Presentation Skills

This post was written by Dan Cooney, Director of Business Development at The Latimer Group. Have you ever been in a meeting with a busy PowerPoint slide beaming on the screen while a confident speaker proudly proclaims, “The numbers speak for themselves!”  You look at the slide and wonder, “Do they?” When a speaker makes this […]

How often do you sit in meetings and think to yourself “wow… this is a colossal waste of time“? My guess is your answer is some version of “far too often.” The next time you are feeling that way, do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations. Make an estimate of what you get paid by the hour. And […]

This post was written by Hannah Morris, Director of Assessment & Advancement at The Latimer Group. What elements stand out to you when you meet someone for the first time? We often hear about the handshake, appearance, warmth, and conversation. Making positive first impressions is highly important for our success – both professionally and personally. […]

One of my favorite quotes from the late Steve Jobs captures exactly how we feel about PowerPoint here at The Latimer Group: “I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking. People confront problems by creating presentations. I want them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of […]

We spend a lot of time leading workshops for our client companies, and we are often impressed with some of the insightful things that are shared in those sessions. Some time ago, we were with one of our most significant client companies and a participant in the workshop, named Paul, started talking about the card game poker. At that […]

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 […]

(We recently had a conversation with a good friend of The Latimer Group, who said something really powerful to us. Our friend shared that her firm no longer calls communication a “soft skill.” Instead, they refer to communication as a “power skill.” We LOVE that, and it caused me to write this post, which has […]

At The Latimer Group, we speak with our clients and friends all the time about the “New Communication Age” that we live in. Today, communication is not just about having or controlling information. Years ago, in an era when not everyone had access to all the information they needed, the best communicators were, in fact, […]

There are a few questions we frequently hear from our workshop participants. And perhaps the most vexing is the question of detail: how much do I need, where do I put it, how much is too much? Without exception, it comes up and is a major topic of conversation in every workshop. Why? For two simple, […]

We live in a world of distractions, constant and loud. We are expected to be available to everyone all the time, we compete for mindshare with unlimited amounts of content and entertainment, we have a social media landscape which can turn every day into an all-day conversation with friends all over the world. Quieting the mind, and […]