Like it or not, hybrid meetings (some people in a room together and others logging in virtually) seem to be here to stay. We’ve all gone from “I’d better learn to use Zoom” to clicking on Join Meeting in our sleep. However, mastery of the software doesn’t mean mastery of the process of planning and executing hybrid meetings. We have heard about and experienced a lot of fumbles with the tech, people being ignored or talked over, and meetings that should have been entirely virtual or in person. Anyone who has joined a hybrid meeting as a remote participant has dealt with the expectation that th ..read more

Active listening is one of the many communication skills we help our clients develop in our communication skills workshops. Like so many communication skills, we need to be intentional in their use until they develop into a habit. Recently, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “What Is Active Listening” by Amy Gallo. She has some solid, practical insight into how to listen better. If we back up and look at the communication skill development process in general, we can see that it involves three steps. They are: Awareness of the skills required in a given situation Assessm ..read more

We were in the midst of a complex, multi-part training at a Fortune 500 company, and the topic of conversation was employees being invited to meetings but having no idea why they were invited or what they were expected to contribute. One of us asked whether meeting invitations came with a topic description or a meeting goal. The room went silent. No one had ever thought to include the goal of a meeting; all they got was a vague topic area. Thus, these subject-matter experts didn’t know what from their vast quantities of information they were expected to contribute or how to best prepare and d ..read more

We spend a lot of time helping people succeed as trainers, meeting facilitators, and presenters. That work focuses on helping people initiate and manage the conversation that takes place in each of these settings. What we rarely focus on is the role of the people receiving the training, participating in the meeting, or listening to the presentation. That’s why I found a story on NPR’s “My Unsung Hero” series so interesting. This story was about Alexandra Middlewood, a professor at Wichita State University. During the pandemic, she endured the challenges of teaching in a hybrid format—some stu ..read more

Most of our blog content focuses on presentations and meetings because that’s at the heart of our business. However, if you aim to be a good presenter and meeting leader, you’ll want to elevate your written communication as well. Emails are a good place to start as they are the most frequent communications that people send and receive, and your email style can help or hurt your personal brand. The guidelines for any one individual email depend a lot on what you’re communicating, but there are some overall best practices that will make it much easier for your recipients to understand and act o ..read more

When people participate in Turpin workshops, individual members and teams enjoy a host of secondary benefits beyond greater comfort with their own communication skills. Managers and leaders are often pleasantly surprised by how team meetings become more efficient, leadership skills start to emerge, relationships blossom, and so on. We often hear that teams “Turpinize” their communication after attending a Turpin workshop. In this series of Case Studies, we demonstrate how select clients have benefited from our work. Training Goal  To professionalize a group of passionate subject matter e ..read more

When people participate in Turpin workshops, individual members and teams enjoy a host of secondary benefits beyond greater comfort with their own communication skills. Managers and leaders are often pleasantly surprised by how team meetings become more efficient, leadership skills start to emerge, relationships blossom, and so on. We often hear that teams “Turpinize” their communication after attending a Turpin workshop.  In this series of Case Studies, we demonstrate how select clients have benefited from our work.  Training Goal  To help university librarians gain comfort in ..read more

When people participate in Turpin workshops, individual members and teams enjoy a host of secondary benefits beyond greater comfort with their own communication skills. Managers and leaders are often pleasantly surprised by how team meetings become more efficient, leadership skills start to emerge, relationships blossom, and so on. We often hear that teams “Turpinize” their communication after attending a Turpin workshop. In this series of Case Studies, we demonstrate how select clients have benefited from our work. Training Goal To establish a faculty certification program for Subject Matter ..read more

Something we can all relate to is being confused when sitting through a presentation. The presenter is talking in circles, and the slide on the screen is a jumbled mess. We struggle to make sense of the information on the slide, and then we realize we haven’t heard a thing the person has said. Sound familiar? What we’ve just experienced is heightened cognitive load. Our brains are being taxed with too much information, and in our attempt to make sense of it all, we fail. Cognitive Load Theory has been around for almost forty years. It was originally used to describe the challenge of relying o ..read more

Recently, a learner asked me a seemingly simple question: Should she take notes during the course of a meeting? She wondered if notetaking was an old standard practice that had gone by the wayside or if it was still seen as necessary in current business culture.   My answer to her was a resounding, “Yes!” In fact, not long ago, Turpin customized a meeting planner for a client that specifically included a section for notetaking. But after my reflexive reaction, I decided I should take a few minutes to consider why I felt this was true and break down the reasons I consider it importan ..read more