Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to

be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking

about sounding well spoken. Here's a question for you. Can you think of anything you do that is its very best the first time you do it?

I'm not talking about something where you're the receiver like reading a mystery or

tasting a new food but some act that you perform. Is there an action where your

performance is at its peak the very first time you do it?

For years I've asked this question to groups, and so far I've never heard an answer that held water.

Why? Because performance improves after you've done something at least once.

That's why professionals rehearse in private.

Why is this important?

Here's a story.

Chris, a rising star in a global sales group, is articulate, funny, and competitive.

She likes handling tough situations on the fly.

She calls it juggling hand grenades.

And she's pretty good at it, too, but not quite as good as she thinks. We'd been discussing a piece of feedback she'd received. Her

homework was to clarify the feedback and get back to me. One morning I got a voicemail from her.

She was, as always, bright and friendly, but she was also clearly sorting her thoughts

as she was speaking. She spoke hesitantly and had to begin two sentences over again just to make

sense. Then when she was done, she repeated her entire message again.

It was not Chris at her best. I transferred the message and played the entire two and a half minutes

of it at our next session.

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