A succinct primer on delivering more effective medical presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a succinct 5-page article by Adin Nelson et al. in the Journal of Hospital Medicine for April 15, 2026 pages 946 to 950 (Volume 21, Number 8) titled Developing, designing, and delivering more effective research and didactic presentations: A primer and recommendations. Their advice applies to presentations in general, not just medical ones.

 

The article has sections titled:

 

Introduction

Learning Objectives

Explicit Organization

Slide Design

Accessibility

Public Speaking Skills

Next Steps

 

The second paragraph in their section on Learning Objectives begins by stating that:

 

“Objectives should be outcome‐focused and learner‐centered. Outcome‐focused means describing what will happen after and because of (not during) the presentation. Learner‐centered means describing what will happen to or for learners, rather than describing what the speaker will do.”

 

The third paragraph begins:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bloom's Taxonomy [Ref. 5] and the SMART framework are two useful tools that can help ensure objectives are learner‐centered, actionable, and achievable. Bloom's Taxonomy is a set of suggested keywords to use in learning objectives. The words are all action verbs (e.g., ‘list’, ‘plan’, or ‘contrast’), so using one of them ensures that the learning objective is outcome‐focused. Additionally, Bloom's Taxonomy divides the verbs into six categories, [as shown above] which are ranked in order of increasing cognitive challenge from Remembering (e.g., Recall, List, etc.) to Creating (e.g., Design, Construct, etc.). SMART is an acronym for five characteristics of effective learning objectives. They should be Specific (not overly‐broad or vague), Measurable (possible to objectively determine whether or not a learner meets them), Achievable (able to be accomplished by the targeted learners), Relevant (appropriate to the learners' needs), and Time‐bound (planned to be accomplished within a predetermined period, not open‐ended).”  

 

The second paragraph in their section on Slide Design states that:

 

“The Assertion‐Evidence framework is a more effective alternative to slide design. It consists of four core tenets: (1) Each slide should contain one key point, and multiple points should be divided across multiple slides. (2) Each slide's key point is expressed in a single declarative sentence - the assertion - in place of the slide title. (3) The remainder of the slide is devoted to visual evidence (ideally a picture or diagram) demonstrating or reinforcing the key point (see Figure 1). (4) Supporting details, background explanations, and additional context go in the oral presentation, not on the slide.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I blogged about it back on February 19, 2014 in a detailed post titled Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists. An example is shown above from a post on August 20, 2023 titled Reading a fracture surface like a road map – fractography in failure analysis.

 

Their final section on Next Steps says:

 

“Learning to be a more effective presenter can seem intimidating, but as with any new skill, practice makes progress. In this article, we explain core concepts and key first steps for planning goals and objectives, designing slides, and optimizing your public speaking for clear and effective presentations. If adopting all of these recommendations at once feels overwhelming, pick one - maybe using assertion sentences in place of slide titles - and incorporate that into your next presentation. Then solicit feedback and continue to iterate. Making one small change at a time, every hospitalist can improve their teaching skills and become a master educator.”

 

 

Why don’t we have better and recent photo or video evidence for UFOs, Bigfoot, yeti, demons, and ghosts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I first got serious about photography and bought a single-lens reflex camera (Minolta XG-M) 45 years ago in 1981. Back then to take a still photo my camera first needed to be loaded with a roll of film. Then I had to manually focus it. The camera had auto exposure, so once I set the aperture it would select the correct exposure time. After taking each picture I had to advance the film. And for video your camera needed film (or tape) and a battery.

 

The iPhone appeared on January 9, 2007 – almost two decades ago. Now many of us (~93% of the global population) are carrying around smartphones which only take a few seconds to prepare for recording either still images or video. There should be zillions of high-resolution still images and video of UFOs and other paranormal subjects. If not, then they just are tall tales.

 

An article by Heslley Machado Silva in Skeptic magazine on February 26, 2026 asks Where Have All the UFOs, Yeti, Demons, and Ghosts Gone? She says that:

 

“Over the past decades, we have witnessed a quiet yet decisive transformation in the history of human beliefs: the apparent disappearance of major paranormal phenomena that for millennia fueled mythologies, religions, folklore, and countless reports of supposed extraordinary manifestations. UFOs hovered over mountains and deserts; colossal creatures such as Bigfoot, the Yeti, or the Sasquatch roamed remote forests; spirits, apparitions, and ectoplasmic entities materialized in abandoned mansions; miracles occurred before the eyes of the devout; demonic possessions defied rational explanation. Today, all these phenomena seem to have taken permanent leave, an intriguing coincidence emerging precisely at the moment humanity begins to carry in its pockets (or better yet, in its hands) ultra-high-definition cameras capable of recording every detail of daily life, or any anomaly, with unprecedented precision.

