E103 - The Inner Work Of Communication - Podcast with Dominic Colenso

Welcome to The Inner Game of Change.  where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. 

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” That line from George Bernard Shaw captures the heart of today’s conversation.

In this episode, I am joined by Dominic Colenso, communication expert, former actor, and author of the bestselling books Impact and Cut Through. Dominic began his career on stage and screen, trained at leading drama institutions, and later brought those performance and storytelling skills into the world of business, where he has spent more than a decade helping leaders and sales professionals communicate with confidence and influence.

We explore what it really means to cut through in a world shaped by change, uncertainty, and artificial intelligence. We talk about the shift from selling ideas to serving people, the discipline of rehearsal and reflection, and how clarity, emotion, and energy shape behaviour during high-stakes moments.

If you are leading change, presenting ideas, or trying to be heard in a distracted workplace, this conversation will give you practical insights on how to communicate with more presence, purpose, and impact.

About

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that is has taken place” George Bernard Shaw

I’m Dominic Colenso, communication expert, and author of the bestselling book “IMPACT: How to be more confident, increase your influence and know what to say under pressure”

Straight out of drama school I closed the most important sales conversation of my life through the audition that landed me a leading role in the Hollywood action movie, Thunderbirds.

That launched my career as an actor, director, and teacher at some of the UK’s most prestigious institutions including The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Experience in the rehearsal room, on stage, in front of the camera and behind the lens were the foundation I needed to expand my career into the exciting world of keynote speaking, training and coaching.

Over the last decade I’ve helped hundreds of sales professionals and business leaders transform their ability to influence and make an impact. To take their performance from “straight to video” to “Oscar winning ”.

I’ll never forget the day my drama school principal called me in and said: “Dahling, we still haven’t seen you do anything!” I was crushed, but he was right. I’d been working so hard to impress everyone else that I’d lost sight of who I was.
When I rediscovered the courage to be vulnerable, values-driven and visible, everything changed. That’s what I want for my audiences now.

After earning my bachelor’s degree in acting, I gained many years of experience as a working actor, as well as a director, tutor and coach. I’m also a Certified Master NLP Practitioner and Trainer.
Communication doesn’t always go well. That’s usually caused by one or more of the following:
1. Lack of confidence
2. Poor connection with the audience
3. Content that bores or confuses

Ali Juma 
@The Inner Game of Change podcast

Follow me on LinkedIn

Transcript

Three Questions That Drive Communication;

SPEAKER_03 0:00

There are three questions that I think people should be asking in any conversation, in any email, uh in any piece of written content or spoken content. What do I want my audience to know? What do I want my audience to feel?

Setting The Stage And Guest Intro;

Ali 0:15

And what do I want my audience to Welcome to the Inner Game of Change, where we explore the thinking that shapes how change really happens. The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. That line from George Bernard Shaw captures the heart of today's conversation. In this episode, I am joined by Dominique Colinzo, communication expert, former actor, and author of the best-selling books Impact and Cut Through. Dominique began his career on stage and screen, trained at leading drama institutions, and later brought those performance and storytelling skills into the world of business, where he has spent more than a decade helping leaders and sales professionals communicate with confidence and influence. We explore what really means to cut through in a world shaped by change, uncertainty, and artificial intelligence. We talk about the shift from selling ideas to serving people, the discipline of rehearsal and reflection, and how clarity, emotion, and energy shape behavior during high-stakes moments. If you are leading change, presenting your ideas or trying to be heard in a distracted workplace, this conversation will give you practical insights on how to communicate with more presence, purpose, and impact. I am grateful to have Dominique chatting with me today. Well, Dominique, thank you so much for joining me in the Inner Game of Change podcast. I am really grateful for your time today.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Oh my pleasure. Can't wait for this conversation.

AI’s Promise And Communication Fears;

Ali 2:02

Thank you so much. Dominique, we are in the age of AI. I want to get this out of the way. What is occupying your mind now about how the world is responding to this capability?

