Public SpeakingPractice Lab
Your leaders have the expertise. What gets in the way is communicating it effectively. When that gap goes unaddressed, it shows up in ways that matter:
- Ideas and initiatives that don't get the buy-in they deserve
- Leaders who are credible in the work but lose authority in the room
- Presentations that inform but don't move people to act
- High-potential talent that stays invisible because they haven't learned to advocate for themselves
This program gives leaders a framework for clear, audience-centered communication and a full day to build and practice it. They leave ready to use it immediately.
About the Program
The Public Speaking Practice Lab is a full-day leadership communication program built around three integrated learning experiences: an Insights Discovery debrief, the Human-Centered Strategic Storytelling Framework, and Executive Presence training. Each builds on the last, with structured practice woven throughout.
Participants bring a real leadership communication challenge into the room and work through it using the framework. They practice in small groups and in front of the full cohort. They receive facilitated feedback from peers and the facilitator. The skills they build during the day are ones they can apply the following week.
This is not a lecture. It is a practice lab with a framework behind it.
The Three Program Pillars
Participants complete the Insights Discovery assessment as pre-work before the program date. The day opens with a 90-minute facilitated debrief, a structured activity, and group discussion. This session builds a shared language for how participants naturally communicate and how they are experienced by others, framing everything that follows.
Participants learn the Narrative Flow Structure and apply it immediately to a real communication challenge they bring into the room. The focus is building messages that are clear, audience-centered, and structured for impact across presentations, executive briefings, stakeholder conversations, and team updates.
This section addresses both the internal and external dimensions of showing up in high-stakes moments, including vocal authority, physical grounding, and the specific delivery habits that build or undercut credibility over time.
A Day in the Room
The agenda below reflects the standard full-day schedule. Every session builds on the last. Every participant speaks more than once.
The Human-Centered Strategic Storytelling™ Framework
Explore the Framework
Select a layer to explore. Click any component to see what it does and what happens when it's missing.
Foundational Mindset
The lens through which all design decisions are made
Every design decision starts with one question: what does this person need? Not what's easiest to present, not what looks polished on a slide. What actually serves the human sitting across from you.
Knowing your content is only part of the job. The other part is knowing yourself: how you respond when the room gets quiet, when someone pushes back, or when the energy shifts. Self-awareness, social awareness, and the ability to read and respond to what's actually happening in the room are what separate good facilitators from great ones.
Used well, AI helps you think faster and go deeper. The risk is leaning on it so heavily that your own voice disappears. Your expertise, your judgment, your perspective are what give your work meaning.
Strategic Inputs
The intelligence that informs your design
You've earned your expertise. Your education, your career history, the lessons you learned the hard way. All of it belongs in the room with you. When you bring your authentic perspective to the content, your audience gets something they can't find in a book or a training module.
Adults come into every learning experience with opinions, context, and a healthy amount of skepticism. They need to know why something matters before they'll engage with how it works. Design for that reality and you'll have them with you the whole time.
Knowing your audience's title and headcount is not enough. The real work is understanding what keeps them up at night, what they've already tried, and what they need to believe to take action.
Narrative Flow Structure
A flexible five-step architecture for any presentation length or format
The first 60 seconds set the tone for everything that follows. Use them to show your audience you understand their world, that you're worth listening to, and that this isn't going to be another forgettable meeting.
Before you teach anything, earn the right to be heard. Give people the context they need to understand why this session exists, what's at stake, and what they'll be able to do differently by the end of it.
This is where you deliver the goods. Your content should be clear, well-sequenced, and connected to real situations your audience recognizes. If it doesn't feel relevant to their day-to-day, it won't stick.
The call to action is directive. It answers one question: what do you want your audience to do next? One specific, concrete action they can take before the week is out.
The close is different from the call to action. Where the CTA tells people what to do, the close lands on why it matters. End on meaning, not logistics.
What Participants Leave With
Who This Program Is For
The Public Speaking Practice Lab is designed for any leader an organization wants to invest in. The program works across levels and functions and is most effective when participants share a development goal, not necessarily a title or department.
- Executive and senior leadership teams
- High-potential director and manager pipelines
- ERG leadership cohorts
- Women in leadership programs
- Cross-functional teams across business units or locations
- Any group of leaders who need to influence, persuade, present, or advocate
If the leaders you are investing in need to communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and credibility, this program was built for them.
The framework is designed to meet leaders where they are. Whether someone is early in their leadership journey or a seasoned executive looking to sharpen how they show up in high-stakes moments, the skills and structure transfer.
What drew me to this work was the message that your work will not speak for itself and that you have to be the voice of your expertise and experience. The framework gave language to things I was already doing while introducing new ways to think about communicating effectively. I was nervous going in, but I left feeling more confident in my message and reminded that practice is what builds confidence. I am already applying what I learned with my team.
Leadership Storytelling Toolkit
Every participant receives a complete toolkit designed to support continued skill development for 90 days after the program. It is not a packet of handouts. It is a set of working tools.
A physical card deck built on the Human-Centered Strategic Storytelling Framework. Each card includes a story structure, audience-centering prompt, or trigger question to help leaders identify which story to tell at a given moment.
A one-page pre-communication planning tool. Leaders use it before any high-stakes conversation to clarify their audience, goal, message, and ask.
A structured post-program practice schedule with weekly story prompts, reflection questions, and self-coaching exercises.
Digital access to yourinfluencemap.com, an interactive tool that helps leaders map a strategic approach and build a clear message for getting buy-in on their ideas.
Short video modules covering the core frameworks from the program, available for reinforcement or for onboarding new team members to a shared communication language.
Toolkit components are available for organizational licensing after a cohort completes the program, extending the reach without requiring full-day facilitation.
Investment & Logistics
About Summer Alexander
Summer Alexander is a leadership development facilitator, communication coach, and speaker with more than 15 years of experience developing leaders across four continents. She is the founder of Simply Training Solutions and the creator of the Human-Centered Strategic Storytelling Framework, the Leadership Influence Style Assessment, and the Public Speaking Practice Lab.
Summer has facilitated leadership programs globally and coached more than 125 leaders across industries. She works with corporate clients, ERG leaders, HR and L&D professionals, and individual leaders who need to communicate with more clarity and credibility at every level of their organization.
Ready to invest in your leaders?
Schedule a discovery conversation to talk through your goals, cohort size, and timing. We will build a proposal from there.