in May 2002, right around the time I was launching The Latimer Group, I took some time to clear my head and enrolled in an eight-day desert survival course in Boulder, Utah. At the end of the journal, my final entry in fact, I wrote down three things that I learned from the experience.

My family and I just completed the trip of a lifetime: eight days rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.. The intent of this trip was an amazing family experience in a stunning national park. But the impact of this trip went well beyond the experience itself.

When we communicate well in the workplace — when we get to the point, when we articulate value, when we make the point clearly — what we are really doing is

People are constantly evolving. As we grow, get older, and experience new things, the sum total of who we are is constantly changing. We are not the same people we were a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago. Because every experience,

My family and I were visiting my wife’s parents in central Mexico recently, when an extraordinary thing happened. We took our two children to a nearby playground, and there were lots of local children playing there

One of the most frequent debates that comes up in our workshops and coaching is this: “Sometimes I am not asking for anything, so there is no persuasion. Sometimes, it IS just an update.” And The Latimer Group’s standard reply to that question is

How often do you sit in a meeting, or on a conference call, or listen to a presentation, and feel disengaged within the first two to three minutes? Yep… me too. It usually takes speakers forever to simply

This is a blog about communication and leadership, and how to make ourselves more persuasive, and how to increase our presence and expand our credibility. And all of those things are vastly more powerful if we simply remember to…

We need to be thinking about doing more than just delivering information from point A to point B. Sharing or delivering information is fine. Providing our colleagues with a status update is important. But it is not nearly enough.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, leads ALL the time. At some point, we all need to know how to follow. And following is not a bad thing.

The world of communication is constantly changing… new vocabulary, new tools, new techniques and new norms are consistently available to us and expected from us.

And this reality continues to be as true today as it ever was. The rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence tools is changing…

We all have bias, whether we will admit it to ourselves or not. And if we are not careful, and if we don’t manage our bias, then that bias may get in the way of real business progress.

What do people say about your meetings and presentations? Do you know? Are you sure?

The slides don’t matter until you first figure out what you want to be talking about. The slides need to be placed in proper perspective.

There is one element that is consistently required for successful and persuasive communication…. creating an emotional connection.

In business, just like on the poker table, success is simply about balancing what you have in front of you, and the variables around you, and the information available.

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:

The best preparation involves getting fully immersed in what the other side/person/group is going to say, and to try to see their point of view.

Meetings, conference calls and presentations are the blood cells that regulate the blood flow of your business. In a healthy organization, the meetings, conference calls and presentations are well run. In other words, the “informational blood flow” is healthy, because the “meeting blood cell” is healthy.

In any organization, leadership is built on credibility—a foundation of trust, expertise, and consistency that allows a team to work together with confidence in the organization’s overall decision-making and strategic vision.