 

…. beliefs persist and remain widespread, but the supposed phenomena that should generate clear and reproducible evidence seem increasingly absent precisely at a moment when we possess technology capable of recording them with great clarity. This shift invites a skeptical exercise: Why have paranormal and supernatural apparitions disappeared exactly when it became possible to document them unequivocally? For centuries, human testimony was the primary source of such accounts. However, scientific literature consistently demonstrates that testimony, even when sincere, constitutes extremely weak evidence: It is susceptible to perceptual illusions, cognitive biases, cultural expectations, and reconstructed (and often false) memories.

 

…. From a methodological standpoint, this persistent absence of records is consistent with analyses in the philosophy of science applied to paranormal claims: If a phenomenon supposedly interacts with the physical world, it should be detectable by physical instruments; if it never is, despite the exponential growth in instrument sensitivity, then its existence becomes an increasingly implausible hypothesis.”

 

Look at Bigfoot as an example. An Instragram post by Adam Thorn on October 20, 2022 says that:

 

“On this day 55 years ago, the famous Patterson-Gimlin film was made. This was, and still is the best video footage ever taken of a Bigfoot (nicknamed Patty).”

 

The Wikipedia page on Bigfoot refers to it as a one-minute film. Why don’t we instead have something from the past two decades – both longer and clearer?  

 

A cartoon of a UFO was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

On June 18, 2026 David Murray published his 4,493th post in the Writing Boots blog he started back in 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Murray edits the magazine Vital Speeches of the Day and runs the Professional Speechwriters Association. On June 18, 2026 he published his 4,493th post in the Writing Boots blog he had started back in 2008. It is titled Writing Boots: I Can’t Live With It, and I Can’t Live Without It. (I only have 3157 posts or ~70% of his total). I enjoy reading his blog, which he posts at almost every weekday (although Fridays usually are just a linked video).

 

He says he has used this blog:

 

"as a chance to sharpen my knives.

 

to remind myself, on muggy gray Tuesdays between magazine articles and books and other public stunts, that I exist.

 

to draw crowds by starting fights.

  

to be a self-righteous prick.

 

to write gentle poems that you wouldn’t read otherwise.

 

to make reading my thoughts, your habit.

 

to get things off by chest.

 

to settle scores.

 

to preen.

 

to figure out what I think.

 

to force myself to say something, every day.

 

to make saying something every day easy and natural. (It’s easier to write every day than once a week, a daily columnist and I agree).

 

To say whatever the fuck I want.

 

To keep from complaining that I’m not allowed to say whatever the fuck I want."

 

The writer image was cropped from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Does pushing that button really do anything?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an interesting article by Justin Pot at Popular Science on May 24, 2026 titled 3 buttons that don’t actually do anything. Pushbuttons that don’t do anything immediately would have been a better title. His examples are pedestrian crosswalk buttons, elevator door close buttons, and office wall thermostat buttons.

 

A pedestrian crosswalk button at an intersection, like the one shown above, might activate the cycle for a walk light. But during peak traffic hours it might not do anything, because the crosswalk light cycle is being automatically included.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elevator door close buttons don’t act immediately - because the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) calls for a time delay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And changing the temperature setting on an office wall thermostat may not have any effect at all. There is a Wikipedia article titled placebo buttons about that topic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I have never seen a nonfunctional button marked like the one shown above.

 

The thermostat and elevator buttons were modified from images at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Do Disfluencies Increase With Age? Evidence From a Sequential Corpus Study

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a detailed article by Eleonora J. Beier, Suphasiree Chantavarin, and Fernanda Ferreira at Psychology and Aging on March 27, 2026 (pages 203 to 218) titled Do Disfluencies Increase With Age? Evidence From a Sequential Corpus Study of Disfluencies. In their fifth paragraph they explain what they focused on:

 

“Disfluencies have been identified at different levels of production, such as prosodic (e.g., improper stress), lexical (e.g., repetitions), and syntactic (e.g., phrase revisions). Other types of disfluencies include filled pauses (e.g., um, uh), lexical fillers (e.g., well, you know), and silent pauses. In addition, fluency can be assessed by measuring a person’s speech rate, or the speed with which they talk. In this study, we focus on filled pauses (um, uh), repeats (e.g., went to the the store), and repairs (e.g., I think- I believe that …), as well as speech rate.”

