Blog

So this really happened to me… yesterday, May 17, 2022. I was getting ready to run a virtual coaching session with three participants, from my office at Latimer headquarters. The session was due to start in about five minutes. And I ran to our learning studio (where we teach many learning sessions and record audio […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Facilitator and Coach at The Latimer Group. In some parts of our lives, we love having rules to follow because they make it easier to make decisions, and they take away the guesswork. In others, we feel constrained by rules and resentful of their imposition. Whether we like it […]

Think of all the communications courses you’ve taken, seminars you’ve attended, and articles you’ve seen in which they tell you how to speak, how to present, or how to create a PowerPoint slide. Compare that to how much less often a course is offered on how to listen. Listening (good, active and intentional listening) is a […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Facilitator and Coach at The Latimer Group. When I want to improve at something, I study other people who do it well. I watch elite runners and examine their form. I read writers who inspire me and examine how they build a story with prose. One of my […]

Communicating through conflict doesn’t have to be that hard. It can be… but it doesn’t have to be. And the key is your mindset during the conflict. What are you thinking about when communicating with the person you are in conflict with? Are you thinking about winning the discussion, regardless of what comes later? Are […]

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 […]

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 […]

A book about change

The Latimer Group’s CEO Dean Brenner is a noted keynote speaker and author on the subject of persuasive communication. He has written three books, including Persuaded, in which he details how communication can transform organizations into highly effective, creative, transparent environments that succeed at every level.