Dean Brenner

We have been meeting virtually for a long time, and the ability to use virtual meeting platforms to get people together is not at all new. My colleagues and I have been communicating and teaching via WebEx since The Latimer Group started nearly twenty years ago. But like many organizations, virtual communication tools have been […]

In Times Like This…

Posted On March 20, 2020 BY

Well now… is anyone else having a tough week? Raise your hand if this past week or two have been unlike anything you have ever been through before. (Please know that I have both my hands raised right now.) Scary times, indeed. We are in the midst of a health crisis that, while we have […]

Hello clients and friends, Over the last few days, we have been on the phone with many of our contacts at our client companies, and everyone we have spoken to is in agreement on the following: We are living in challenging, uncertain and rapidly-changing times. There is no denying that. Among the many aspects of […]

According to some sources, more than 30 million business presentations are created each day. And you know what? Most of them are terrible. We’ve all sat through the proverbial terrible presentation with no purpose, nothing memorable, no clear action items, too many slides, the monotonous drone of the boring presenter. There is a reason business […]

Welcome to the latest episode of The Message Makeover Podcast. Recently, Kendra and I shared a conversation with Lydia Fenet about the art of persuasion, and the ways to command attention in every room you walk into. Lydia is a Managing Director at Christie’s in New York City, and is the most prominent charity benefit […]

Hear Her Roar

Posted On March 2, 2020 BY

This is one of those simple, personal stories that I love to share. Our four-year-old daughter Kate loves animated movies (who doesn’t?!?) and her stuffed animals… The Lion King movie and her stuffed Aslan from the Narnia stories are current favorites. One day a couple of weeks ago, Emily and I started to notice a […]

The Courage to Shut Up

Posted On February 26, 2020 BY

Frequently, one of the participants in a Latimer workshop will say something that totally grabs me. And I always will pause the workshop, write a note in my “ideas book” and then say, “That will be a blog post, and I can footnote you, if you want.” In this case, the participant politely declined a footnote. We […]

No PowerPoint, No Problem

Posted On February 24, 2020 BY

Originally published at Forbes Coaches Council, January 2020. I’ve learned from years of teaching workshops that nearly everyone starts their preparation for a presentation by planning a slide deck, whether that means opening up a new Microsoft PowerPoint, repurposing an old one or two (which often results in a Frankenstein-like creation of mismatched fonts, colors, […]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal behaviors, especially in relation to how we “show up” in a professional setting. And here are five things that always seem to jump to the front of the line for me, as being the most important communication behaviors. Think about this… What would it be like if you […]

A Story About Kindness

Posted On January 27, 2020 BY

Everyone who frequents this blog knows that we write about communication. But every once in a while we also like to share stories about other things, simple things, everyday ordinary things. This is one of those times. Last week was one the most important weeks of our year here at The Latimer Group. One of […]