“He’s bright. He’s a hard worker, but when he shows up in meetings he struggles to make a coherent point. This makes promotion difficult.” This is a familiar concern from corporate leaders. We design programs to help an individual or team make measurable improvements. The speaker is happy, clients are happy, senior management is happy. .…
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Do the same rules apply to women and men for giving presentations and public speaking? Yes, and no. Here’s what the research tells us, and more importantly, what you can do about it. Speakers find greater success when they have a compelling story, clear call to action and empathy for their audience. But delivering that presentation can be a…
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You, in the audience. . . Most presentations and meetings could be better. To solve this problem, we focus on the speaker; how can they better serve the needs of the audience? But audiences have a responsibility too. Are you: Distracted? It is unnerving to try and connect to colleagues when they’re not even pretending…
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When warmer weather coincides with baseball’s Opening Day, we can take comfort that sometimes Washington DC gets it right. What is it about baseball that reminds me of public speaking? When the batter steps up to the plate, the stadium pulsates with their favorite song. It turns out that this is one of the techniques…
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Your company has a new directive that has to get out – maybe a compliance issue or a new expense reporting system. These “required” presentations can be painful to create (and endure). Some simply copy and paste policies onto a series of slides. We hear a monotone script, and feel largely uninspired or distracted by our inbox…
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Except that you have some shopping, baking, and merrymaking to do in addition to your normal workload. If you feel short on time – and funds – here’s a neatly wrapped package of free resources to take your presentations to the next level. From storytelling skills…
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This is one of the most frequent questions we get, and it’s a problem that is driven by an information imbalance. One person – perhaps you as the presenter – knows far more detail about the topic than your audience. This makes it hard to know where to start, or how much detail to go…
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A senior executive was dismayed when she saw the results of a company-wide survey on communications. Employees felt uninformed about the strategy and how their work fit into the bigger picture. “But we are communicating. They’re just not listening!” The reaction is both humorous and unfortunately, widely shared. If they’re not listening, guess whose fault…
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We ask our clients what having better presentation skills might mean for their career. “I could spend less time trying to advocate for my ideas and more time implementing them.” “I could bring in more business.” “I would be perceived as more of a leader than I am now.” The upsides are clear. Yet when it…
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This year a request kept coming up from our clients. How can we answer the question, “What do you do?” It might seem simple enough, but think about how your answer might change if you found yourself in one of the following situations: A member of the Fortune 500 announced it was going to acquire…
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