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We deliberately used an example of that weak language in the title of this post, to illustrate what it can do to your message and your credibility when presenting. Weak phrases like “pretty much,” “sort of,” “kind of,” or “a little bit,” don’t actually add a lot to your message. Phrases like these make you […]

“Practice puts brains in your muscles.” ~Sam Snead Over the last few months, we’ve published a series of blog posts both here and at Forbes.com on Communication Leadership, and building a presentation, speech, or other communication. How we assess our audience, how we build our message, how we document, and how we deliver that message […]

Listening is a big topic at The Latimer Group. We write on our blog and teach in our workshops about things like active listening and listening bias, as well as some specific tactics on how to listen better. But today I want to write about why being a good listener is so important. Listening, at its […]

Have you ever listened to someone who speaks really well? Who gets to the point? Who makes the point clearly? Who doesn’t waste your time and makes the message valuable? It is SO nice when that happens, right? It is so refreshing when a presentation or a conference call or an important conversation is efficient […]

Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council at Forbes.com on September 8, 2017. Authenticity and confidence: These are the key elements of a great speech delivery, but developing these elements can feel like bottling lightning. Sometimes we seem to think they are qualities you are either born with or not. People say, “I’m just not a […]

Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council at Forbes.com on August 23, 2017. When I teach a seminar, I often ask about the attendees’ process of putting together a presentation. “How many here start their preparation by opening up a new PowerPoint, or pulling out an old slide deck and repurposing it, or taking a […]

Getting people to listen to you in today’s modern workplace is hard enough. We write about that challenge all the time. But once you get people to hear you, your challenge is not over. Getting people to hear you is a great first step… but only a first step. The next step, which is also […]

Did you know that a simple lesson from your high school physics class can help you be a more powerful communicator? The Leverage metaphor is one of our core concepts at The Latimer Group, one we use every day, not just in our client workshops, but in our own communication, as well. It’s a pretty […]

Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council at Forbes.com August 8, 2017 What’s the first step in crafting a persuasive presentation? For many people, the agony of the blank page sends them straight to the slide deck. Maybe you have a template to work with, maybe you can pull up some visually interesting data, maybe you […]

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 […]