Presentation Skills

We had a fascinating conversation with a workshop participant last week. He shared a real story, about a presentation he gave soon after he joined his current company. He worked hard at it, he prepared, and he was nervous, but ready. He made the presentation, it seemed to go OK, and then afterwards he asked […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group.  It’s easy to live inside our own heads. We know what we know. As a result, we sometimes start talking, telling a story, asking a question, making a statement, and then realize that the person we’re talking to has no idea […]

Over the last month, we have spent nearly every day in workshops with some of our top clients. And in every single one, the concept of terrible PowerPoint slides came up. Everyone wants to know how to make their slides simpler. Everyone wants to have a “Steve Jobs” level of simplicity with their slides. But […]

Let me know if this sounds familiar… you have a presentation to give. You immediately begin thinking about your slide deck. You pull out the last presentation you gave on the topic, you dust it off and realize that some of the same slides will work. So you are on your way. Then you look […]

Not long ago, while teaching a client workshop, one of the participants verbalized a great way to think about business meetings… specifically, a great way to think about the level of information you need to be able to discuss. The participant described the difference between an “index card meeting” and a “full binder meeting.” Some meetings […]

At the heart of almost everything we teach is the concept of intentionality… preparing and communicating with intention and purpose. Great communication skills don’t just happen. Not without some thought, effort, planning, and yes, intention. In addition to being intentional about your message’s main points, we also encourage being intentional about the structure, sequence and […]

Have you ever considered mapping your progress as a communicator? In short, the only way to REALLY be sure you’re improving as an effective communicator is to have some way to measure that improvement. When we work with clients at The Latimer Group, we use a three-stage rubric of Professional-, Leadership-, and Executive-Level communication… So how do we […]

(Author’s Note: I was scrolling through our blog archive over coffee in the early morning hours yesterday, when I came across this post from three years ago. The story is a simple one, and pretty self-explanatory. But as I always say to my clients, colleagues and friends, the simplest stories often have the most powerful […]

This is a killer episode, and we say that with great humility. In the latest episode of The Message Makeover Podcast, we interview Dr. Jared Horvath, an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist who has lectured at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School and the University of Melbourne. What’s special about this conversation? Dr. Horvath is the guy who […]

There is a disconnect that I witness every day. The disconnect is between our own perception of what is “clear” and what others think about that clarity. When we have an idea or a strategy or something in our head, and we have thought it through and worked it out, in our own minds it […]