In this exclusive CanadianSME Small Business Magazine interview, Steve Brennan, Co-Founder & General Manager of Stand Up and Speak Inc., shares insights from his entrepreneurial journey in communication education, leadership, recruitment, and executive search. Since 2001, Steve has helped grow Stand Up and Speak from just four students in a basement into a trusted communication academy serving individuals, families, schools, and businesses.
Steve is also the Founder & CEO of Top Quality Recruitment (TQR), a national recruitment and executive-search firm serving organizations across North America. Through both companies, Steve is passionate about connecting people with opportunity—helping individuals communicate with confidence while helping businesses find the exceptional talent and leaders they need to succeed.
After 25 years of teaching public speaking, what has remained most important about building confidence?
Confidence is built through action. That has not changed in 25 years.
Many people assume someone must first feel confident before speaking. In reality, confidence usually comes afterward. A student stands up, speaks despite feeling nervous, receives constructive feedback, and tries again. Each successful attempt provides evidence that they can handle the challenge.
The goal is not to eliminate nervousness. Even experienced speakers get nervous. The goal is to help people manage those feelings so they can communicate effectively anyway.
We also have to recognize that every student begins in a different place. For one student, success may mean delivering a polished speech. For another, it may mean making eye contact, answering a question in a complete sentence, or speaking loudly enough to be heard. Those small improvements can be enormous victories.
Confidence grows when people move beyond their comfort zones in a supportive environment. You cannot simply tell someone to be confident. You have to give them opportunities to take a leap outside of their comfort zone, practice, improve, and discover that making a mistake is not a disaster.
Why are human skills like listening, clear thinking, and answering unscripted questions becoming more valuable in the AI era?
Human communication skills are more valuable than ever in the age of AI
AI can help people research, organize ideas, and prepare stronger written material. What it cannot do is replace the human being when the conversation moves away from the script.
In business, interviews, classrooms, and leadership situations, people must listen carefully, understand what is actually being asked, and respond thoughtfully in the moment. A polished presentation means very little if the speaker cannot answer a reasonable follow-up question.
There is also a risk that people will become too dependent on AI-generated language. The words may sound impressive, but if the person cannot explain or defend them, credibility disappears quickly.
As AI makes information and prepared content easier to produce, distinctly human abilities become even more valuable. These include judgment, curiosity, empathy, clear thinking, and the ability to build trust through conversation.
AI should help us communicate more effectively, but it should not do all our thinking for us. Future leaders will need to use technology intelligently while still being able to look someone in the eye, ask a thoughtful question, listen to the answer, and respond without needing a machine to whisper the next line or tell them what to say or think.
How has technology—from social media to AI—changed the communication challenges faced by children and adults?
Technology has given people more ways to communicate, but more communication does not necessarily mean better communication.
Children can become comfortable texting, posting, or interacting through a screen while still struggling to speak in front of a group, join a conversation, or answer an unexpected question. Adults face a similar problem. Email, messaging platforms, and virtual meetings allow us to avoid many uncomfortable conversations, but avoiding them does not improve our ability to handle them. Handling difficult conversation will always be a part of life, particularly, in our professions, in business and interactions. Technology is not going to change that, and we shouldn’t expect AI to do the heavy lifting of replacing the moments that challenge us.
Social media has also increased the pressure to appear polished. People see edited videos and carefully prepared content and assume effective speakers never hesitate, forget a word, or make mistakes. That is simply not true.
AI adds another challenge because it can produce professional-looking answers almost instantly. The danger is that people may present ideas they have not fully considered or cannot explain in their own words.
Technology is not the enemy. We use technology to make learning more accessible and to connect with students beyond our physical classrooms. However, it should support real practice, coaching, feedback, and human interaction. It cannot replace them.
What lessons did you learn growing Stand Up and Speak from a small basement program into a broader communication academy?
The first lesson is that growth begins with solving a real problem well.
Stand Up and Speak started with four or five students in a basement back in 2001, not with a grand expansion plan. We focused on helping those students become stronger and more confident communicators, one student at a time.
The second lesson is that reputation is built one experience at a time. Parents trust us with their children, and adults often come to us when communication is affecting their careers or confidence. That trust cannot be taken for granted and in spite of our growth, each student remains critical to our success, that’s why we keep our class sizes small and continue to offer one-on-one coaching for all ages.
We also learned that a good program cannot depend entirely on the personality or instincts of one instructor. To grow, we needed clear teaching methods, rigorous training, strong instructors, consistent expectations, and the ability to meet students at different skill levels.
Finally, you have to evolve without losing sight of what made the organization valuable. We have expanded into camps, competitive programs, private coaching, adult training, and live online learning across the globe. The delivery methods have changed, but the foundation has not.
After 25 years, our purpose remains straightforward: give people a supportive place to practice, challenge themselves, receive useful feedback, and become more capable communicators.
Through your work in both recruitment and communication training, what skills do you believe future leaders need most?
Future leaders will need judgment, adaptability, accountability, and the ability to communicate clearly when the answer is not obvious.
Through recruitment, I see organizations place considerable value on technical experience. That experience matters, but leadership problems are rarely caused by a lack of technical vocabulary. They are more often caused by unclear expectations, poor listening, avoided conversations, weak decisions, and an inability to earn trust. This is particularly stark when technical leaders are in management or supervisor roles, it doesn’t matter how strong they are technically, it matters how well they are able to communicate and lead their teams to higher performance.
Strong leaders must be able to explain what needs to happen and why. They must ask thoughtful questions, listen to people who disagree with them, and respond without becoming defensive. They also need the courage to make decisions with incomplete information and take responsibility for the outcome.
AI will give future leaders access to more information and faster analysis. It will not relieve them of responsibility for judgment. In fact, it may make judgment more important because leaders will need to separate useful insight from confident-sounding nonsense.
The best leaders will combine technological ability with human credibility. People still want to know that their leader understands the issue, can communicate honestly, empathize when required, and will remain steady when the script stops working.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Our platform is dedicated to fostering dialogue and sharing insights that inspire and empower small and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
