Connie Dieken

Connie Dieken is an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, bestselling author of Talk Less, Say More, and one of the nation’s leading experts on influence and executive communication. She spent over 20 years as a television journalist, including co-hosting The Morning Exchange, America’s longest-running television talk show, before being inducted into the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

From Broadcast Journalism to the Science of Influence

Dieken’s career in journalism gave her a masterclass in communication — how to connect with audiences instantly, deliver complex information clearly, and build trust through authentic presence. She translated that expertise into her consulting and speaking practice, helping executives and leaders communicate with greater impact and influence. Her bestselling book Talk Less, Say More provides a practical framework for influential communication that has been adopted by Fortune 500 companies worldwide.

Helping Leaders Communicate with Influence and Impact

Dieken has trained thousands of executives on the communication strategies that build credibility, drive decisions, and inspire action. Her research-backed techniques combine the storytelling instincts of a veteran broadcaster with the strategic rigor of a business consultant. Her keynotes deliver proven strategies for influential communication and executive presence, strategic messaging that drives decisions and action, building credibility and trust through authentic communication, and the techniques that help leaders talk less, say more, and inspire followership.

Leadership

People crave a certain amount of structure and guidance. Without the influence of good leadership, organizational successes may stay in flux. Many organizations, especially those blessed with highly motivated, exceptional people, overlook the impact effective leaders have on organizational outcomes.

Connie focuses on and highlights various types of leadership, their traits and evaluates strengths and weaknesses. She speaks on tailoring any leader’s behavioral type to outcomes that empower people, give rise to successful performance, and influence positive actions.

Communication

In business and life, our ability to effectively communicate is the most important skill needed to accomplish anything, and yet it is the single greatest challenge in business today. When it comes to our people, so much more is expected from them, we need to reach them on the road just as much as in the office; and yet, this need also decreases their attention spans, makes people more distracted and eager to get to the point.

Connie talks frankly about the need to connect instantly in order to capture attention and gives useable tips helping anyone be heard and understood to influence others to action. Audiences walk away with the skills to achieve more in less words, cause less confusion communication and build more rewarding relationships. Connie inspires audiences to act knowing that the skills they learn will increase their ability to influence through communications.

Change

Change is hard, and it’s not something people or companies revel in. And regardless of the impetus for change, whether it’s strategic, operational or technological, effective communication and management tends to be the primary bottleneck to any successful change management plan.

Connie shines light on the typical and specific roadblocks to managing change successfully, from effective communication techniques to a successful implementation to dealing successfully with resistant attitudes and behaviors to successful leadership techniques to manage or integrate teams, or strategies to align expectations.

Teambuilding

GDP isn’t the only casualty during economic hard times and when we start to look at our companies on the micro level, we see that the morale of our team has also been hit hard. People worry for their families, they worry for their jobs, but it’s the leader’s job to foster an environment for self-motivation to improve company morale.

Connie takes audiences through the importance of team building to improve communication and leadership skills within an entire organization. She gets audiences to understand company goals and the role they play in the success, which leads to a stronger working environment with improved collaboration, better performance, and increased retention of top talent

Employee Engagement

Employees don’t stay with companies like they used to. Recruiting and retaining top talent is now the most challenging issue in human resources. And while some forms of brain drain are unavoidable, there are ways to mitigate losses and maximize employee retention through sound methods to improve employee engagement.

Connie focuses her talk on work environments and behaviors that lead to dissatisfaction and teaches basic methods to identify the signs of impending disengagement. She gives ideas on communication and leadership initiatives that increase engagement, improve loyalty among teams.

Sales

Selling in today’s economy is fraught with distrust and requires a new perspective on tried-and-true communication techniques. People have been captured by fear, distrust in companies and our government is high, but there is still a bright spot and it’s these same people. We all want to trust, we all want to be confident, we all can be motivated to act. We just need the right people to show us the way.

Connie shows audiences how selling through the fear is possible in today’s market by knowing the successful communication techniques to influence people to act. Sellers need to know how to listen and tailor their pitch to the customer; speak candidly and confidently to their needs; learn when to sell their expertise and nonpressure techniques; and convince the customer to move past the doubt to close the sale.