Knowing Your Audience is Complex
Posted On December 3, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
I am out in Minnesota, teaching a three-day workshop on executive communication skills for our largest client. And over the course of the day yesterday, the group had a great conversation about the complexities of understanding audience perspective. Knowing your audience is critical to great communication… we all know that. But in 2014, the business world […]
The Most Important Skill in Business
Posted On December 1, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
If you can persuade others to think or act in a certain way, influence their decisions and behaviors, and build consensus among your colleagues, you have competitive advantage. Period. Full stop. In the 21st century business world, (where information is more available, attention spans have plummeted, organizations are leaner, and everyone is less loyal and […]
Do You Have “Situational Awareness” in Business?
Posted On October 27, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
It is a little after 4am on a cold and dark October morning in New England… jet lag. I’m home for a few days after a great week of client work in Paris. And in a few days, it’s Singapore, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. During stretches like these, where we have several busy months, and […]
The Recipe for Great Communication Is Never Complete
Posted On September 15, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
We spend a lot of time with our clients talking about ways to create outstanding business communication. And all great business communication has five common characteristics, or ingredients: clarity, brevity, context, impact and value. Every single time we communicate in the work place, we need to be thinking about all five of these things. We […]
Interpreting the Silence: “Why Haven’t They Gotten Back to Me?”
Posted On September 3, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
Have you ever written or sent something to a friend or a colleague, perhaps something important, that you worked hard on, and then been surprised when no prompt response came? It is hard in this situation to know what to think, or how to feel. Did I say something wrong? Did they not like it? […]
A Tip for More Powerful Storytelling
Posted On July 3, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
This is a simple idea, but a very powerful one. We’ve all heard it before, yet so many of us continue to ignore it’s value. Whenever possible, tell your story with pictures and not words. Pictures create images in the mind, and for most of us the mind retains the things it sees much longer […]
Communication is the “Clutch” for Your Business Engine
Posted On July 1, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
The other day I was on a conference call with two good friends. One, Bill, is the CEO of US-based marine industry company. The other, Ron, is an independent marketing consultant. We were catching up on some business issues, and Bill made a comment that stuck with me. His company has had some communication challenges […]
The Recipe for Great Communication
Posted On June 10, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
If we look at our communication as if it were a meal that our audience will consume, we’ll of course want to prepare a communication “meal” they will enjoy. And in order to do that, there are 5 ingredients that must be included in our recipe: Clarity, Brevity, Context, Impact, and Value. But how much […]
The Art of Negotiation (as taught by a four-year old…)
Posted On June 9, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
I spent the entire day yesterday with my four-year old son. We had quite a nice little Saturday. We woke up early, had breakfast together, and then went out for some man-style shopping. Home Depot was the highlight, for some tools. We then came home and spent several hours in the yard together. We […]
The Importance of Getting to the Point Quickly
Posted On June 4, 2014 BY Dean Brenner
“Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated.” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt We all complain about it, but we’re all guilty of it at times, as well. And in all our coaching, it’s one of the most common topics we run into with our clients. It’s the growing frustration with people’s inability to get to the point quickly […]