what happens is you get sabotaging behavior or people holding back and not participating. I think it's the essence of everything in terms of communication and leadership. You've got to have trust.
Mike Goldman (01:35)
beautiful and yet I imagine we will probably come back to that word multiple times as we as we dive into the weeds around in a good way the weeds around around communication. So so Diane when when I know when I think of speaking and I see a book like knockout presentations because I'm a coach a writer and a speaker I automatically think about that's gonna help me speak on stage and someone who's a CEO or a
VP of sales or a COO may say, that stuff's not for me. That's for professional speakers. Why is it important for senior leaders to understand this idea of getting up there and speaking in a clearer, more productive way?
Diane DiResta (02:25)
All right, so first let me dispel the myth. This is not a book for professional speakers. It's a book for everybody. And what I'm really happy about is it has such a wide breadth. It's been used as a textbook in colleges and it's been read in the C-suite. So when people say, well, that's not for me. I don't speak on stages. I say, do you leave voicemails? Do you give meeting updates? That's public speaking. It's all public speaking. So yes, you need this at every level.
And so to me, from my experience over, I won't say how many years, but a number of years, speaking is a leadership skill. You can't avoid it and it is a competitive advantage. And the reason I say that is because having been in the industry for a while, I saw changes where a leader might delegate speaking, because a lot of people don't like it or are afraid of it. And now that doesn't work. People want to hear from you because you're the brand.
The other thing that's going on is everything has become so commoditized that it's just a matter of time before your competitors can duplicate what you're doing. And now with AI, you don't even need competitors to do that. You can be your own competitor. So what sets you apart from everybody else is your presentation. It's you. It's how you present yourself, how you communicate.
So it's a skill that you have to have. doesn't matter whether you're applying for a summer internship as a student, whether you are presenting to the board or talking to stakeholders, whether you're talking to your sales team, you have to have these skills. It's about being clear. It's about being influential. It's about making that connection and building trust. And one of the ways to build trust is through the spoken word.
Mike Goldman (04:12)
So I think the reframing here is, as a leader of a team or the leader of a company, you're on stage all the time. We may not think of this stage the way a professional speaker would think of this stage, but man, you're on stages all the time, whether it's for external purposes out to the industry or whether it's internal.
communicating to your team what the vision of your company is. I think it's just, sounds like it's just reframing what we mean by stage.
Diane DiResta (04:47)
Right, and that's why I prefer the word platform, because everybody has some kind of platform. A platform could be a phone. It doesn't have to be a stage.
Mike Goldman (04:57)
What is, let's talk return on investment for a minute. So we're about to dive into some really interesting creative and ways I haven't thought about for people to become better at speaking and communicating. But senior leaders are focused on dollars and cents. And very often we think, no, no, no, I'm...
You know, I could focus on how to communicate better or I could focus on that brand new strategy or that brand new marketing plan or so what is the ROI? Is there a way of us figuring out the ROI of communicating better?
Diane DiResta (05:33)
Yes, and this is my pet peeve, Mike, because when I would go in to talk about my services, I would hear, what you do is soft skills. Well, I disagree with that. Yes, it's not technical. I'm not selling a hardware, but the return is phenomenal. And in fact, I said earlier that communication is a leadership skill. In the absence of communication, there can be no business. So it is the core business skill.
and we don't spend enough time developing it and honing it. But I'll give you some examples. I was just looking at some statistics before this call. This was Harvard Business Review and they, I think, no, was Towers and Perrin, that was the person, the group. What they said was that leaders who have good communication skills have a 47 % higher return
to their stakeholders, to their shareholders. But that's somebody else's research. My research comes from my living laboratory. So I wanna give you two very potent examples. One was I had a CEO of a pharma company and he had this very high stakes presentation. He wanted the executive committee to approve the building of a vaccine facility overseas. It would cost 300 million just to build.
There was no guarantee of success and then there'd be three years of clinical trials. So talk about high stakes. But what he did is he invested the time. We worked together. We went through everything that he needed to know and do. Finally, the day arrived. He walks in, he gives his pitch and he gets the approval for 300 million. But that wasn't the success. Years later, that 300 million investment turned into a $1 billion profit.
That is not chump change. I don't consider that soft skills. And imagine, had he not had the communication skills to sell his idea, they would have foregone a billion dollars of profit. So that's huge. But there's another example that I want to share with you. I was asked to coach the team, the executive team, because they were going to go and present at Investor Day.
