The initial problem Latham shines a light on is ‘clarity blindness’ – our inability to see where we are being unclear. From her coaching she brings a multitude of examples of how lack of clarity manifests itself. It is usually from something seemingly inocuous and very familiar. Vague requests lie at the root of many […]
Book Review Subject: Communication
Messengers
The authors have identified eight core traits that factor how much messaging power people have. Four of these are grouped as traits of Hard Messengers, and four of Soft Messengers. Hard messengers are those with status, whether that be through being the boss (hierarchical), successful (rich or famous) or lucky (attractive in some respect). The […]
Fair Talk
Founded on the view that we humans are not good at improvement, the relationship of actionable feedback to performance is a central theme of this new book. It comes in three sections being firstly an exploration of the nature and practice of feedback; secondly, all that it takes to be the Fairtalk leader; and in part […]
You Are Not Human
The irony with metaphor is that while the speaker or author is using it to paint an image of one thing as another, ‘the financial storm’, ‘the Arab Spring’… these are illusory, in reality there was no storm, nor Spring. “Welcome to the mysterious world of metaphor, in which everything is something it is not” […]
Own Any Occasion
Palmer breaks the necessary points to focus on for a good presentation into two acronyms. The first, VOCAL, covers the five-steps you need to go through to prepare your talk. The key one is Audience, shaping your presentation for your particular crowd. One size does not fit all. Content follows, selecting the relevant and correct […]