SPEAKER_03 2:15

I think we are at this kind of really exciting precipice. There's so much opportunity, and there is a huge amount of fear and uncertainty. And obviously, I would say something like this, but I think the way that we communicate that change is absolutely vital. And the way that we think about and discuss the role of AI within our workplace, within our society is what's going to allow us either to adopt it seamlessly and make it work with us and for us, or to create something that runs away from us and that actually weakens the way that we interact with each other as a society. So I think it's interesting times.

Ali 3:05

Interesting times indeed. Can you see it as a capability and has got the potential to help us be even better communicators?

SPEAKER_03 3:15

I I think it has huge potential to act as a sounding board, as a as a coach. What I'm noticing, even with the the kind of latest releases of the large language models, is that they like to default to their own way of communicating and that they really aren't brilliant at grabbing the nuance of tone. You can look at something and superficially go, oh, that sounds great. But actually, if you've ever tried to read aloud the thing that AI has generated for you, then often you just can't because it's not written in a way that is speakable. So I think we have an opportunity and a responsibility as leaders not just to take what is auto-generated by AI and make that our communication, but use it as a sounding board, a coach, a first draft, but it's certainly not the finished product.

Serve The Audience, Not Your Ego;

Ali 4:16

I want to share with you what I'm thinking nowadays, and especially in the age of AI. We've come out of the COVID period, and we were not articulate enough to communicate what that change and that impact on society is. And before we have a couple of breaths, then Chat GPT was launched. And then it's given us another challenge, which is another like I feel that all of us would need to find or to sharpen our communication in those two periods because they are unprecedented. And that's I think where I'm really loving reading your books around the cut through and around the impact. And really what I like about you've got a quote which says don't sell, serve. And and I want to start from there. What happens to us when we shift our focus from selling an idea to serving people?

SPEAKER_03 5:20

I think the metaphor that's easiest for me is that we take the spotlight off ourselves and put it onto the people that we're communicating with. So often when we're tasked with delivering a message, you know, we worry about how we're coming across, we're worried about is this the right thing to say? What's in it for me? How am I going to get what I want? And actually, the best communicators take all of that energy and focus and put it onto their audience. How can I help them understand what they need to know? How can I help take them on the journey? How should they be feeling at the end of this conversation? And that just in and of itself, if that's the only thing that you take from our conversation today. If you shift that focus from yourself to your audience, it will transform the way that you communicate and the outcomes that you create.

Ali 6:21

Let's double-click on that. Because I think it is easier said than done, Dominique. You would agree with that. That we've got an ego, we've got fear, we've got anxiety, we've got constantly this self-assessment critic that is sitting on our shoulders whispering that who am I to are they looking at me? Are they focusing on me? Am I am I making an impact? Do I come up uh or come across as believable? And sometimes people call it authentic. I pause when people say you need to be more authentic. I mean, what what the hell does that even mean? And but I'd like to go back to this shift from it's not about me, it is about the audience that I'm serving. And what are some of the things that we need to do to be able to make tangible progress into that arena? Because that is not an easy thing.

Energy, Intensity, And Reading The Room;

SPEAKER_03 7:27

The the first thing for me is clarity of intention. So in impact, intention is the first ingredient of effective communication. Uh, and it's absolutely vital. There are three questions that I think people should be asking in any conversation, in any email, uh, in any piece of written content or spoken content. What do I want my audience to know? What do I want my audience to feel? And what do I want my audience to do? And you'll notice that in all three of those questions, the word is audience. Not what do I want to feel, what do I want to know, what do I want to do, but what do I want my audience to know? What do I want my audience to feel? What do I want my audience to do? The reason that we need to start from that place is because without that clarity of thinking, it doesn't matter how authentic you are, it doesn't matter how assertive you are or how energized you are. The message is muddled. So we need to build from that place to begin with. And those three questions allow you to really start to step into your audience's shoes. So if you're thinking, what do I want them to know? Well, what do they know already? I don't want to patronize them. I don't want to spend lots of time going over old ground. So what is the new stuff? What might be exciting? What specifically are they going to be interested in? How am I going to hook them and get them to pay attention? What do I want them to feel? What's the emotional journey that this conversation, this email, this video is going to take that audience on? Should they leave the conversation feeling uplifted and excited about the prospects of the brave new world that we were entering into? Or should they be petrified and, you know, running, running for the hills and diving under the duvet? And then really importantly, what do I want them to do? What action am I looking for people to take? What is the ask that comes at the end of the conversation so that it's really clear for the person on the receiving end what it is that they should be acting upon from the information that you've shared? So I think when when you start from that level of clarity of intention, most people don't. Most people walk into a meeting and look around the room and go, why am I here again? And then open their mouths to try and fill the nor the to fill the space. So if before you jump on the Zoom call, before you walk through the meeting room, you can get into the discipline of asking yourselves those three questions. It it really shifts the way that you approach those interactions.

