Review:

Simon de Cintra wants to help you unlock your business voice. What does that mean? Something about communicating better and getting heard. Like, when you are a subject matter expert you could learn to appear more leadershippy to add some gravitas to your speech. Something like that.

How do you unlock your business voice, whatever that means? By applying the My Business Voice Methodology®. How do you apply the My Business Voice Methodology®? By using VOICE. The acronym stands for Vocation, Observation, Intention, Casting, Experiment. Let me quote from Unlock your Business Voice for you to clear things up:

“The  first part of the My Business Voice Methodology®, Vocation, is all about choosing your mindset and therefore your role in any piece of communication that you deliver. This will, and indeed should, vary depending on the situation, but absolutely not according to the personalities involved.”

Got that? Did you understand, what the vocation part is all about?  Well, I did not, so let’s have a look at the full programme to see if we can deduce the meaning of unlocking your business voice:

“VOCATION – my new role requires me to contribute to strategic
and therefore potentially ambiguous conversations, as well as
share my expertise and knowledge.”

“OBSERVATION – I need to be better at grabbing impromptu
moments to go off-piste when I present at leadership meetings
and be more comfortable sharing my opinions.”

“INTENTION – I want to spice up my Recipe of Intention™ with a bit
more  challenging  and provoking  and counter this  with some
reassuring and inspiring, leaving out any trace of apologising.”

“CASTING – to the outside world, I may come across as empathetic,
considered and a safe pair of hands. It would be even better if
people saw me as an assertive thought leader.”

“EXPERIMENT – my target is the next monthly Senior Leadership
Team meeting, and I’m going to ask ‘Sam’ to practise with me and
challenge my views on the new procurement process.”

OK, I think now it gets almost clear, but we are already in a hundred pages into the book. Frankly, I found the first two thirds of Unlock your Business Voice to be boring and confusing. De Cintra describes the theory behind his method in the most forgetful fashion.

The third and final part, however is all about the practical application, and this is where Unlock your Business Voice truly shines. I guess a lot of work went into theorizing, but this practical part feels a lot more polished and rounded. De Cintra presents hands-on experiences and relatable stories instead of the vague hodge-podge from the first to chapters.

We get breathing and preparation techniques, exercises to practice voice modulation, methods to assume higher or lower status in conversations, and even a short but highly applicable smalltalk how-to. All of this clearly comes from an experienced professional.

So if you can stand the initial one hundred pages of meh, Unlock your Business Voice becomes pretty good©®.

Key points:

• Make a conscious decision what you need to tell and how you can break it down for others.
• Rehearse your converstions.

 

Author affiliations:

Simon de Cintra is a conversation coach and keynote speaker with a background in science and drama. He can be reached via his company, MyFirstTrainers®.

 

Review copy:

copy provided by marketing/PR agency
Rethink Press (23 Jan. 2018)
ISBN-10: 1781332908
ISBN-13: 978-1781332900

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Title: Unlock your Business Voice - how to speak as well as you think
Author: Simon de Cintra
Publisher: Rethink Press
Release Date: 23 Jan. 2018