The CEO was a little concerned. He said, listen, Diane, this team is verbose. I want these airtight presentations. No more than 20 minutes. I want good analyst ratings. So I worked with the CEO, the president, the head of research and development, and the general manager. Off they went. A week goes by, I hear nothing. Second week goes by, I hear nothing. Finally, I see this email pop up on my desktop.
It's from the VP of Investor Relations and it said something to the effect of, hot off the presses, positive comments from the analysts, our stock is at an all time high of 2.1%. That's huge. And when I tell that story to audiences, I say, communication moves markets. It's really powerful. think, well, the stock market's about the numbers and who's the CEO? No.
There's a lot of emotion and psychology involved in the stock market. So when you can communicate, you're going to have a greater return. And I'm talking about dollars and cents, not just.
intangibles. And the other thing that was important is that a lot of times people don't realize that power. Imagine had this CEO not invested in his team and those analysts were seeing signs of nervousness, uncertainty, hesitation, they would never have gotten those positive reviews. And when you get those analyst ratings, that's something that increases the stock. So it's huge.
I can give you other stories about people getting promoted. It's huge.
Mike Goldman (09:26)
Yet.
Yeah, it sounds like it's everything, right? I mean, you could have, you could have a wonderful strategy. You could have a great idea. You could have a, you know, unbelievable, unbelievably new, innovative, you know, product or project. But if you can't communicate in a way that's going to influence others to get on board, it's not going to happen.
And I don't know of any ROI bigger than that. It's just about getting things done. that's so important for us to understand. It's not, to some degree, it's not, well, instead of getting a 10 % return, you'll get a 12 % return. Some cases, it may be, instead of getting nothing out of something, you might get billions of dollars out of it. Now, are some people
Diane DiResta (10:19)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (10:24)
just born better communicators, better speakers, or is it something where kind of everybody starts at the same level and we just need to learn?
Diane DiResta (10:34)
This is what I say to audiences all the time, gifted speakers are born, effective speakers are made. So yeah, there are people who have a talent, have an aptitude, but even they are studying. So if you think of Martin Luther King, he didn't just get up and give his, have a dream speech one day, he studied. He studied leaders, he studied rhetoric. So it's that kind of thing. I really believe that anybody can be effective in getting a message from their mind to the minds of the listener and influencing.
because there is a science and an art to speaking and to communication and anybody can learn it. ⁓
Mike Goldman (11:09)
So let's dig
into that science and art a little bit. And Diane, you said some really interesting things when we talked, maybe it was a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, about you coming in and doing the show. There were some things that really stuck in my mind that I want to ask you about. And one is the idea of speaking in sound bites.
Diane DiResta (11:30)
Hmm.
Mike Goldman (11:30)
which
I normally think of, and this is important, but I normally think of that, that's a media thing. I know when I was interviewed on a new show a number of years ago, was like, Mike, you gotta speak in sound bites. But I think it's about more than that. So talk to us about the idea of speaking in sound bites. What does that mean and why is it important?
Diane DiResta (11:48)
Well, speaking in soundbites does have its origin in the media because television is very fast. You cannot tell long stories. So you're trained in a certain way, but we're not trained to speak that way in meetings. But what's happened now, time is condensing and it's accelerating and we don't have the time for those long stories. So the more concise and succinct you can be, the better you're going to have as a result, the more people will stay with you.
because people's attention spans are really short. I'm sure you've seen that. How often are you speaking and people are on their phones? You've got what? Seven seconds, eight seconds to keep their attention. So here's what I do with people. I give them templates and structures because I've discovered that delivery sits on structure. Your delivery is only as good as the foundation or structure that you have underneath it.
And the reason a lot of people are verbose and they're going on and on is they don't have that structure. So we start there. But I also teach them to speak in sound bites because if you can say something crisply, it has more impact. So when you are able to say something and you can pause, you're going to have more impact. It's going to be clearer. Your message is going to land. You're going to have an emotional reaction if that's what you want.
and you give the brain time to process. If you're going on and on, the brain can't process that. So shorter is better, less is more. I can tell you a story about someone who was a newly appointed CFO. He was ready for the promotion until he started talking to the partners. And his boss came to me and said, when he presents to them, their eyes are rolling in their heads. So I saw what he was doing. He was reading his spreadsheet.
