It's a noisy world out there.
It's a noisy world out there.
Welcome to The Latimer Blog.
Once a week, The Latimer Group’s experienced facilitators deliver clear, succinct, and actionable lessons about business communication to tens of thousands of readers worldwide. These are real-world observations from our team, underpinned by working with over 25,000 participants since 2000.
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Is Your Metaphor Lost on Them?
About 15 years ago, I was training and coaching a room full of business leaders from an Indian tech firm trying to gain a foothold in the USA. Partway through the morning, the CEO
Business Game Theory, Straight from the Poker Table
Twice a week, The Latimer Group’s experienced facilitators deliver clear, succinct, and actionable lessons about business communication to tens of thousands of readers worldwide. Here’s the latest entry:
Workplace Communication: 4 Missteps Men Make
There are some universal communication mistakes that anyone can make in the workplace. That’s a pretty long list. But in addition, there are also some communication
What’s Your Default Setting for Detail?
Making consistently good choices about how much detail to include is a critical component to being a consistently good communicator. So, if the amount of detail you must include is variable, then what is your default setting? We all need to have one. But what is the correct one?
No One Washes a Rental Car
Why are we talking about rental cars today? What do rental cars have to do with communication and leadership, our typical topics in this space?
The Search for Brevity
Have you ever sat through a meeting, or a conference call, or a presentation, and thought to yourself… “Oh my god… I wish this person would get to the point…“? Yeah. Me too. Many, many times.
Communication Through Behavior
You can tell a lot about an organization by the way it behaves. The things that an organization says it cares about matter, of course. But what matters more is whether the organization’s actual behaviors match up with its communication.
Take the Leap (but Manage the Risk a Little)
There are some days when our business decisions feel kind of like this... we are jumping off a cliff. The choices we have to make
5 Steps to Giving Your Message More Impact
Does your message stand out? Do you make it easy for your audience to remember what you say? Does your message make an impact on the mind of your listener? You need to care about this, because
Know Your Blast Radius
Leaders make an impact, with every action, statement, question, reaction, facial expression… even with silence. The more senior the leader, the bigger the impact. Sometimes those impacts are
A Moment of Silence is Not an Absence of Music
Well-timed moments of silence will enhance the experience for everyone in the room.
A.I. as an Amplifier
From our experience many people begin their communication by opening their AI tool instead of taking a step back to complete the first step in The Latimer Communication Mode: Assessing their opportunity. This is exactly where the risk begins, not because AI is flawed, but because it lacks human discernment.
No One Leads All the Time: Seven Characteristics of Good Followership
At The Latimer Group, we often say, “no one leads all the time.” And today, we would like to dig into that a little bit more.
A Simple Philosophy for Effective Communication
Great communication does not just happen. It requires thought, preparation, practice… and it requires a philosophy. There are many philosophies out there in the 21st century business world. But here is what works for us
Make Great Communication Part of Your Brand
So imagine this… Imagine if you were known as someone who always gets to the point… Who doesn’t waste time… Who makes complicated things easier to understand…
Business Storytelling Techniques: Problem → Solution
One of the best ways to communicate in a powerful way is through the use of story. And one of the best story telling techniques we know is called “Problem→Solution.” We use it and teach it all the time.
“Simple” Does Not Mean “Simplistic”
In our workshops, we talk all the time about making things simple. The simple answer wins the day most of the time. In a world that is increasingly fast-paced, time-starved, and overloaded with information, the person who can
Mapping Your Progress as a Communicator
When we map out what a possible future state looks like, we discuss three levels of communication success, each with specific skills that can be mapped. Here is a quick primer on how to think about your own skills:
Your Communication Behaviors Are Contagious
There are tangible outcomes that arise from good communication skills, and those outcomes can often be measured specifically. But there is another benefit that comes from being a good communicator, one that is harder to measure, but often even more powerful.
Make Yourself Easy to Listen To
We write constantly in this blog about all the different elements of good communication… clear messaging, effective visuals or slides, powerful presence and delivery, speaking with the “executive voice“…