With the Olympics forever lingering in our conversations, it can seem like there are too many comparisons between sports and leadership. We’ve heard them all. Train harder. Push through. Be disciplined. Stay focused.
And yet, the reason those comparisons keep coming back is that they are profound and important and concrete.
For years, I’ve been asking leaders a simple question about how they want to receive feedback:
Do you want to kick the soccer ball twelve times and then get feedback on how you kicked?
Or kick it once, get feedback, adjust, and kick it again? It may feel interruptive, and it will focus you on the smaller details that impact your effectiveness.
In professional culture, we tend to choose the first option.
“Let me get to the end.”
“Don’t interrupt.”
“Let me finish.”
And yes, there are times when that’s appropriate.
If you watch Olympic athletes closely, you’ll see something different. A skier is making micro-adjustments the entire way down the mountain. A skater is shifting weight mid-glide. A curler is sweeping and correcting in motion. They are maneuvering the whole way, and then afterward, refining again.
They trained that way, to be aware while they are in the process, the movement, the moment, of what needs to shift, however minuscule.
Elite performance isn’t perform-now-debrief-later.
It’s movement + adjustment + movement + adjustment.
Communication works the same way. We need to heighten our awareness and practice minor adjustments.
Yet most workplace culture rewards finishing, not adjusting. We deliver the entire presentation. We run the whole meeting. We complete the thought. And only then do we ask for feedback — if we get it at all.
What if we adjusted our culture to invite observation and micro-adjustments in motion?
What if course correction wasn’t seen as an interruption — but as a commitment to better connection and communication through deepened awareness and skills?
That shift changes the possibility and success of our conversations and influence.
We’re Not Trying to Change You. It’s About Degunking the Assumptions and Habits.
At ARTiculateRC, we are not trying to turn people into a polished version of someone else.
We are degunking.
Degunking is removing the stuff the world has layered on — the ill-begotten advice, the habits picked up to survive, the strategies that once protected us but now distance us.
Somewhere along the way professionals learned:
Don’t show too much.
Don’t take up too much space.
Don’t be nervous.
Don’t second guess.
Don’t use your voice fully — it’s “too much.”
That gunk builds up.
And then we wonder why we feel less connected. Less clear. Less ourselves.
Reading about skiing doesn’t make you a skier.
Reading about communication doesn’t make you a communicator.
You have to put the weight in your hands, put the skis on. You have to feel it in your body. You have to hear your own voice and notice where it tightens, where it pushes, where it holds back.
Our voices are a key part of our communication that we often skip right over. Voice is not just tone. It’s breath. Pace. Resonance. Placement. It’s whether you’re inviting people in or bracing against them. Most leaders have never been coached on their voice, yet it carries their authority, their warmth, their clarity.
Degunking is refinement. Not to become someone else. But to become more of who you are.
And refinement requires feedback.
Real-time observation.
Micro-adjustments.
Trusted outside perspective.
The work of an excellent coach.
How We Shifted to Better Support Our Clients
We listened to our clients who kept mentioning how much value and power they found in the coaching. The highly skilled attention to individual detail made a huge impact on their communication, leadership, and career. We needed to adjust to serve them better.
That’s why we moved most of our concepts and tools into micro-videos to a video and learning platform, LeaderPass. People can explore, digest, question, replay —asynchronously, in their own time at their own pace.
Then when we come together — virtually or in person — we don’t spend the room time explaining the tool.
We use the room to finesse it, answer questions, and try things on.
And the deepest shifts often happen one-on-one. Minute adjustments that unlock powerful changes in how someone shows up and connects.
Not everyone wants that. Some people want the recipe. They want to read the weightlifting manual without guidance on lifting the weight.
Those who crave deep individualized insights, are willing to try things on, to feel it in their own body — those are our people.
Why Isn’t Communication A Formula?
Our society is addicted to formulas and quick fixes.
Scripts.
Models.
Recipes.
But a recipe does not the cake make.
Check out any of the variety of examples on Pinterest of the same recipe used by various folks to make a cake and decorate it; a visual assessment of different skill sets, different results!
Communication abilities are the same; following a model or communication rule does not guarantee an excellent connection, or any connection. Then we add in all the other variables of “it depends.”
It depends on who’s in the room.
It depends on power and status.
It depends on whether cameras are on or off.
It depends on whether it’s morning or late afternoon.
It depends on whether you’ve had one cup of coffee or two.
It depends on history. Relationship. Stakes.
It is rare that you can say, “Do this, say this, say it this way — and it will work every time.”
That would make communication so much easier and simpler!
The skill must live in the individual — not in the script.
I ask you: when have you watched someone communicate in a way that worked beautifully for them — and you thought, “That would never work for me”?
Trust that instinct.
The tool may be solid.
The skill — and the finesse — are personal.
At the level of our communication work, formula doesn’t cut it. Individual coaching does.
Exploration does. Feedback and feedforward do. Trying things on does. Embodying the tool with your own packaging — your body, your voice, your energy — does.
And yes, this can be exhausting.
It’s mostly exhausting when we rebel against it. When we wish it were simpler.
There are transactional moments that don’t require this depth. Discernment matters. Energy matters.
But in the conversations that shape culture, trust, leadership — micro-adjustments matter.
The professionals who grow fastest are the ones willing to learn how to take feedforward and adjust mid-run.
They don’t confuse friction with failure.
They don’t confuse feedback with attack.
They don’t wait for the debrief to refine.
They move.
They notice.
They adjust.
So here’s the reflection:
Does your culture reward endurance…or adjustment?
Because Olympic-level performance, in sport or in leadership, is built in motion.
And the difference between just finishing and intentionally refining?
That’s where the gold lives.
If you are committed to diving in deep, taking your communication skills, influence, and connection to a whole new level as your true and authentic self, contact us. That’s what we do best. Olympic level.
If you’re in the Denver Metro Area we can work in person. If you’re outside Denver, let’s work virtually.
Hilary Blair is a Denver-based leadership keynote speaker and co-founder of ARTiculate: Real & Clear, where she helps leaders build executive presence, communication mastery, and influence through real-time coaching and embodied skill development.