And I said to him, I can read numbers as well as you can. Your job is to tell the story of the numbers and to keep it at a 30,000 foot level. That's what he learned to do. So part of speaking crisply is knowing your audience and being able to say things crisply, smoothly, quickly, so they understand it and so it lands.
Mike Goldman (13:59)
Yeah. And I think it's, what I think about it. The, example that comes to mind in my head is a, one of the examples is a CEO communicating to the organization. This is our vision. And you can say that in, you know, 10,000 words and bore everybody to death and have it sound like.
or everything to everyone, or you could say it in a way, not only that people understand it, which of course is so important that people understand it so they could execute on it, but you want people to be able to repeat it. And so often I see kind of the standard, you know, 1970s or 1980s mission statement. And it was, you know, about shareholder value and you know, we're going to be everything to everybody in this.
paragraph says absolutely nothing or I see something that said in a phrase and it says everything so that's the way I think you know so part of it is can people not only understand it but is it repeatable
Diane DiResta (14:59)
Exactly. You are singing my my she's praising singing to the choir because one of the things I do I have a program that I call get to the point communicate more by saying less and I have a mission statement by the USGA United States Golf Association like you had mentioned it's two paragraphs but then they have the sound bite and they see the power of taking all of that into one
sound bite that someone can repeat. So I remember their mission is to grow the game of golf and to, I forgot the last part, but there are two pieces to it, to have impact and grow the game of golf. And that's it. But when you read the paragraphs, it gets embedded in there. You don't know what their mission is. And I say, that's why people can't say the mission statement of their companies, because it's too long.
Mike Goldman (15:58)
Yeah, I want to continue to dive into this because it's also such a personal pet peeve of mine. Not only clients that use five minutes to say what they could have said or should have said in 15 seconds, but man, family members, my wife's uncle could tell a, he's the master at telling a 30 second story in about 30 minutes and you want to jump out the window by the time he's done. So, I guess take it from two angles, Diane. One is,
Diane DiResta (15:58)
Yeah
Mike Goldman (16:26)
I think when we talked, said there are some different styles. I think you may have said there are four styles of talking too much. So I want to understand some of the different styles of talking too much. And then I want to go back when you talk about templates and structure. See if we can even get deep. What's one way to help people? Is there a specific template or structure you've used that helps those folks? But let's talk first about the different styles of talking too
Diane DiResta (16:54)
Yes, so I discovered there are different ways that people are too wordy. So the first one is verbosity. It's meaning you're saying too many words. So you may stay within your time frame, but like the two paragraph mission statement, you say 20 words when you could say it in three. So that might be what your, was it your uncle you were talking about? Who? Okay. So it's the verbosity, too many words. But then there is the person who has a time management problem.
Mike Goldman (17:16)
Yeah.
Diane DiResta (17:23)
And so they just go on and on and on. It's just too long. And maybe their words are not too many, but they don't know how to stop. In fact, I have a woman who is a really good entrepreneur, but anytime I have a conversation, I have to interrupt because as long as I make eye contact, she'll keep going. It's like some people...
Mike Goldman (17:43)
And by the way,
this I think is such an issue, because I run these one and two day planning sessions with my clients, and very often a CEO or someone on the leadership team will say, hey Mike, would you mind putting in 10 minutes on the agenda, because I really need to discuss this issue with the leadership team. And I'll say, well, how much time do you think, it'll be 10 minutes. And I know that's a 30 minute conversation.
Diane DiResta (18:09)
You
Mike Goldman (18:12)
and they have no clue and I will secretly put 30 minutes on the agenda because I know but I do know it's not just verbosity. That time management thing is real.
Diane DiResta (18:22)
Yes, and I'm trying to remember. The third one is being in the weeds, and you alluded to this. That was that young CFO where you're giving so much detail that they don't even need. And a lot of times it's because they think that they're being, they're enriching people. Well, if I tell them everything I know, they'll be more informed. No, it's just the opposite. People get overwhelmed with too much detail. And then the fourth one was,
going down a rabbit hole. So here's where you go off on tangents and then you don't know how to work your way back. So those are the four, there may be others, but those are the most common that I've experienced. So when I'm working with people, I'll ask them to identify themselves so they have a way of understanding where they are and what they need to do to be more concise.
Mike Goldman (19:11)
And how do you, what, is a way
to help them? And part of it, you just said is having them identify because I think most folks don't, they don't realize they have this problem. They think, no, I just, I have to communicate something. It's really important. All of this, you know, gets communicated. And frankly, I have this issue sometimes when I'm doing a keynote, I want to, I want to communicate everything I know in 45 minutes. And I try to consolidate a four hour talk at the 45 minutes and
Diane DiResta (19:23)
No.
