Engaging Conversations for Groups & Teams
How’s Your Computer-side Manner? Digital Communication Mistakes That Are Holding You Back
Countless studies have found direct connections between a person’s communication skills and their professional success. In today’s world, you are likely interacting with remote or hybrid teams at work and relying heavily on digital communication to get your job done. Problem solving via Slack? Brainstorming via group chat? Performance reviews via Google Meet?
In an ever-increasing digital environment, how you communicate is a growing factor in predicting your success. What does your computer-side manner say about you? Is it helping or hindering your professional success?
From an organizational standpoint, communication barriers cost the average organization $62.4 million per year in lost productivity. Is it possible your employees’ written and verbal communication skills are holding them back from being more successful, not to mention impacting your organization’s productivity and, thus, the bottom line?
Join renowned communications expert Dr. Ali Atkison as she explores what she calls “computer-side manner”—the holistic picture of how you “show up” in your digital communication. Dr. Ali will explain why it matters that many people don’t pay enough attention to certain aspects of computer-side manner, and how this leads to common mistakes in your digital communication that may be holding you back professionally.
In this session you’ll learn specific and easy-to employ brain-based tactics for achieving impactful communication, which is communication that accomplishes what you want it to, and that allows you to stand out as the professional you need to be to achieve success.
Participants in this session will:
• Discover 5* mistakes they are making in their digital communication that are holding them back professionally
• Learn easy-to-implement strategies for impactful digital conversations at work and in life
• Feel confident in their ability to navigate challenging issues in a digital environment
*(The number of mistakes covered may depend on the length of the keynote.)
Get Your Message Across: Harnessing the Power of Brain Science to Be More Effective at Work
In a 2018 study, 400 surveyed corporations estimated that communication barriers cost the average organization $62.4 million per year in lost productivity. The same report found that companies with leaders who utilize effective communication skills produced a 47% higher return to shareholders in a five-year period (Inc., 2018).
Teamwork, production, and employee relationships can all be impacted when communication at work isn’t effective. On the individual level, think of all the time, headache, and—all too often—heartache that miscommunications create. What if you could positively impact all of these things just by learning a few easy-to-employ tactics?
(Spoiler alert… Good news: you can!)
In this interactive session, Dr. Ali Atkison walks you through how and why we process and retain information. By understanding the basics of how the adult brain learns, you will be able to leverage the concepts to enhance your team meetings, training sessions, and client/prospect interactions.
While rooted in brain science, the steps to improving your communication with others aren’t complicated. Dr. Ali’s proven framework will help you both personally and professionally and is immediately actionable in your day-to-day life at work and at home.
In this session, attendees will learn:
• How your brain acquires, processes and retains information
• Dr. Ali’s framework for leveraging what we know about the brain to improve your communication with others
• Specific strategies for applying Dr. Ali’s framework to your own professional and/or personal life
Communicate Like a Boss: Strategically Choosing the Right Words to Accomplish Communication Goals
Did you know there is a direct correlation between effective communication skills and job success? And this becomes increasingly important the farther up the ladder you go—or want to go! What if you could make an immediate impact on that correlation by learning how to strategically use words more precisely, more persuasively, and more powerfully?
Communication expert Dr. Ali Atkison can teach you not only how to understand the profound power in your choice of words, but more important, how to use that knowledge to your competitive advantage. This session is geared toward those already in leadership positions or those interested in pursuing leadership positions.
Dr. Ali covers important questions like: How can you choose words and phrasing strategically to enhance the persuasiveness of your message? How should factors like gender and power come into play when you communicate with others? Do you know how to phrase your communication so that your tone conveys exactly what you want it to? Do you know how to use the power of questions to your advantage? How should context—collaborating, negotiating, making a sales pitch—shape your vocabulary?
Let Dr. Ali teach you the power of strategic language choice and teach you strategies for choosing your words purposefully to accomplish your strategic goal—each and every time. This knowledge will not only positively impact your own professional trajectory but will also positively impact your organization’s bottom line.
Her approach is grounded in brain science, not to mention fun, interactive, and—best of all—easy to implement!
Upon completion in this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Understand the relationship between strategic word choice, different contexts, and communication effectiveness
• Employ Dr. Ali’s 4Cs framework for choosing their words precisely
• Make strategic word choices for creating emotional and persuasive messages
Why Words Matter: The Cost of Miscommunication at Work (and how to fix it)
Did you know that 20 years of research have revealed one consistent finding: that a person’s vocabulary (including, of course, its clear, correct use) is the single biggest predictor of job success?
Did you know that interpersonal issues caused by miscommunications are among the most common source of time spent by HR departments?
It is possible your employees’ written and verbal communication skills are holding them back from being more successful, not to mention impacting your organization’s productivity and, thus, the bottom line.
In this keynote, acclaimed keynote speaker and communication trainer Dr. Ali Atkison offers your employees a primer on why it matters that they communicate better.
What does better really mean anyway?
Participants in this session will leave with an understanding of how to truly communicate more clearly, more accurately, more authentically and more effectively.
Dr. Ali will guide your employees to evaluate their own current communication practices and skills, considering the impact of communication skills, both good and bad, on personal and professional levels. She will provide suggestions for your employees to strengthen those skills for their own professional success as well as positive impact on your organization’s productivity.
Dr. Ali’s approach is grounded in brain science, not to mention fun, interactive, and—best of all— easy to implement!
Upon completion in this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Honestly assess their current communication skills
• Understand the impact of their current communication techniques, both personally and professionally
• Examine some of the common excuses and myths around improving communication skills
• Learn basic tips for improving communication skills
A Note for Hiring Managers: If you’re looking for a more tactical workshop on concrete skills to improve your employees’ communication, check out Dr. Ali’s workshop series: Brain-Based Tactics for More Effective Employee Communication
Lean In When Others Dig In: Communicate Better with People When You Disagree
When’s the last time you had a conversation with someone with differing viewpoints than you? About politics? Health choices? The climate? Career choices? Could that conversation have gone better? In today’s increasingly volatile and divisive world, it is so easy to get caught up in interactions that can be challenging at best, and toxic or harmful at worst.
The good news is there are ways to more effectively communicate with others whose beliefs seem so steadfastly different than your own, even if it feels impossible.
In this highly-tactical session, communication expert Dr. Ali Atkison will teach you to understand the factors that create and contribute to entrenched beliefs, including why others (and—let’s be honest—you, too, sometimes) dig their heels in. Most importantly, she will teach you how to flex your communication to have more helpful, effective, and productive conversations when you’re communicating with someone—in a personal or professional setting—whose beliefs seem to differ markedly from yours. This knowledge will make you a much stronger communicator, not only positively impacting your own personal and professional relationships, but also increasing your level of professional success!
Dr. Ali’s approach is grounded in brain science; her keynotes and workshops are fun and interactive; and, best of all, her tips are easy to implement!
Upon completion in this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Understand the factors that lead to entrenched beliefs, including why they and others tend to dig their heels in over issues
• Learn to identify entrenched beliefs in order to flex their communication choices accordingly
• Make strategic choices for effectively communicating with someone with entrenched beliefs