speech IRL

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of talent at Table XI, a trusted UX and design software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire speech IRL?

We hired speech IRL to run three workshops on communication, specifically communication styles and feedback.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to become more informed about our individual communication styles. Our goals included learning to be more inclusive with our professional communication, learning to give and receive feedback well, and ultimately to leverage our diverse styles to improve the quality of our work and our connection to each other.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We’d worked with speech IRL before, both for workshops as well as individual coaching.

Describe the project in detail.

speech IRL worked with us to co-create a series of three workshops that were held two weeks apart. With participation from everyone in our company, the workshops had both a presentation and an interactive component. speech IRL split participants into small groups to practice the communication techniques being described. They accommodated our remote staff by having them form their own remote breakout session. speech IRL provided us information on how to practice in between sessions, with follow-through from our career mentors.

What was the team composition?

Their team was comprised of a project lead and one other person.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We had great feedback from each of the workshops. speech IRL used the feedback to help shape and adjust the workshops as we went along. Our work in these workshops launched a whole new series of workshops with clients and with our community, as well as increased our engagement in a discussion about inclusive communication at the company. Our company culture has shifted. We’ve adopted new criteria around self-evaluations and candidate evaluations, and increased peer feedback.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It couldn't have been a better collaboration. Speech IRL shaped these workshops in a very creative way. It was exciting to create something both custom and widely applicable.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

speech IRL is unique in being able to bridge deep expertise in individual speech therapy with organizational behavior and culture.

Are there any areas for improvement?

In hindsight, the before / after survey was not as useful as it could have been. That said, the individual and cultural improvements were both material and sustainable. We were being agile in our approach, so we had less of a handle on what to measure.