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We all know how it feels to have our time wasted. Have you ever been in a meeting/presentation/conference call that seemed to have no purpose? Or where the speaker could not get to the point? Or where you wondered why you were even there? [Pause for you to nod in agreement…] Have you ever listened […]

My colleagues and I write all the time about the characteristics and keys to great communication. Many of them are obvious… preparation and practice are near the top of any list. But there is another component to great communication, that often goes unnoticed in our fast-paced, back-to-back-to-back meeting world. Time management, and creating a short […]

Hello friends! We are continuing our latest blog tradition of fielding your questions about effective communication. And our recent post on July 13 struck a chord with many of you. We got several good responses to our post on the need for leaders to “practice what you preach.” So let’s review some of the best […]

We get inquiries all the time from managers, directors and organizational leaders about a need for communication training for their teams. And in nearly every conversation, the leader is very clear about the needs and weaknesses of his or her team. Then, when we actually conduct the training, and once the participants get comfortable enough to speak […]

Here are five of the most common communication problems or roadblocks that we see, with solutions for each: If your communication problem is time, then brevity is your friend. Make sure to shorten your message significantly, and dramatically reduce the amount of detail you try to squeeze in. Reduce your information to a list of “three things,” […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Facilitator and Coach at The Latimer Group. When we want to define something, such as authentic presence, we often need to define its opposite. So, what is inauthentic presence and why and how is it problematic? Inauthentic is fake, insincere, not genuine. When someone’s presence is perceived as inauthentic, […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Facilitator and Coach at The Latimer Group. In our first post in this series, we examined the idea that, within our authentic presence, each of us shows up in a variety of different ways based on choices we make to adapt to our environment, audience, and situation. We have […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Facilitator and Coach at The Latimer Group. Imagine yourself speaking with your closest colleague in an impromptu conversation where you’ve just dropped in to say “hi”. Now imagine yourself speaking with the Executive Leadership Team of your organization as you deliver a presentation about an important issue your department […]

Many people want to be known as great speakers. Many people want to be known as the person who can make the point in a clear and compelling way. And yet many work on this skill by focusing initially on the wrong things. Speaking well and sharing information is, first and foremost, about knowing how […]

Good morning, friends! It’s a noisy world out there, with lots and lots of things competing for everyone’s attention. And in this kind of a world, it is harder than ever for our message to cut above and through the noise, so that we can be heard. We all need to be heard. We all […]