Dean Brenner

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?” Hard to listen to that after a while, isn’t it? How about the person who qualifies everything they say […]

Think about the best leader you’ve ever seen. What made her/him compelling? Many of us would say, “They just had ‘it.’ Their charisma was off the charts.” It may be hard to believe, but “it” — that combination of confidence, authority and personality that makes an executive engaging and inspiring — isn’t necessarily an inherent […]

Clients of The Latimer Group have heard me say, many times, that the hardest thing for any organizational leader to do is to change the way his or her people actually behave. If you want to reinvent your organization, you can add or subtract business units, product lines, services, locations, etc, etc, etc. You can […]

Have you ever sat through a meeting, listening to someone who just rambles on and on and on? Brutal, isn’t it? You are looking at your watch or your phone, trying to wish the time forward and each time you look you realize it is only 48 seconds since the last time you looked. It takes every […]

(Author’s Note: It’s that time of year again… wedding season! And many weddings are once again happening live and in-person… what a gift! This also means lots of people are getting ready to give wedding toasts, a muscle we may not have stretched in a while for all the obvious pandemic-related reasons. So I decided this […]

One of the questions I get asked all the time is, “How can I be less nervous when I stand up to present?” Confidence in public speaking continues to be a problem for lots of people. The spotlight is fully on you, everyone is listening, and we all want to do well. It is not […]

“Music is the space between the notes.” ~Claude DeBussy In many workshops, we see two parallel fears come up over and over. People fear silence when they’re speaking. Silence makes them uncomfortable. Therefore, they often fill the silence with more sound — extra words and non-words (we call them “verbal pauses’). And at the same time, people fear […]

I heard from a business leader last Friday, someone I have done some business with, but who is also a friend. And what started as a quick “hey, how are you” conversation, turned into an hour-long therapy session of venting and asking for advice… in both directions. I was thinking about this conversation for the […]

Hello friends! We are continuing our latest blog tradition of fielding your questions about effective communication. You can send us the questions any way you want… via phone, email or the “Dear Latimer” box on the right side of most pages on our site. When we get a question we will always answer directly back […]

I love to use metaphors when I teach. And this is one of my favorites. The best photographers carry around a camera bag, and in that camera bag they carry many different kind of lenses. Different situations call for use of a different lens: lighting, background, desired shot, timing and other variables can drive the […]