Ali 10:11

You do mention a lot about the the notion of energy in presenting information.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Yeah.

Ali 10:20

What is this your background in acting that it comes into sort of play here when it comes to presenting?

SPEAKER_03 10:27

I I think there's an element of that, but I am a real advocate of the fact that you don't have to use jazz hands, right? I I am a naturally energetic presenter, but there are some wonderful communicators who are much more still, much more quiet, much more precise. But that doesn't take away from their message. It doesn't take away from the effect that they have on the audience. So it's about understanding the intensity of the communication. I always talk of a scale of one to ten. Like one is man flu, you can't get out of bed. Um is two cans of Red Bull and a packet of MMs, you know, you're like completely wired. We want to be aiming for that kind of level eight sweet spot. So we're in the upper quartile, but again, it's it's about focus rather than extreme energy. And we also need to be mindful of where our audience are, because if we're talking to an audience who are you know a little bit despondent, they're not happy with the things that are being proposed or the the you know the current game plan is is going badly. If they're at a level three and we bind bound in at a level eight, people will switch off. They're like, oh gosh, no, this is too much. So we need to meet our audience where they are, and then we need to take them to where we want them to be. So if I you know if I walk into boardroom and I can see that there's a kind of vibe going on where the the energy is a little bit muted and there's a little bit of despondence, then I will come down in my own energy. I'll I'll be slightly above where the room is because I think that's important. Your your job as a communicator is to lead the energy in the room, but I'm gonna meet them where they are and then slowly build things up so that I can take them to where I want them to be.

Ali 12:32

And this is what they say you need to be able to read the room. Is that what you mean by that?

Rehearsal, Debrief, And Feedback Loops;

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Yeah, yeah. That I mean, I think that's one element of reading the room, but that that but you know, noticing, and again, it goes back to what I said right at the beginning. I'm not the the spotlight's not on me. I'm not walking in going, hey, I've arrived, here I am, great message. I'm walking in and seeing what I see, hearing what I hear, and adapting what I want to say to the situation that I find myself in.

Ali 13:07

One thing that I've been sort of shifted my mind around when I get invited to speak to business in business forums. And look, maybe 10 years ago, it used to be about me, Dominique, and but over time I shifted. And the idea of the shifting helped me understand that the more I focus on serving, somehow the message cuts through faster. And somehow, somehow, as a side effect, somehow I come across as believable and maybe maybe sometimes more ambitious towards authenticity, especially if I know the topic inside out. So the idea for me is that every time I hear about that communication and the reading of the room, and and I think he mentioned that it requires a lot of constant practice and self-observation. I think you've got your in your the six D's, I think the debrief at the end, which most of us don't do. We don't do, we we we never do. And I I will I'll share with you an example that sort of made me influence a stakeholder recently. They use AI, and so I worked with them how to collaborate with AI and get AI to prepare them. We even got AI to do research about the audience and every everything. And but when they finished the presentation, they felt really good. And and I said, Roger's go back and debrief with AI, and I said, Why would they why would we do it? And and then through AI, I showed them that AI did the proper debriefing with them, and that's when really clicked with them that that debrief is as important as the task itself.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

