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Years ago, I was translating some PowerPoint presentation slides from Japanese into English. My Japanese was good, but I couldn’t understand what the presenter wanted to say. So I asked him. He said the slides were supposed to be difficult to understand... I was...
The other day, Emiko Rasmussen contacted me. She had seen my TEDx talk and was excited that what I said was so aligned with her mission. Emiko helps Japanese women to be more confident. TED talks are a wonderful way to spread ideas. And they’re a way for you to get...
Of all the communication skills, the one I’ve been least comfortable with is influencing. It’s not that I’m not good at it. I must be able to influence people - otherwise I wouldn’t have been running my own business for four years. But part of me associates...
What's the point of PowerPoint? The slides are there to support your message as a presenter. Yet, sadly, many of the PowerPoint slides that we see in English business presentations in Japan distract and confuse the audience. Here’s an example that I’ll never forget....
A former colleague referred to it as the "bulls**t sandwich." Maybe you've heard these three layers of feedback: "You're doing really great at X. You made a complete mess of Y. You should have done Z instead. Keep up the great work!" This feedback model of starting...
An Interview With Rena Suzuki, Leader of Lean In Tokyo I met Rena Suzuki, co-founder and leader of Lean In Tokyo, when she was emceeing an event to promote the Global Summit of Women - known as “Davos for women” - which will be held in Tokyo in May. I was...
The other day, I lied. I was HORRIFIED because I like to think of myself as an honest person. But the lie just plopped out of my mouth before I could even think. While ordering lunch, I told the lady selling Thai food from a truck near my office that I’d just got back...
Have you ever seen a robotic presenter? The presentation just looked too rehearsed? Actually, the problem was probably not being too rehearsed. More likely, the presenter hadn’t rehearsed enough. When I coach executives for keynotes and other important presentations,...
I was lost – somewhere in Tokyo - five minutes before my meeting with a new potential client was scheduled to start. The company should have been only a few minutes’ walk from the station. I’d arrived 30 minutes ago and had been walking, following directions on my...
What’s more scary than giving a presentation? The Q&A session after the presentation. A Japanese executive who I’d been coaching for a keynote speech emailed me the other day because he’d just found out from the conference organizers that he would have a Q&A...
I loved this question in the Sasuga! Community Facebook group| (thanks, Helen Lewis!): “I struggle with handling all the different threads that come at me - from friends, from family, from students, not to mention work colleagues. There is never time to be all things...
One of the funniest moments I remember from my ten years with McKinsey was when I sent an internal chat message to a young consultant who’d done something that I appreciated. I can’t remember now what he’d done, but I’ll never forget what happened later that day. The...