The Foundation of Strong Relationships
Posted On March 31, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
Relationships matter. A lot. In all aspects of our lives. Relationships are the connective tissue, and create the fabric of our existence. And considering the journey all of us have been on over the last 12 months, I have been thinking a lot lately about relationships. In our work lives, we have to do a […]
Practicing What You Preach in the Workplace
Posted On March 17, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
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 to speak […]
Being a Great Communicator Also Means…
Posted On March 12, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
In a recent workshop, one participant asked a series of questions about how broad the application of the content we were teaching in the course actually was. I answered in a very “Latimer way,” by saying that our model applies to all forms of workplace communication: meetings, conference calls, presentations, email exchanges, etc. As I […]
Parenting, Professionalism, Principles, and Personal Accountability
Posted On February 8, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
My wife and I were recently organizing a box of keepsakes we have been collecting over the last few years: birth announcements, first report cards, self portraits from art class that are indecipherable. And in that box, we found a note we had written to ourselves, where we had laid out our intended principles of […]
The Sign of a Great Team…
Posted On February 5, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
… is not the absence of conflict. The sign of a great team is the ability to resolve conflict, in a respectful and productive way. Of all the truisms I hold dear, this one has proven to be more true, more consistently, than any other. I first learned this truism when I was competing for […]
How Have You Evolved?
Posted On January 29, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
Attention business leaders… every once in a while, it is really healthy to pause, look in the mirror, and examine if and how you have changed and evolved. We are all evolving all the time, in varying ways and at varying speeds. We are all always evolving. But the real learning from that evolution often […]
Followership is NOT a Bad Word!
Posted On January 15, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
(Writer’s Note: We pulled this one from the archive today, for two reasons: First, this concept of followership continues to be an important one, from our perspective. And second, my creative juices were not flowing this morning… I needed a little help from the archive! But in all seriousness, you can’t have good leadership inside […]
It Is Time to Hold This President to Account
Posted On January 11, 2021 BY Dean Brenner
(Writer’s Note: We write about political issues and events on occasion in this blog, most of the time in the form of commentary on the dysfunction of our national political conversation, and always with a distinct effort to remain as apolitical as possible. This company enters the world as experts in persuasive communication, not in […]
Leadership Tips: The Four Areas of Awareness
Posted On December 28, 2020 BY Dean Brenner
Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council. In goal-oriented communication, few things are more important than creating a sense of connection between yourself and the person you are speaking to. When you are in the audience, what type of speaker captures your attention more: the one who speaks to your concerns, your needs and your circumstances, or […]
No One Leads All the Time: 7 Characteristics of Good Followership
Posted On October 28, 2020 BY Dean Brenner
We have been doing some poking around our blog archive lately, and have come across some older posts that were really popular… and that still resonate. And this one is one of our most popular posts ever. We think the point is just as true today as when we first posted it six years ago. […]