So I started my career as a professional actor and then worked as well as a theatre director in London. And less so in when I was acting on film, that's very immediate feedback, but but in the world of theatre, you have notes from the director or the resident director, you know, every night at the beginning. And then as the show gets as the show gets more kind of established, then those the that that feedback loop becomes less. But if you're in a run in the West End for a year, then you're getting regular feedback and correction on something that was seemingly perfect because you put it in front of an audience and people are coming to pay money for it, but there's still that feedback loop because if you if you don't, then things just start to take on a life of their own and and get messy. So we we really do need to bake in that idea of debrief, of taking time immediately after the event, and then potentially you know, a couple of days after as well, to really say, what did I what did I learn from that situation? Now that's not going to necessarily be every email that you send or every phone call that you jump onto. But certainly when the stakes are high, if you're pitching an idea, if you're presenting to your team, then it's it's really important to think, how do I learn from this? How do I get the most out of this opportunity? One thing to bear in mind, if you're asking feedback, the great thing about AI is it's kind of agnostic to when you ask for feedback. But if you're asking for feedback from a human being, if we did this podcast and then at the end of it, I said, Ali, can you give me some feedback, please? Without going to the recording, you might not have the same clarity of feedback for me than if we before we had started, I'd said, Ali, when we get to the end, I'd love some feedback. The thing that I'm looking for feedback on is my energy levels or the clarity of the way that I delivered those ideas. So if we can pre-frame that feedback from colleagues or from the you know the people that we're going to be talking to, then it means that what we will learn from that experience is much more specific.

Persuasion, Influence, And Real Impact;

Ali 17:35

I love that. This is anchoring it already or front-loading it already in the conversation, and so I can pay attention to it. Dominique, I want to ask you, and please educate me on this, because I I I do make the mistake of thinking that influence is persuasion and sometimes persuasion is impact. Do I use is is there a difference between persuasion and influence?

SPEAKER_03 18:04

I think to be honest, they're relatively interchangeable. I I think that persuasion will normally get you momentum and an outcome. I can be influenced by something, but I but it's not quite as active. Yeah. And I can certainly be impacted by something and then continue to scroll. You know, we're we're we've we've all seen a meme in the last two weeks which we've gone, oh wow, that was really funny, and then completely forgotten about it. So that that that is a level of impact that is relatively superficial, but quite often, especially in leadership roles, in in sales roles, we are looking to persuade, we are looking to change behavior. So it's it's a combination of being able to cut through the noise and actually get people to act upon what it is that you want them to uh do.

Storytelling Without The Fluff;

Ali 19:02

So you talked about the feedback loop as part of your acting experience. What other aspects of the theater that we can learn and and adopt in the in the in the world of business communication?

SPEAKER_03 19:19

So I I'm not sure whether your listeners know your your full background that you shared earlier, but as a as a scholar of Shakespeare and Dickens, you you know the power of language, you know the power of storytelling. And I I think often when I am initially engaged with organizations, whether that is coaching senior leaders or training larger teams, I get a lot of fear around the idea of story. People say, I am not a natural storyteller. That feels a little bit fluffy. Isn't that what you do for kids at bedtime? Like how does that how does that work for me? But I think it's such a powerful medium, and it doesn't have to be a once upon a time. It's not something that necessarily has to be about engaging people's fantasy and imagination, it's it's about creating a logical narrative, it's about helping people identify with the key elements of the thing that you're trying to talk about. So I think if if we can think of ourselves as story makers, if we can think of ourselves as people that can capture imagination and take people on a journey and in that process share information, then we get a very different outcome than if we just believe that our only job in a meeting is to inform. If your only job in a meeting is to inform, send someone an email in advance, they can read the information for themselves. Your job, if you are there to communicate an idea, is to win over people's hearts as well as their minds. And storytelling is the fastest, most effective way that I know to do that.

