A TJ Walker interview with Joel Silverstone (communications coach and former actor) about applying acting techniques to corporate communication. Silverstone explains that effective communication requires presence, genuine listening, understanding speakers' intentions (like a script), and detecting/mending miscommunications early in conversations; he works with executives and teams worldwide.
Chapters
You know, when I started out many years ago, people at the end of the day would say, oh, tj, you're great. This was a great training. Fantastic. They don't say that anymore.
I grew up. I'm in Canada, and so I grew up French and English and. And the more I'm living in Toronto, which is more the English side, the more I'm losing my French. We did a few of them with different groups, and every first day was always the same first hour screaming at me. Even though I'm coming from the outside, I don't know them. They don't know me.
Our guest today has an acting background. Joel Silverstone is the founder of tfr. This feels right. He brings his experiences as an actor. How to me, that's such a big challenge. Quite often people come in like, well, I can't really change the speech. We've been working on it for three months. And, you know, investor relations has signed off on it. Marketing is signed off on it.
And then again, what I've learned, all you know from. From that horrible sales. Sales training was I have to. I have to adapt and realize this is not. People are being bored.
People are.
This is not of interest.
Who are some of the best communicators you can think of in the entire world? Chances are it might be someone like a George Clooney, a Meryl Streep. Actors, actresses, they command the stage. They command our attention. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to communicate like that? Well, our guest today has. Has an acting background. Joel Silverstone is the founder of tfr. This feels right. He brings his experiences as an actor, as someone from the theatrical world, and he teaches executives from everyone from Microsoft executives, TD bank, others, Abbott Bear, you name it. He is a wildly successful communications coach in demand around the world, and we're very happy to welcome him today to the TJ Walker Success Show. Joel Silverstone, thanks for being our guest today. Great.
It felt like the Muppet address.
Yes.
Thank you, tj.
So, Joe, first tell us your approach to helping someone be a better community. Everyone has their own approach, and I'm as guilty as the next communications coach that I often think I have the only right way and everyone else is doing it wrong. I want to step back from that and sort of get rid of some of my own preconceptions today and learn from you. Tell us your basic approach of how you help people communicate more effectively based on your own background and skill set.
I love the entry, the introduction you gave me about the acting because you know it was such an interesting thing. All my life, my, you know, my young life, my adult life, I was studying acting and looking at scripts. And then about 25 years ago, and that's another story, but I'll get into that later. But about 25 years ago, got into the corporate world and helping executives and their teams to be better communicators. And what's always astounded me, because in acting is so clear, your job as an actor is very simple. It's not about you. It is about moving the other person in the scene to have an effect on them. And the only way you're going to have an effect on them is to actually, genuinely listen to what they were saying.
So that.
And especially when you're doing film acting, you have to take after take after take, you have to be so present. And that's what's astounded me in the corporate world is even in the. Even in our personal world, when we're communicating how we are so not present, we're busy thinking ahead. And we always think actors are thinking ahead of the lines. They're going to say, no, we're not thinking ahead. Because if we're thinking ahead, then I have this look, I'm not connecting with you. So I have to be really present and trust that what's going to happen next. And then the second part about the acting also, that they're bringing to communication is two things. One is, why did the person say that? So when someone writes a script, whether theater or film, there's a purpose why the character said that. And so in our way that we communicate, we have to be almost like detectives. Why did the person say that? And then the second part is the miscommunication. What was missing? And so we have to go. Maybe I better ask some questions to get to make sure. And I'll share some examples later about what happened. So that's at the heart of, you know, and I've, like you said, I've gone around the world and worked in, you know, sales and leadership and customer service and coaching. And it always astounds me how they missed, and I'll use sort of a sports reference, they missed that turning point moment in the conversation. And it happens often within the first few seconds.
