presentation tips

A good meal should be enjoyed, one bite at a time. Take a bite, chew it, swallow it, enjoy it. If you eat it too quickly, it will be over and you will not have had a chance to think about it and appreciate the experience. Slow down! Don’t eat so quickly! And a good chef […]

I am currently in Paris, France running a series of two-day executive communication skills workshops for one of our top clients. The participants came from all over EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa.) In today’s workshop, we had executives from France, UK, Morocco, Italy, Portugal and Egypt. It was an outstanding group, and a thoroughly enjoyable day. In […]

It is  early on a Tuesday morning, and I am up early preparing for a couple of weeks of Executive Communication Skills workshops with our largest client. The participants will come from all over Europe, and the Middle East. I have advocated many times in the past that we all should “know our audience.” And […]

We recently finished an intensive workshop with one of our top clients. The topic was Executive Communication Skills, and the goal was to coach a small group of about 10 rising executive stars in the art of persuasive, executive-level communication skills. We covered a lot of ground over the two days, but one topic worth […]

There will be no politics or political preferences in this post. But I will make a critical, although seemingly obvious, point. We advocate to our clients all the time the importance of not only strong preparation for your presentations, but we also advocate for time spent on practice. We separate those two concepts into two […]

My colleagues and I always talk about the five ingredients for great communication. And those five things are as follows: Clarity, brevity, context, impact and value. Now, as you think about the last line I just wrote above, which word do you think is most important? Clarity, brevity, context, impact and value. Which of those […]

A 2004 survey from Raindance Communications looked at the issue of multitasking. And for those of you who regularly lead conference calls (like me), brace yourselves… the numbers ain’t pretty. These stats are a little dated but still eye-opening. According to this survey: 90% of people surveyed said they multitask while on conference calls; 70% reported doing other, […]

  I had a great chat this morning with a partner of The Latimer Group’s. She and I discussed a number of components of great leadership in the 21st century, and one of the ideas we kicked around was the concept of leadership “vulnerability.” I was struck by the idea enough to write a quick post […]

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 […]

My colleagues and I see a lot of PowerPoint slide decks. More than we can count, actually. So we have a deep reservoir of context on what makes a good slide deck and a bad slide deck. And very often, people make a critical mistake when thinking about slides, and how to make them better. […]