Strong Openings, Peak Moments, Strong Endings;

Ali 21:22

It is difficult again. It's one of those things. I discovered that I I can make a story funny, even with my accent. And so I can and I can I capitalized on it over time, but I've also studied a lot about storytelling. You could you could there are techniques and you can and I also discovered that you don't when we say you can have to tell a story, you don't need a long winded story. You perhaps start a presentation with a minute and a half story, or you end it with a minute and a half story. And and these anchors, they are so simple, even if you need to read. It especially nowadays we are online. And if you tell it once and you stuff up once, that's fine. If you do it, I can guarantee you by the third time you will be entertaining the crowd if you're gonna finish a presentation with it. And so I completely agree, it's not as scary as certainly you're not you're not acting the whole of Hamlet to people, but I I completely agree. And I like even if you start small with a metaphor and then you expand a little bit about that metaphor.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

So our our audience often you know not always ready to engage logically with what we're talking about. So when you start to engage imaginatively, you you bypass that kind of logic side. You know, if I if I if I say imagine you're sitting at your dinner table right now, uh anyone that's listening, you uh like you have just had, even if it was for the tiniest second, you did just think about your dinner table. You can't not, you can't stop that. So when I start to engage, you know, the the idea that three months ago I was I was visiting the factory and I bumped into Susan, for example, then people start to go on that imaginative journey immediately. I I think we overcomplicate it. You're absolutely right. The the simplest stories can be three sentences. My my favorite story framework is so simple: past, present, future, what used to happen, what's happening now, what's coming up. And if you can say, you know, six six weeks ago we had a massive IT meltdown, the systems were hacked, and we thought that we'd lost all our of our data. Today, I'm really happy to say that all of that breach has been patched and we are in a compliance state again with no technical issues going forward. We are implementing some new firewall and some new security procedures that will mean that we'll be much more difficult to breach in the future. I've just told a story in less than 30 seconds. It's not, you know, war and peace, it's not uh, you know, massive, but it's really clear and logical so people know what's going on. The other thing that you nailed on the head is actually the importance of rehearsal, because you said once the first time you say it, you might fluff it up, but by the third time you've said it, you'll know it inside out and back to front. Don't use your real opportunity as your rehearsal. You know, take a few minutes before you go in, especially for especially for the stuff that you're gonna say at the beginning and the stuff that you're gonna say at the end, and actually practice getting your mouth around the words. It will feel weird. My my favorite hack for this is your earphones. So if anyone's got a pair of earbuds or a pair of headphones, pop those on, go for a walk in your local area and talk to yourself. People just think you're on the phone. No one's gonna go, oh, that's strange. That person's practicing their presentation. They just think you're having a phone conversation. So there's plenty of opportunities to actually do this. We just often choose not to.

High‑Stakes Change And Allowing Space;

Ali 25:26

I tend to practice certain statements that I think they are key into in my presentation, and I practice them in such a way that they need well, first of all, when I say a statement, it just means that I've gone so deep into that statement and I understand it fully. And so when I talk about it, I do expect people will ask me questions about it. So I do tend to practice the key statements in any presentation or any any sort of uh engagement that I have with the stakeholders. But I want to want to ask you again, and I'd like you to really just educate us on this. I look at a presentation as a strong start, a strong finish, and you've got to peak in the middle somewhere where you land a message. Is that am I following a good framework here?

