#BeBrief

In nearly every workshop I teach, I ask a question that sounds something like this: “How many of you attend too many meetings that run long?” Nearly every hand goes up, every time. “How many of you get too many emails that are too overwhelming to read?” Nearly every hand goes up, every time. “How […]

We’ve all been to THIS conference call… too many times in fact. While Tripp and Tyler absolutely nail the inherent comedy in the ways we conduct conference calls, let’s take the conversation to the next level. How do we run better conference calls? Here are a few simple ideas: 1. Set context and get the […]

My colleagues and I always talk about the five ingredients for great communication. And those five things are as follows: Clarity, brevity, context, impact and value. Now, as you think about the last line I just wrote above, which word do you think is most important? Clarity, brevity, context, impact and value. Which of those […]

My colleagues and I speak and write all the time about the importance of getting to the point. We talk about the importance of respecting your audience’s time, managing their attention span, and how our fast-paced 21st century world makes this skill a critical one. It turns out that a pretty famous guy, Winston Churchill, […]

Have you ever sat through a meeting, or a conference call, or a presentation, and thought to yourself… “Oh my god… I wish this person would get to the point…“? Yeah. Me too. Many, many times. We all know what it feels like to have our time wasted by someone who just won’t, or can’t, […]

It’s a common occurrence in the business world. You prepare a meeting, presentation, or speech for a certain length of time, only to find out that you have a lot less time than you planned for. Sometimes we even learn our fate as we are walking into the presentation. We’ve spoken a lot lately about […]

We’ve all been to THIS conference call… too many times in fact. While Tripp and Tyler absolutely nail the inherent comedy in the ways we conduct conference calls, let’s take the conversation to the next level. How do we run better conference calls? Here are a few simple ideas: 1. Set context and get the […]

“Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated.”  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt We all complain about it, but we’re all guilty of it at times, as well. And in all our coaching, it’s one of the most common topics we run into with our clients. It’s the growing frustration with people’s inability to get to the point quickly […]

We’ve done a couple posts recently about some things you’ll never hear anyone say in the workplace. You can read those posts here and here. But our point in today’s post is that as you go about your communication in the workplace, be it with colleagues, clients, or teammates, there are a few things that […]

We just concluded a long stretch of workshops with several clients, and regardless of company or industry, a few things remain intensely clear to us. You’ll never regret clarity and simplicity in your communication. People will never tell you “that was too clear,” or “you got to the point too quickly,” or “your message was […]