Persuasion

We just finished an intensive workshop, designed in multiple modules and spread out over multiple days, with one of our top clients. The topic was Executive Communication Skills, and the goal was to coach a small group of ten rising executive stars in the art of persuasive, executive-level communication skills. We covered a lot of ground […]

(Author’s Note: I was recently scrolling through our archive of old blog posts. And I came across this one, which I wrote in 2014. It is a simple story about an interaction with my then-four-year-old son, where he outmaneuvered me at the frozen yogurt shop. But as is often the case, the simple story illustrates […]

Level Up Your Listening Skills

Posted On October 17, 2023 BY

I spend a lot more time thinking about listening now than I used to. Why? I am not really sure. It could be my advancing age. It could be parenthood. It could be experience in my job. It could be the influence of some of the people in my life. Probably, it is a little bit of […]

Have you ever listened to that person who says something like “um” over and over and over? After a while, all you hear are the “ums.” How about the person who says “like,” or “you know?” Distracting, right? How about the person who qualifies everything they say with a “sort of” or a “kind of” […]

Simplify Your Slides, Simply

Posted On October 5, 2023 BY

Over the last month, we have spent nearly every day in workshops with some of our top clients. And in every single one, the concept of terrible PowerPoint slides came up. Everyone wants to know how to make their slides simpler. Everyone wants to have a “Steve Jobs” level of simplicity with their slides. But […]

So often in preparing to communicate, we make a fundamental mistake: we enter what my colleagues and I refer to as “the messenger mindset.” What this means is that our entire approach to communication is about the “delivery of information.” When we fall into the messenger mindset trap, we are only thinking about what we want […]

There is a mindset I hear people articulate from time to time… and that mindset is that your presence is primarily created by the way you look and carry yourself. I heard this again recently in a workshop I was teaching, and the participant said that they did not have the wardrobe to create a […]

We spend a lot of our time in workshops, on this blog, and in all our conversations with our clients, discussing the importance of good communication skills. We always talk about the power of listening, of being prepared, of having goals and talking points and plans… all of it matters. When you take a good […]

Silence Is NOT An Absence of Music

Posted On September 7, 2023 BY

When we are listening to music, and there is a moment of silence in the piece of music, that moment of silence is not an absence of music. No. Rather, the moment of silence is part OF the music. I love this idea. The silence is a conscious choice by the composer. The silence contributes […]

In our coaching and training, we end up discussing the interview process all the time. Many of our existing clients interview regularly for promotions within their company. And we also partner with many young professionals or “pre-professionals,” who are trying to get launched and established on their career path. In other words, regardless of where […]