Communication made simple, with José Mota

Why is storytelling such an important skill to have? What makes stories so powerful? No better way than to share a story of my own. Stories bridge the gap. They are a great entryway between your ideas and your audience's. Because stories aim to demonstrate underlying principles, the narrative you choose is malleable, and if you choose one that your audience can relate to easily, the more effec...

Steve Jobs' presentations were incredible. Why? His remarkable presence, his personal brand, and the simple yet strong slide decks made the difference. Everyone would cheer when he announced the first iPhone, or the innovative Macbook Air. The black and blue fade background with big white letters zooming in would mark that generation of computers for good. What made Jobs so influential on stag...

Doing the right thing is not the same as doing the thing right. Meaningful practice makes progress. How do we practice? How to prepare for a big online presentation, a team workshop or a webinar, in a way that is purposeful and tells you that you're doing better than last time? I'm breaking my answer in three parts: why it's important to practice, what to practice when it comes to spea...

The continuation of last week's episode on paralanguage. If you're curious to get the context behind it, check episode 57.

What makes people want to see TED talks? Usually because speakers that go there have great ideas to share. And what makes them so interesting that people can be engaged for such a long time? I would personally love to acquire such incredible gravitas. They always look so collected, and yet so confident. These people are truly inspiring, and I'm telling you there's a way to get there. How d...

We've been exploring posture and gestures lately. They are incredible resources that take advantage of the visual senses and pairing them with the actual message that others hear. Because we now understand how effective gestures are, it becomes important to realize the conditions in which we do them, specifically the space and boundaries we have available. Also, when interacting with others, w...

Conversation is one of the most spontaneous activities for people to engage in. Everyone loves talking with others, be it an extrovert on a introvert. If you think about it, introverts are very much selective extroverts; meaning, they like to expand with a limited number of people they can trust. Talking gets more interesting when it becomes slightly physical as you move your arms and make certain...

Imagine yourself having a conversation with somebody; a deep one, in fact. The ideas being exchanged require some effort to understand, and they take time to fully absorb. Now imagine you're absolutely still when you're talking. Arms down, fixed expression on your face, 6 feet away from the other person. What does it look like? Is it awkward or funny? Is it provoking or is it rather someth...

If you're part of a product team, chances are that you talk about solving certain problems on a daily basis. Teams who use Scrum, for instance, plan their work together every day. Part of their process includes understanding where they are in the context of their sprint goal. There is often the challenge of discussing those goals from a text file, maybe a product requirements document or a Jir...

Go back to any situation where you had to make a decision with anyone else (maybe your team or a client). Think about the documents you had with you, and how they supported the group. Think about the experience of coming up with those documents and how different it would be if you didn't have them. What does that picture look like? More than once I've had people come up to me to ask for he...

More and more, people come together to watch online webinars, talk to clients in important meetings and attend training workshops. They're more accessible, affordable and convenient, particularly for those who live far from the big cities. The challenge with these kinds of events is that we cannot know for sure if the experience will meet reasonable expectations, even if the topic is of our ut...

Before 2020, most people would go to the office and work together. They would gather by the watercooler and chat, have important meetings with clients and partners, visit other coworkers' workstations to discuss design work, perform pair programming, or simply exchange ideas creatively. Then the pandemic hit, and everything changed. Most of the world has switched to ways of working that requir...

Natasha Wellington-Hillsman is a Human Resources Business Partner and Leadership Coach with 25 years of experience in manufacturing and healthcare. Her focus is on Nonprofit, Career Development, Conflict Resolution, and Facilitation. She is currently a Director of Human Resources at Luminis Health, Leadership Coach at Wellington-Hillsman and Professor at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland....

Every time I record a podcast, or sometimes when I have prepare any sort of presentation to my clients or my team, I always use the same procedure: Confirm the topic and goals. Frame them well. Split the topic into key parts and support each of them. Summarize the message. Today's focus is on point 2: frame the topic well.

Good preparation elevates your message, your confidence and your audience's engagement. When you start to develop your idea, you might realize that you might have holes you need to fill. For example: Is this idea too vague? Does my audience really understand the points I'm making? Can they keep a clear picture of the whole thing? How will they respond? Here's my one question to you at...

Preparation is a crucial skill to have. While most people praise posture, confidence and tone of voice, only a few appreciate the prep work under a powerful presentation or a productive meeting. Today we'll explore the impact of preparation with a couple of examples and, after that, how to do so regardless of the situation.

Start 2024 on the right foot! If you want to become a successful communicator, make the difference amongst your peers and leaders, and boost your career, learn the 5 essential components of communication. In further episodes we'll explore each of those elements in practice so stay tuned!

In a military operation, communication is not just important; it can be a matter of life or death. Clear, accurate, and concise communication can be the difference between success and failure on the battlefield. However, in the chaos of a mission, miscommunication can lead to disastrous consequences. Orders misunderstood, coordinates confused, and critical information miscommunicated can jeopardiz...

Knowing the reasons why certain people take certain positions breaks barriers of potential conflict and increases the quality of collaboration, from coworkers and teams to the tougher stakeholders like customers, clients and directors. Let's explore the topic in three segments: what is conflict, its five levels, how to resolve it, and some practical examples. Understand the Thomas-Kilmann conf...

Our workdays are filled with different activities: making decisions, talking about the solutions we're building, building them, planning, writing email, meetings... It's 2023, and it becomes more and more valuable to grow out of our specialty by understanding a little bit of everything others around us do, as well as developing human skills that help us collaborate better and be more produ...

Many companies today appreciate the value of doing work in an iterative, incremental fashion. While there are some clear, valid outliers to this claim, most digital product companies and consulting groups understand the positive impact of delivering quality products early and frequently with close to direct feedback from who their users. Most believe that 2 or 3 weeks is good enough of an iteratio...

Everyone loves being praised, especially in public. What happens when they're criticized instead? I share my story about what happened to me years ago and how I turned it into a valuable lesson.

Knowledge workers thrive in questions. Well, they should! How do you ask good questions? Learn about 5W1H questions and how they open up a conversation and tap into valuable insights.

Good leaders are good communicators. They ensure everyone understands the message and they are given enough room for clarification. When people don't understand you because you can't articulate your thoughts consistently, you lose their interest and performance goes down. So how do you articulate with consistency and ensure your teams are crystal clear from the very beginning?

Is it better to make the wrong decisions despite the risk of reverting it after some time? The answer is yes and we'll explore the topic in this episode.