[BlargMcLarg]

>because the OP speaks too fast / has an unfamiliar accent

Here's an unpopular opinion by a hard-hearing person with native English skills: the far majority of people are really bad at verbal communication as a way to transfer knowledge. Doubly so in complex areas. To top it off, I see barely any difference between people in roles that require speaking often and those who don't, except for frequent public speakers.

The reasons? Bad articulation. Speaking too fast. Speaking before you know what you want to say. Complicated explanations. Muttering "uh", "ah" and more. Diversions. The list goes on.

And it's not like the information on how to be a better speaker isn't out there. I can assuredly say the average person in a leadership position doesn't even take 5 minutes of their work day to do vocal exercises. That alone already helps a lot.

Meanwhile, people making informative videos and talks out of their own accord are much easier to hear and understand. The difference is night and day.

[DiggyJohnson]

I am not a great communicator. I talk too fast, don't articulate my thoughts, start talking before the other person is finished (though I have a pet theory I picked up this habit from my first high-paced tech job working across 9 timezones with Indians =p ).

I am constantly trying to work on this part of myself-for both myself and others' benefit-but have to be careful to not get too anxious about trying to fix my communication.

I really appreciate this comment because I've found that when I talk to (close) friends about this challenge they do not consider communication something that can be much improved; communication style is mostly rigid. This baffles me because it seems like it would doom most bad communicators to a lifetime of bad communicating. This might be exactly how life works, I admit, but its an interesting way of getting to this obvious point.

Where do you recommend someone like me go to learn more about those vocal exercises you mentioned. That does seem like a great starting place.

[perl4ever]

I'm attending a series of lectures on project management, and the first one was great. I mean, it didn't contain any earth shattering information, but it was paced perfectly.

The second one was surprising by comparison, because while it wasn't that bad, it illuminated all the things that were spot on in the first one. For instance, it was just a little too fast for me to easily type everything on the slides as notes, which I think is approximately the pace at which I absorb information. At the same time, there was too much redundancy and filler so I tended to get lost figuring out where information should go in my outline.

If someone is otherwise a good and prepared speaker, a heavy accent can be adjusted to.

Go a little slower and prune the verbiage a little more seem to me like principles to come back to.