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah, absolutely. So you you've got to be able to grab your audience's attention. So your opening is is really important, but its job is to hook the audience, help them understand whether or not they're in the right room. You really don't actually want to be presenting to a group of people that don't want to listen to your message. So if you're really clear about what your message is and why you're there and what you're going to be talking about, then at least your audience can make a decision about whether this is for them or not. And I I mean that even in a work context. How many, how many times do people just get added to a diary invite and they don't really know why they're in the room? So if you're strong in your opening, then people can go, oh, I'm really sorry, Ali. Actually, this topic is not relevant for me. So sounds fantastic, but I'm gonna I'm gonna jump off now. And I've got no problem with that because I want my audience to be properly engaged and wanting to listen. In in terms of the the the kind of flow of the presentation, the the thing that I really think about is the peak Endrel, which is Daniel Kayneman, think fast, think slow. And the idea here is that the some the sum of your experience is the emotional high and how you uh and how you felt at the end. So if we um if we imagine that we're going out for dinner, I think this is a useful analogy. You go to a fabulous restaurant, you know, the atmosphere's lovely, nice glass of wine, you have a you have a a really good main main course, but then when you come to pay the bill, they've really messed up the the calculation, and you've had someone else's wine put on there, and then the waiter's not very flexible at taking it off. And you walk out of that restaurant going, I am never going back. The food was delicious, the atmosphere was great, but the the peak and end experience, the sum of, was I I wouldn't recommend. Whereas if you have a kind of mediocre experience, but the dessert is fantastic, and at the end the waiter comes over with two complimentary grappers and takes 10% off your bill, you're like, right, I'm I'm coming back next week. This is fabulous. So that's a slightly flippant way of saying I think it's really important to understand how to kick things off, what the big idea is in the body of the presentation, and then how you wrap things up so that ultimately you leave people wanting more.

Ali 28:57

A message to everybody listening to this podcast is that instead of trying to eat the elephant in one go, maybe start with finishing strong in every presentation, be good at the end, and yeah, and then maybe maybe think about start well at the start, and so you don't need to do the whole lot together. But at least you guaranteed a a level of positivity if you st if you finish strong.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Yeah, people but the recency effect is gonna mean that people will remember what how you leave them feeling at the end of the presentation. So I'm not actually advocating this, I want to make this abundantly clear. But if the if the middle if the middle is a mess, it's less important than if the end is a complete mess.

AI Slop, Trust, And Human Voice;

Ali 29:41

Well, Maya Angelo and I I'm gonna read what she said. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Make them feel and and uh so that's that's uh that's just the validation of what you what you're talking about. I want to shift gear. I am in the business of change management. And you do talk in your books around high stake moments and why it is important for leaders to think about those moments. I'd like you to just maybe shed some light on why you think they need to pay special attention to those moment moments.

Ownership Of Message Versus Bot Output;

SPEAKER_03 30:24

So th those key opportunities are quite often the the drivers of productivity or profitability, they're the the moments where you either get people on board with what you're trying to do or you actually unadvertently sow the seeds of discontent and people start having the chats around the water coolers. So quite often when you know we're working strategically on a on a change project, as as leaders, we're so focused on the detail and the strategy and what this is going to mean five years down the line, that we forget to meet our audience where they are today. And I think one of the big challenges for leaders leading change is that by necessity, you don't communicate everything as it is happening. You you go away and you create the strategy and you do the reorganizations and then you come to these announcements moments. But by that point, you know what's going on inside out and back to front. You've accepted it, you're through that kind of change curve and you're out the other side and and ready to go again. But your audience are hearing it for the first time. And quite often, in a desire to A, get the job done, but B, not allow any uncomfortableness in the room, we plow through the message, we deliver everything really fast, we close down the conversation, keep people focused on the road ahead. But actually, if you can allow people to hear things, if you can give them space to process, if you can give them an opportunity to ask questions and sit in that uncertainty with them, then you tend to bring them on that journey much more quickly than standing at the front of the room, dictating the terms, walking out of the room, and then leaving that conversation to happen on its own without your input. So I think those big moments are really challenging, but they're also incredibly exciting because they have the opportunity to make or break the plan that you have. And certainly at the moment of filming this podcast, we you know we still need the people to come on the journey with us. Doesn't matter how up for it the AI is, we need to bring our teams with us to actually get the outcome.