Mike Goldman (19:40)
That typically doesn't go very well when you do that. how do you help people once they realize maybe there's an issue or maybe sometimes someone's got to pull them aside and tell them they have an issue. But what is an example of a way through some structure or template that you could help people fix this problem or at least begin to improve on it.
Diane DiResta (20:01)
Well, Mike, the first step you already mentioned, it's awareness. You're right, I don't think people know that they're that verbose and they have trouble getting to the point. But here's a thing that I do with people and exercise. Let's say they have a PowerPoint deck or keynote deck. I'll say, on every slide, I'd like you to summarize it in one sentence. What's the gist of this? Give me one sentence. And if they can't do it, it tells me.
they don't really understand themselves or they have too much on a slide. And I'm not talking about text, too many ideas. So it's like Ted, what's the one idea worth spreading? What's the one idea on this page and on page two and on page three? So that's a good way to get started. And I often have them practice a sound bite. I may put people in groups or pairs and say, all right, here's the concept. Say it in one sentence, create a sound bite.
Here's how you can do that. When Twitter first launched, it was 140 characters. That was a tweet. So write something now 140 characters or less. In other words, the assignment is write a tweet. And people get that. They know what that is. And that's a way to get started. And it's fun.
Mike Goldman (21:14)
Yeah, I love
that. I love that. now, now we went right down this road of sound bites and people that talk too much because it's such a pet peeve of mine. But what else do you see when you think about mistakes that leaders often make when they are speaking, when they're communicating? What's another biggie that you see often?
Diane DiResta (21:26)
you
The number one for me is they're speaker centered and not listener centered. So I have a process which I call listener centered communication. In fact, it's chapter seven in Knockout Presentations. What happens is it's all about me, myself, and I. And not because the person is so egotistical, but it's that we fall in love with our product, our idea, our company, and we wanna share it. The more we talk about that, the more exciting it is. No, it's not.
because it doesn't address what they care about. You know that from any sales training that you've done, any leadership training that you've done. So for a leader, you need to be able to talk in terms of what's in it for them. What's the value? I remember one time I was working with a senior vice president and we had been making really good progress on her presentations. And then she said, well, now the company wants me to talk about my area and my products and they're inviting the sales team
but the sales team doesn't sell my products. They're never going to sell these products. And I said, all right, well, we have to come up with a hook because there's got to be a reason for them to sit there and listen. And we did. I can't tell you what it was. It was a few years ago, but we really spent the time thinking, what do they care about? What's important to them? What's the value for them? And so when I work with people, we start there. We don't start with what's your topic, what is important to the listener.
What are the key benefits? What's the number one benefit? That's your hook. And so I show people how to back into that hook. And when you start with what's important to them, you get them listening. So it's start with leaders. If you say, today I wanna talk about how you can be more productive in your teams. All right, yes, everybody wants that. All right, so what's standing in the way? You address that issue that's preventing them from being productive.
being productive, then the next step is you come in with your solution. But a lot of times people just drive a solution, people are not ready to hear it and they don't even know they have a need. So that's my pet peeve, be listener centered, not speaker centered. By the way, that's your remedy for nervousness too. Because as a speaker, you know, as someone coaching leaders, everybody is nervous about speaking. And one of the biggest mistakes people make,
is their mindset. So when I work with them, we work on mindset and skill set. So here's the mindset. I hope I don't trip. what if I have brain freeze? what if they don't like it? what's happening? You're thinking all about me, myself, and I. So I literally tell people, get over yourself. It's not about you, it's about them. So change your mindset to, how can I make them comfortable? How can I say this clearly so they get it? How can I create an atmosphere that's going to be
valuable for them. So when you start to take your focus from self to service, your nervousness starts to dissipate.
Mike Goldman (24:36)
So Diane, let's take this to an example of, and I'm gonna go back to an example I used earlier of communicating company vision. And you can add to that, it's very end of the year or very beginning of the year and you're communicating, here's what we wanna create next year, here are our goals as a company. And that does sound very company.
