Communication

I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about writer’s block. Well actually, I spent a lot of time this weekend puttering in my garden, and listening to podcasts while I was toiling away. And two of the podcasts were interviews with Aaron Sorkin, the famous writer of television shows such as The West […]

We all dread getting that call, the one with bad news about a friend. I got that call yesterday, with the news that a friend of mine named Geoff had passed away, suddenly and far too young. Geoff and I were not close friends. In my past life with the Olympic Sailing program, Geoff and […]

Your audience will only remember a small percentage of what you say. Some studies suggest it will be less than 20%. Fact. Other studies suggest that the average adult attention span is now about 8 seconds. Bummer. So what do you do about it? Focus on all three aspects of the audience experience: Make sure you prepare your […]

If your communication problem is time, then brevity is your friend. Make sure to shorten your message significantly. Reduce your information to a list of “three things,” so that your message is easier to remember. If your communication problem is attention span, then a “hook” is your friend. Work hard to connect with your audience with something […]

Good morning, friends. I am proud to share the news with you that my new book, Persuaded, is done, and available! This is my third book, and I have been looking forward to this day for a long time. We will be announcing the book more broadly next week, but I wanted the regular readers […]

The world is a constantly evolving place made up of constantly evolving people with constantly evolving expectations. What does that translate into? A world where your skills need to be constantly evolving (obviously). But as obvious as the point sounds, that is a really hard thing for most people to achieve. Agility is a good […]

My job with The Latimer Group is to coach and train our clients to be better communicators. And regular readers of this blog know that I will use stories or examples from any area of my life to draw out the lessons I want to discuss. Occasionally over the years, I have gently referenced real-world […]

I was recently speaking to a close friend who had just attended a conference for her industry. The conference had been on the schedule since last fall, since right after the prior annual event. So, everyone knew this event was coming. But what transpired during the day-long conference last week was, in the words of […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. In Dean’s recent post about the impact of masks, he addressed new challenges to conversational communication. Indeed, the combination of muffled voices and invisible lips makes it far more difficult to catch every word that is said – especially for those […]

Can great communication skills be taught? Or are they entirely natural? Let’s try to answer that via a story. My wife and I have two children, 10 and 5. At their respective ages, the age gap is pretty big. They like different things, play a little differently, have different expectations… exactly as you would expect […]