Presentation Skills

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 […]

My colleagues and I spend just as much time changing the way people think about communication as we do anything else. Better communication is not about new tips or tricks (here is a line I hear in workshops a lot… “I am looking forward to getting some new tips.” Wow, does that drive me nuts.) […]

Quick, but powerful idea for you today. Let’s say you have a meeting coming up and you will be making a presentation. Your boss and some other senior managers will be in the room or the virtual meeting… or maybe a key potential client who you have been trying to sell for a year… or maybe you will […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]