Diane DiResta (24:41)
you
Mike Goldman (25:00)
centric to a CEO, very me centric. Here's what I want us to achieve as a company. When a leader is communicating vision for their team or their organization, goals for the team and the organization, how does a leader take that and make that kind of discussion? And I don't think nervousness isn't the issue there. I think the bigger issue there
is they talk a lot of stuff and people leave to the point you made a few minutes ago, people leave saying, yeah, but what's in it for me? Like that's great for the company. So there is an issue there. How should a leader think about communicating vision and goals of a company or team and making it more listener-centric?
Diane DiResta (25:43)
What I would do is I wouldn't start with my vision. I would have a discussion on what they think the vision should be. I would get them aligned. I would get them involved. Let them take ownership. And in that discussion, they're going to have greater buy-in because they had a piece of that. They had a part in creating that vision. And even though the CEO may have a clear definition of what
the vision is, that CEO can now take what he or she heard in the discussion and bring it back to the ultimate vision that he or she had. But now they've had a part in this. You know what this reminds me of? I was a community mediator for a period of time. And what we learned was that mediation was more successful than court. And the reason was that when you have two people mediating,
They both are heard and they both have input into the solution and they both come up with a contract at the end as opposed to the judge saying, this is my decree. And that's what happens when a leader comes out and says, here's my vision or here's the vision for the company. So get people excited and involved before you ever say that. And what's interesting is after you hear those discussions, your vision may change a bit based on what you're hearing.
because they're out there with the customer, front line, they're doing the work. So that's what I would do. And then when delivering it, I would find those benefits to them. So what's in it for them in terms of having this vision? When the company can create this vision and execute on it, how will we all be better? And I think that's the missing link. They talk at a higher level. Here's what the company will get, but
bring it down to another level so that people can really be part of that and be aligned and buy into it.
Mike Goldman (27:45)
I want
to drive home the enormity of what you just said, because what I'm hearing in the way I'm interpreting it is if you are a leader of a team and you are about to at a quarterly all hands meeting or an annual sales meeting, you're about to go communicate the vision. That's the wrong time to think about how you're communicating the vision. because it is going to be all about you and all about the
Diane DiResta (28:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mike Goldman (28:14)
company, when we think about things like vision and goals, and this is just one example of something that's much bigger, what I'm hearing is it doesn't just impact how you communicate, it affects all the stuff you do before you communicate. Because if you are going to communicate it, make it listener centric, you better have figured out a way starting two months ago to get
Diane DiResta (28:28)
Yes.
Yes.
Mike Goldman (28:36)
people involved and have those discussions and find out what's more important so that when you communicate it, because maybe at that moment it shouldn't be a discussion. The discussion should have happened three weeks ago or six weeks ago, but now you want to refer back to why, what is in it for all those folks in the audience. But if you didn't do all the due diligence and analytical work and the right brainstorming sessions before then, it doesn't matter how you communicate it.
you missed a whole step in the process.
Diane DiResta (29:06)
Absolutely. And you really do want to get people involved early on so that when you're up there at that all hands meeting, you can use that inclusive language. Well, thank you for all of your input. And because of your input, here's what we had. And now we have this great vision that we've all had a part in. And then they have ownership. And then the execution is going to be more successful. So I agree 100%.
Mike Goldman (29:36)
Diane, you mentioned again, when we talked a couple of weeks ago, and I actually don't remember what this was, but I wrote it down. So I'm going to assume it's important.
is you mentioned something called the rule of three as it relates to communication. Tell me what that is and why that's important.
Diane DiResta (29:53)
Rule of three is very important. You find it a lot in advertising and you'll hear it in commercials. You'll hear it in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. People tend to remember things in threes. So whenever you can group in threes, people remember it. It has an energy to it. So I tell people three agenda items, three main points, three benefits. Easier to remember. But if you only have two, okay.
If you have four, don't eliminate the last one just to have rule of three. But it's a great way, again, that's a template. Three agenda items, three main points, three benefits. And it helps people to really think through and determine, is this really what's important? Do I have everything? Because after three, it gets a little lengthy. So sometimes I'll say, can you create three macro categories instead of having like 10 different items on there?
So rule of three helps people to remember it's not alliterative, but it has that kind of energy to it. It has a ring to it. And it makes it easier to create and write your information and to say it too. Because you remember, there's always three things. What are the three things?
Mike Goldman (31:10)
What's the first thing a leader listening to this, what's the first thing they ought to go do if their goal is, okay, I'm hearing this, I understand the ROI, I want to get better at communicating, I want to get better at speaking. Is there a kind of most important first step they ought to take? Other than hiring you, which of course has got to be one of those steps.