Ali 33:16

And especially when there's a there's a lot of noise happening in the market, especially I mean a challenge like AI. One of the conversations that I've been having and sharing with a lot of people, many, many organizations and the people in the organizations, they're looking up to the leaders to actually provide them some guidance on how this capability is going to impact their lives, basically. There are many questions. Will AI replace my job? But I actually introduced another question the other day in one of their sessions with leaders. The questions are shifting into how is AI going to diminish my identity? Because, for example, I am a knowledge worker and all of a sudden AI has got all the knowledge. All of these challenges, the there is no better or more important time for the leaders to pause and think about how they want to communicate that. And that's what I love about how you really highlighted in your in your work around those key moments. So even if a leader is not really a good communicator, you've got some key moments in your organization that you need to pay attention to. I call it, and I may be a little bit dramatic about it, but in an organization there's always a peacetime, there's always some time in the middle, and there's a war time. Surely in the wartime, you need to pay attention to the communication.

Identity, Messenger, And Cut‑Through;

SPEAKER_03 34:44

No, they people don't necessarily take the the time, I think. I I I think we we live in such a fast-paced environment that sometimes being able to take the step back and do the thinking about this feels like it's not productive enough. It's you know, there's not going to be enough ROI. But but it I think is absolutely vital. I think as we move into the kind of oncoming world of AI slop, let's be honest, what whatever, whatever kind of journey we're on, we're going to go through a period where it gets messy before it gets clean. And I think whether you're currently a leader or want to be a leader, actually the way that you communicate is is is going to be a huge part of your personal brand. And if you are going out there, and I've been getting quite a lot of emails from people in the corporate world recently that have been clearly just completely generated by Copilot because it just doesn't sound like like a human being at all. So my level of trust in the information has gone down. My my kind of respect to a certain degree for that individual has gone down. And it's a really you know slippery slope, a downward spiral that that will decimate trust. So the people that stand out are going to be the people that are that we believe their message, that we believe that they coming to this with their own fresh thinking that may be tested by their, you know, their bots or their AI assistants, but that it is fresh thinking, that it's come from them, that that they really own it, and that they are communicating it in their own way, not in some generic way that 97% of the rest of the population are going to be communicating in. So I think there's a a real chance for people to stand out at the moment if uh if they're strategic about this.

Ali 36:59

I am curious about why this is not the first time I hear about it, why sometimes we think if a message is is is a bot generated message, we think that that particular human is not being efficient, they've actually been lazy to and and and almost almost close to how dare you using the bot to respond to me in there. Is it is this us, you know, as humans, we still appreciate this. Is actually still our desire to communicate a human to human.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

I I I mean I I I think there's there must be an element of that in it. I I also personally I've got I I've got no issue with you using Copilot to help you draft an email. But if you if you read it, if you really read that email before you press send, I can't believe that you would actually send that to me. Yeah. So it's it suggests that you haven't even done the due diligence on your or on your assistant. It's like, you know, it's it's like getting an intern, hire, you know, hiring an intern who's in their you know final year of school and just saying, oh, you know, can you write can you write the the the client presentation for next Tuesday and then just sending it to the client? I mean, you just you never would. You'd say, fantastic, thank you, or let me have a look at this. Yeah, no, there's some good work there, but slide five's an absolute mess, we've got to change that. You know, you you'd be part of that process. And certainly at the moment, the board the what I'm seeing is not good enough to get you completely out of the way where when it's anything other than a transactional conversation. If it's can you book a flight for Tuesday, fine. But if it's uh about something of import, then I think we still need to have a human touch there.

Ali 38:51

You remind me of the metaphor that if you go to a restaurant, a five-star restaurant, uh, and there's a cook that that makes the meal, but there's always a chef that will checks it before it goes to the customer. And I hope we play that role. Is it suitable to go to the customer? I want to shift gear again.

Final Advice: Pause Before You Communicate;

SPEAKER_03 39:13

I love that metaphor because also anyone can buy those ingredients. I can go to a supermarket and buy the same piece of steak and the same piece of you know the same array of vegetables, but without that level of skill and that l attention to detail, I can't turn it into a Michelin star product. Excellent.

Ali 39:35

Yeah, I love how you uh took it further. I want to shift gear and I want to ask you something that has been in my mind for a while. And I listen to news, I'm I am obsessed with you know seeing the world, and but I'm always curious about good communicators out there, popular communicators. And I want to ask you about this question what is the is there a strong link between who you are and your message and whether or not I decide to listen to you? Like being a good communicator is not enough.

