Communication

Have you ever sat through a meeting, or a conference call, or a presentation, and thought to yourself… “Oh my god… I wish this person would get to the point…“? Yeah. Me too. Many, many times. We all know what it feels like to have our time wasted by someone who just won’t, or can’t, […]

Sometimes certain phrases get repeated so often, they become more than cliche. They become indisputable fact. But that doesn’t mean such statements are always correct. Like many cliches, “the customer is always right” has a great deal of truth to it. The customer knows what they want or need, and the customer is entitled to […]

I do a lot of one-on-one coaching. And in most cases, I will conduct some background interviews to gather information about the person I am coaching… what are their strengths and weaknesses, and what gaps can I help fill? One of the most common weaknesses that I hear during those interviews is that the person […]

When we think about communication in the workplace, all too often we focus on the delivery part: what we will say, what our slides will look like and how loudly we should speak. All that’s important, but what about the other side? Before we speak, we need to listen. And when we do speak, we need to make sure that our audience […]

There are two ways we can get people to do what we want or need them to do: because we have influence over them, or because we have authority over them. We can have influence without authority, and we can have authority without influence. Influence comes from respect, collaboration, and credibility. Authority comes from title and your […]

Do you want to be an effective communicator? Be more memorable? Do you want people to follow your lead, support your idea, or buy your product or service? Of course you do. When I say “be memorable,” I’m not suggesting that you do something outrageous so that they remember that crazy person who did “x.” I mean […]

There have been a few moments throughout my coaching career when a single question appears that impacts the entire business community, regardless of industry, geography or company size. And right now is one of those moments. The universal conversation I am having with our client companies, the individuals I coach, my friends and business acquaintances, and […]

In all the communication coaching that we do, one question seems to come up all the time. “How do I get my leader to realize he/she needs some coaching as well?” Most leaders are really good at identifying your areas of possible improvement. But the very best ones are also good at identifying their areas of possible improvement. If […]

How well do you actually listen to the people around you? Do you think you listen well? Are you sure? I think I listen fairly well, most of the time. When I focus on it, which is most of the time, I do listen well. But it is far too easy to get distracted, and […]

I recently got a great email from a client named Colin. We’ve done extensive work with his company over the last five years, and Colin will occasionally reach out and give me a great idea for a blog post or a podcast. Colin listed for me the ways that his colleagues can reach him: work email (which he […]