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Expect the Pit

Posted On December 7, 2020 BY

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. My third grader learned a very important lesson at the start of this school year. It was about “the pit”, or “the learning pit”. Her teacher explained that all learners fall into the pit sometimes, and they feel helpless, don’t know […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. Zoom fatigue is real. For many of us it is due to the sheer volume of videoconferences that we are on each day. The increase in the use of videoconferencing tools in 2020 is staggering. There is both anecdotal and empirical […]

Talking on Mute

Posted On December 2, 2020 BY

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. No, this is not about all the times when we try to contribute to conversations, only to realize that we have disabled our own audio. It is not about tallying the number of times that “You’re on mute.” gets said in […]

Ask anyone who performs at a high level: athletes, dancers, singers, etc. They all prepare and practice their skills the same way. They break their skill down into smaller “sub-skills,” then practice each one individually, then put them all back together, and their overall skill level has improved. The same is true with communication. “Great […]

The Latimer Group team is taking a much-needed and well-deserved break this week. Like many of you, we have experienced a wide range of highs and lows this year. So, I have encouraged our team to try to pause, and take a really deep breath for a few days this week. Deep breaths are good […]

Lean Into Your Partnerships

Posted On November 23, 2020 BY

We all have learned a great deal in 2020… I know I have. And the learning is not over. It never is. But every once in a while, even though the learning and the growth continues, it makes sense to pause and think about what has been learned. So, as we start to close in […]

In nearly every workshop I teach, the topic of “the open” comes up for deep discussion. My colleagues and I focus a great deal of time and attention to teaching people how to engage their audience, right from the first moments of the presentation or discussion. And one of the biggest mistakes we see people make is […]

Good communication requires a lot of things… listening, planning and preparing, and practice are definitely on the list, among other things. But one of the deceptively important elements of being a good communicator is about “picking the correct moment” carefully. Certain types of messages can be delivered at almost any time. Telling someone something good, […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. Like many of you, I had some experience with virtual communication prior to this year, but it was not yet a mainstay of my work. And, like many others, I was skeptical about its use as a replacement for face-to-face interactions. […]

Writer’s Note: We continue our focus on the positive in this week’s blog. Our goal is to make you smile, and give you something positive to think about. Today, we are reposting something I wrote in 2017, about how and when to push a child, and how that relates to our relationships in the workplace. […]

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.