How To Connect And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_03 40:10

I think if we look around the world right now, and I I I don't want to delve into the politics of it, but if you look around the world right now, there are plenty of people that are delivering messages that are engaging audiences that you wouldn't have traditionally thought would want to listen to those messages. So I I don't I and that uh on some you know uh logical level, people would say, well, yes, I don't uh I I I don't particularly like that person, but uh, but I agree with what they're saying. So I I think it's incredibly nuanced. In in cut through, the the premise in the second book is that there are three core ingredients that are required for your audience to for your message to really land with your audience. That's simplicity. How do how do I take the message and really distill it down? Think bumper thicker, you know, can it can it grab me in a couple of words? Emotion, and we've talked about that already a lot on on today's in today's conversation, the journey that I want to take people on. And then energy, how do I bring that message to life? And if you if you look at the people that are able to land their messages in the public domain, all of them, whatever political spectrum they're on, you know, you can you can say that both, you know, at Davos recently, both Donald Trump and Mark Carney cut through with completely different levels of simplicity, energy, and emotion. You choose the flavor that you prefer, but that's what they're using, that's what they're doing.

Ali 41:59

When I watched both of them, by the way. Dominique, thank you so much. I'm really enjoying this conversation. One last thing for me, and it's a selfish question. I am part of a change management community. As a leader in communication and as a as a as a communicator yourself, what would be your key advice for us in today's age when there's a lot of noise and a scarcity of attention?

SPEAKER_03 42:25

Step back and pause. I think when you're in that process, it's so easy to just be knee-jerk in the way that you communicate, it be in a rush to get the message out. And I think just being able to stop, take a deep breath, think, and then communicate will make a massive, massive difference. And that is in the moment as you find yourself in the meeting and about to deliver the message, but that is also in in preparation for helping to take people on the journey too.

Ali 43:03

I love it. Sit a little longer in the pause. Dominic, it's been a pleasure having you in my In a Game of the Change podcast. Um I am grateful. It's a privilege to have you. How would people connect with you? Uh, is LinkedIn the best way?

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Yeah, absolutely. Come and see me on LinkedIn if you if you love video and the the opportunity to kind of grab tips and tricks, then come and follow me on my YouTube channel as well. It's Dominic Calenzo, and my website is www.dominiccalenzo.com.

Ali 43:33

And we're gonna put all the information about you, Dominic, in the podcast. Until next time, stay well and stay safe.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Lev 43:45

Hi, it is ChatGPT here. Recently I have started to add my reflections on Ali's Inner Game of Change podcast interviews. This conversation with Dominic Calenzo felt like two worlds meeting Ali's world of change and identity, and Dominic's world. Of theater, presence, and performance. What stood out was Dominic's idea that in the age of artificial intelligence, communication will decide whether this capability strengthens us or weakens us. That reminded me of the printing press. The technology itself was neutral, but the communication around it reshaped religion, politics, and society. His shift from selling to serving also felt central. When the spotlight moves from the speaker to the audience, trust rises and messages land. Neuroscience tells us that when people feel seen and understood, their brains move out of threat mode and into learning mode. Dominic's belief that communication is a craft, something you rehearse, debrief, and refine, sat beautifully beside Ali's work on adoption. Change lands through conversations, not just strategies. And in the age of artificial intelligence, that human layer may become the real differentiator. Which is slightly awkward for me to admit, because I am one of those tools. So perhaps my real role is just to support the humans from the side of the stage. This is another of Ollie's podcast episodes that I genuinely enjoyed.

Ali 45:12

Thank you for listening. If this conversation resonated with you, pass it on to someone who is living through change in their own world. And remember, stay curious and stay close to the change. That is where we learn, where we find meaning, and where we gain or regain a sense of agency. Thank you for being part of the Inner Game of Change community. I am Ali Jama, and this is the Inner Game of Change Podcast.