Diane DiResta (31:35)
Well, I would ask them what is it they want to gain? So be clear about your objective. What is it they want to gain? And see if you can get some feedback from people that you know. And also, not only what would make me better, but where are the shortcomings? So get some balanced feedback. You might want to start with a book or going on
YouTube just to get some basic information, but mainly I would say you need to know where you're going. So what's the next step for you? What do you want to work on in your communication and then? Find the people that can help you to do that. It might be you might have a mentor at work. Who do you really admire as a communicator and then make them your mentor learn from them?
Mike Goldman (32:22)
I want to go back Diane
to the feedback piece because it's so important and I have seen people ask feedback like they will communicate something and then say to the group or say to one person, how did I do? And the answer is you did great. And you think, okay, I'm perfect. can't is, is there, I've got, I've got to assume there's a better way to ask for feedback than to say, Hey, how did I do on that communication? What's, what's a better way?
Diane DiResta (32:48)
You know what,
Mike, that was so frustrating for me because I would work with an executive and then he'd go do his thing and ask for feedback. There's, good job, great. yeah, it was positive. Everyone said I did a good job. No. First of all, they're not gonna tell the boss something that they don't wanna hear. That's why it's good to have a coach or some mentor internally or externally to ask the questions. But it's too broad and too open-ended how to do great. Give them something specific.
So Mike, I'm working on my eye contact. When I'm speaking, would you give me feedback? Was I looking directly at people or was I looking all over the place? Or I'm working on being brief. So let me know if you think I went a little too long. Give me some feedback on that. So be specific. Otherwise, they don't know where to go. These people are not speech coaches. They're not gonna come in say, here, let me give you a litany of pluses and minuses.
So the key is being specific. Ask for what you want and ask people that you can trust. Sometimes if there is a different, I would say different level, people are a little reluctant. So ask people at your level or maybe your boss, but sometimes asking a direct report, they don't want to be too forthcoming.
Mike Goldman (34:09)
I've been-
Diane DiResta (34:09)
And that trust. So let's come back to what I said earlier. When you have that kind of trust and they have been taught how to give feedback, that might work. Alright, so I want all of you to be honest with me. Here's what I'm working on after the presentation. I'd like you to tell me what worked and then what would make it even better. So here's the language. When I coach someone, especially in front of the room, that can be very nerve wracking. And so I don't say.
what didn't they do well? I'll say, what were the keepers? What should they keep doing more of? Because everybody has that. And what would bring this to a higher level? Because everybody has a higher level and we all want to get to that next level. And the language is what's important and language can develop that kind of trust. they're not out to get me. Yeah, yeah, well, I guess the higher level would be whatever. And you can even give them an example.
Like the CEO, you know, what do I need to do to get to that next level? What would Joe Jones or Jane Doe say? How would they present? And use that as a model.
Mike Goldman (35:18)
Yeah, I love that. So I'm hearing two things. One is specificity. The other is it's open ended. It's not how did I do on icon? Even the specific. How did I do on on contact? I contact. you did fine. But when you say like, you know, what were my keepers? What? What should I? It's almost like a start stop. Keep for, you know, when you ask it specific and open ended, you will get real feedback as opposed to broad.
Diane DiResta (35:36)
Yes.
Mike Goldman (35:45)
and closed ended like, how did I do? You were wonderful. Great, thank you. I guess I was wonderful.
Diane DiResta (35:51)
Well, I would say also Mike that you can create that trust by modeling. So here's what I'd like from this team. For example, I know my last presentation, I was saying a lot of ums. So you've already identified for them. So maybe you can tally, like give me a number, but do something. I want that kind of feedback. But if you don't talk about what you recognize, then they're afraid to bring it up. So have that self-disclosure.
tell them what you think the needs are and then ask them for feedback on that.
Mike Goldman (36:24)
Diane, where should people
go if people want to find out more about you, your book, your coaching? Where should people go?
Diane DiResta (36:32)
The best place is my website, diresta.com, D as in David, I, R, E, S as in Sam, T as in Thomas, A, diresta.com, or you can get my book Knockout Presentations on Amazon. It's in its third edition, and you can also visit my YouTube channel. It's forward slash Diane DiResta.
Mike Goldman (36:51)
Beautiful and all that will be in the show notes. I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Diane, thanks for helping us get there today.
Diane DiResta (37:00)
Thank you for having me.