Presentation Skills

Here is a common scenario that I have watched and experienced many times: the words that were spoken/written by someone were received in way that was different from the intended impact. The message that was received or the feeling that was created was not at all what the speaker/writer was trying to send or create. […]

Have you ever, um, listened, um, to someone who, um, has a distracting pattern to the way they, um, speak? Or, like, have you ever, like, focused so hard on, like, one aspect of their speech pattern, that you, like, can’t hear anything else? OrHowAboutThePersonWhoSpeaksSoQuicklyThatEveryWordSeemsLikeItIs PartOfThePreviousWordAndTheAudienceCan’tRetainAnythingBecauseThe SpeakerWon’tSlowDown? Seemingly tiny distractions in your speech pattern can become a really big deal in the work place. Because once […]

My colleagues and I think about communication in very broad terms. We define our communication as more than just our words or our slides. Our communication is everything we bring into the interaction… our words, slides, body language, facial expression, attire, silence, questions… all of it contributes to what we communicate to people around us.  […]

Originally published with the Forbes Coaches Council, November 2019. Have you ever gone into a presentation or a sales meeting convinced that you were about to deliver a slam dunk, only to come out feeling like you threw brick after brick? Have you ever introduced a new initiative to your team with great confidence that it […]

Hello and welcome to 2021! I hope you had a peaceful and happy holiday, and that everyone in your world is healthy. We had a wonderful “stay-cation” in our home, and spent a lot of time reading, playing games, and watching our favorite shows. Honestly, another week of that would be just fine. But its […]

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 […]

Death by PowerPoint. Or as Dilbert put it: “PowerPoint poisoning.” It’s software that is so despised that it has been banished by Amazon and banned from military strategy meetings. It’s easy to hate on PowerPoint. After all, it’s often the single common denominator between all the boring presentations and too-long meetings we have to endure during our workdays. But is […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. My third grader learned a very important lesson at the start of this school year. It was about “the pit”, or “the learning pit”. Her teacher explained that all learners fall into the pit sometimes, and they feel helpless, don’t know […]

Ask anyone who performs at a high level: athletes, dancers, singers, etc. They all prepare and practice their skills the same way. They break their skill down into smaller “sub-skills,” then practice each one individually, then put them all back together, and their overall skill level has improved. The same is true with communication. “Great […]

Let’s continue our discussion of classic persuasion mistakes… here’s another one that we see all the time. If you want to persuade someone to take advantage of an opportunity, don’t spend all your time trying to demonstrate all the upside, how unbelievable the idea is, and how they would be crazy if they didn’t do […]