Listening

We’ve reached a tipping point, I believe, in the use of mobile devices. These tools have had a wildly successful positive impact on our efficiency and ability to communicate. But too much of any good thing can eventually become a bad thing, and that is where we are with mobile devices. And we’re hearing it […]

We talk all the time about message development — clarity of and organization of message make it easier for people to listen to you. And if you do all the right things on your message plan, and then translate it into a good slide deck, the final piece of the puzzle is your delivery. Once […]

Good morning all, and happy November! Our primary focus here at The Latimer Group is persuasive communication skills. We teach and coach these skills for a living. But we see our value more broadly than that. Within the context of teaching and coaching stronger speaking and writing skills, we also think it is important to […]

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 […]

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 […]

In our workshops at The Latimer Group, we don’t just assess whether your communication skills are “good” vs. “bad.” There are varying levels of good communication, and as we become more aware of our audience, and more honed in on our message, we progress from Professional Level Communication to Leadership Level to Executive Level. In […]

Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council at Forbes.com July 25, 2017 For years, I’ve been intimately involved in the process of training Olympic-level athletes for the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program, both as an athlete myself and eventually as Chairman and Team Leader for all of U.S. Olympic Sailing. At that level of competition, there […]

It has been three years since Robin Williams passed away, and we wrote this post right after he died. What we wrote then is just as true and valid today…  perhaps more so. Great communication in the workplace is about more than clarity, brevity, etc… things we write about all the time. Great communication in […]

In a client workshop today, we were discussing just how much the world has changed with regard to how we communicate. We have more channels than ever. More access to information. More access to each other. Yet, we have way less time. At times, communicating can feel like a total info-dump, and each of us […]

Simon Sinek is a favorite around here. We’ve written about him specifically in the past, and there’s a huge overlap in many of the themes we teach… This is a great addendum to some of the posts we’ve written in the past on listening, understanding, and seeing the other side. Simon’s advice, Be the last […]