Speaking Like an Executive
Cut operational weeds, drop timid hedges, and frame your ideas with clarity. Learn the conversational shifts that make leaders listen and take action.
Like Duolingo, but for Speaking Like an Executive. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 10 levels across 2 sections, about 20 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Shifting from Reporting to Leading and Framing Decisions and Holding the Floor. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Speaking Like an Executive
- Senior leaders listen for the decision or takeaway first so they know how to evaluate the rest of the information
- Withholding the punchline until the end forces listeners to guess your destination while you talk
- BLUF delivers the main conclusion, ask, or outcome in sentence one
- Supporting context and reasons belong after the main point, not before it
- Chronological recaps walk through the speaker's effort rather than what was achieved
- Outcome framing starts with the business impact or final result to respect executive time
- 'Need to know' information includes the requested decision, the business impact, and key risks
- 'Nice to know' details cover internal team logistics, minor bug counts, or step-by-step task execution that belong in your notes, not the leadership briefing
- Phrases like 'just' and 'I kind of feel like' signal unprompted self-doubt
- Removing softeners leaves a direct, factual statement that signals the speaker has control of the situation
- Hedging words trigger executives to probe for mistakes because the speaker sounds unsure of their own data
- 'Does that make sense?' places your competence in question by asking if you communicated coherently
- Targeted inquiries assume your clarity and redirect attention toward evaluating the substance
- Executive language prompts stakeholders for specific strategic feedback instead of reassurance
- Executive talk requires proposing a distinct recommendation rather than passing the decision upward
- Listing unweighted options asks leaders to do the analytical work you were assigned to do
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Speaking Like an Executive the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What happens if you save your main punchline for the very end of your update?
Get it right to open this lesson and 9 more in the app.
Where Speaking Like an Executive takes you
- 1
Shifting from Reporting to Leading
- Leading with the Bottom Line
- Replacing Hedges with Decisive Ownership
- 2
Framing Decisions and Holding the Floor
- Framing Trade-Offs and Strategic Impact
- Handling Questions with Executive Economy
2 sections · 4 units · 10 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Speaking Like an Executive is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Speaking Like an Executive today.
Download Tomo, search Speaking Like an Executive, and play your first lesson in under a minute.