Surely the people who know the most should be the best at explaining it? I would say that in my work coaching leaders, scientists, engineers, academics and subject matter experts, I sometimes see the opposite. It’s counterintuitive, but the more expertise someone has, the harder communication can become for them. Not because they lack intelligence. Far from it, in fact the reverse. It’s because expertise changes how we think. The curse of knowing Psychologists sometimes refer

Open any presentation skills article and you'll find the same advice: fewer words per slide, better visuals, a clean template. Sound advice, but all of it assumes the slides themselves are helping. Often, they're simply not. Slides don't just support a talk, they change how the speaker behaves. And not always for the better. What slides train you to do Once you build a slide deck, you've built a script. Even with a good script, your eyes may go to the screen to check what's n

I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has said to me, with genuine frustration: ‘But that’s not what I meant!’ They’re not wrong. The intention was clear. The thinking was sound. And yet something got lost; in the delivery, in the room, in the gap between what they said and what the other person heard. That gap is where a surprising amount of professional difficulty lives. Communication is a two-part problem Most of us focus almost entirely on content: what we’re goi

Most advice about public speaking tells you to breathe deeply, picture the audience naked or in their underwear, or simply ‘be yourself.’ If any of that has worked for you, that’s wonderful. Genuinely. For most people I speak to, it hasn’t. So let me share what I think actually makes a difference. First, the dread is normal Not just common; almost universal. Some of the most compelling communicators I’ve worked with still feel it. The goal isn’t to eliminate the dread. It’s t

‘Just practise more.’ Perhaps the most common advice people get before a presentation. And on the surface, it sounds sensible. Practise builds familiarity. Familiarity builds confidence. So people go away and do exactly that. They run through their slides. They repeat their script. They try to get it ‘smooth’. Certainly better than not doing anything. And yet - when the real moment comes - it still feels flat. Or rushed. Or oddly disconnected. Because most people aren’t actua

If you think negotiation is about being ‘nice’, ‘fair’, or even ‘logical’, you’re already losing. That might sound harsh - but it’s accurate. As a communication coach, I see it a lot: smart, capable people walking into negotiations armed with facts, hoping the best argument wins. Then they’re blindsided when someone less informed - but more strategic - walks away with the better deal. Let’s fix that. The biggest lie about negotiation It’s often said (and even taught) that neg

The words we choose to use are incredibly important. When we speak out loud though, formally or informally, it is easy to litter our message with ‘fillers’. Do you know what I mean by fillers? Oh, y’know, they are, like, kind of, basically, those seemingly harmless utterances that, um, slip into our daily speech habitually - and sometimes unconsciously. So why do we use them? Linguists report that fillers are sounds or phrases that we use to give us time to think, such as