Want to improve communication skills for yourself or your team?
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Whenever you’re delivering a presentation or running a meeting, one of your primary responsibilities is to facilitate the discussion that takes place during it. After all, if your meetings or presentations were simply about the delivery of information without discussion of it, an email will do the job. As we all know, sometimes that doesn’t...
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Josh Bersin wrote an interesting article on LinkedIn about the mismatch between academic education and job skills. What jumped out at me was research showing that while 72% of educational institutions believe newly educated workers are ready for work, only 42% of employers think the same. That’s a pretty big disconnect, but it’s one that I’m...
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Praise for All the Leader You Can Be: The Science of Achieving Extraordinary Executive Presence There is no doubt that communication is a skill that must be developed by everyone who wants to move into leadership roles. It’s no surprise then that my colleagues and I have been working with business leaders to improve their communication...
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There’s no debate about the power of storytelling. Stories persuade and inspire. They paint a compelling picture in the mind’s eye. They bring complex data to life. They build trust and understanding between storyteller and listener. The need for better business storytelling comes up in nearly every sales conversation we have with clients and prospects....
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One of the most important things for business communicators to understand is the distinction between a speech and a presentation. They are not the same. The problem is not that people struggle to articulate the difference between the two or have a hard time distinguishing one from the other as an audience member. The problem...
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People often ask us about the rules for PowerPoint. Some examples include, “What’s the rule for … the number of bullets on a slide?” the number of words per bullet?” the number of slides a presentation should have?” the right size font to use?” the right font to use?” We also hear apologies like these:...
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How to be persuasive when presenting data If you deliver a lot of data-heavy presentations, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut and approach each of them with the same goal, “I just need to deliver the information.” You might be tempted to assume that the data speaks for itself and that its usefulness...
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During every communication workshop we deliver, whether it’s for presenters, facilitators, or trainers, there’s one frustration we hear repeatedly. No one likes to conduct business virtually. Neither do I. However, virtual meetings, online training, webinars, and video conferences aren’t going away, so we might as well figure out how to present information and facilitate discussions...
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Many presenters ask us about the best way to get their presentations started. They say that once the conversation gets going, they’re fine. But getting through the opening is always uncomfortable. Getting past the presentation nervousness that builds up before and at the start is a struggle. This is a tough issue for us to...
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For some presenters, preparation is all about collecting data and turning it into PowerPoint slides. There’s more to effective, efficient preparation than that, though. It’s not that you won’t use slides. It’s that by creating slides right off the bat, you may skip steps intended to help you craft your content to meet the needs...
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