 

The abstract says:

 

“Speech disfluencies such as repeated words and pauses provide information about the cognitive systems underlying speech production. Understanding whether older age leads to changes in speech fluency can therefore help characterize the robustness of these systems over the life span. Older adults have been assumed to be more disfluent, but current evidence is minimal and contradictory. Particularly noteworthy is the lack of longitudinal data that would help establish whether a given individual’s disfluency rates change over time. This study examines changes in disfluency rates through a sequential design with a longitudinal component, involving the analysis of 325 recorded interviews conducted with 91 individuals at several points in their lives, spanning the ages of 20–94 years. We analyzed the speech of these individuals to assess the extent to which they became more disfluent in later interviews. We found that, with older age, individuals spoke more slowly and repeated more words. However, older age was not associated with other types of disfluencies such as filled pauses (uh’s and um’s) and repairs.

 

Overall, this study provides evidence that, although age itself is not a strong predictor of disfluencies, age leads to changes in other speech characteristics among some individuals (i.e., speech rate and indicators of lexical and syntactic complexity), and those changes in turn predict the production of disfluencies over the life span. These findings help resolve previous inconsistencies in this literature and set the stage for future experimental work on the cognitive mechanisms underlying changes in speech production in healthy aging.”

 

And their conclusions are:

 

“We have presented results from a corpus study of conversational speech to quantify age-related changes in speech fluency sequentially rather than cross-sectionally. We found that older adults spoke more slowly, consistent with previous reports (Castro & James 2014; Gordon et al., 2019; Horton et al., 2010)

and we observed that they produced more repeated words. At the same time, older adults did not produce more repairs or filled pauses, nor was there an effect of age on all three types of disfluencies combined.

 

Our results show that whether a relationship between age and disfluency is observed depends on the type of disfluency measured, which in turn helps explain previous inconsistent findings. Overall, we suggest that while age is not a strong predictor of fluency measures other than speech rate, there are large individual differences in how other speech characteristics change with age, even in relatively high-functioning older adults, reflecting the trade-off between slower processing speed (Salthouse, 1996; Salthouse & Meinz, 1995) and accumulated vocabulary and language experience (Ramscar et al., 2014). Thus, some individuals slow down their speech as they age—a change associated with higher lexical diversity and the use of less frequent words but also more filled pauses—whereas others do not.

 

Our findings challenge the prevalent assumption that older age leads to more disfluent speech by showing that other changes in speech production (i.e., overall speech rate, word frequency, lexical diversity, and sentence length) are better predictors of disfluencies than age.”

 

The cartoon was modified from the center of an image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

On May 2nd actor Hugh Jackman gave the commencement speech at Ball State University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Katherine Hill in the Ball State Daily News on May 2, 2026 titled ‘You are living your own life; no one can take that away from you’: Hugh Jackman addresses Ball State graduates. Another article by Ella Chakarian in Fast Company on May 4, 2026 is titled Hugh Jackman tells new grads the most ‘painful lesson’ he’s learned. She presented some quotes:

 

“ ‘My life has not gone the way I thought it would,’ Jackman said. ‘A lot of the best things that have ever happened to me have been mistakes or failures or random classes I joined to get me across the finish line.’

 At the end of his speech, Jackman told the graduating class to ‘throw away perfect’ and to ‘embrace that even the mistakes may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.’

 ‘Our minds, our brains, they want a plan,’ he said. ‘They have all sorts of good reasons to follow a path because it makes sense. But if we’re listening, if we open our hearts, that voice inside is trying to show us something a little more magical, a little more mysterious [and] surprising.’ “ 

You can watch the entire 19-minute speech posted at C-SPAN on May 3, 2026 and titled Hugh Jackman Commencement Address.

 

A cartoon of Mr. Jackman as The Wolverine came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

A review article about methods for evaluating public speaking by adults

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a detailed 8-page pdf article (both in English and Portuguese) by Willian Hote Scanferla et al. at Codas on April 27, 2026 titled Indicators for evaluating public speaking in adults: a scoping review. It has 42 references!

 

Their conclusion is that:

 

“The mapping identified recurring indicators in public speaking assessment: discourse structure (introduction, development, organization, clarity, conclusion), supporting resources, language (audience appropriateness, argumentation, pronunciation, fluency), nonverbal behaviors (eye contact, gestures, posture, facial expressiveness), and vocal expressiveness (volume, rhythm, pitch, articulation, modulation). The predominant form of measurement was the Likert-type scale.”

 

The fourth reference in this article is to one by Tingting Liu and Vahid Aryadoust in Behavioral Sciences on August 20, 2024 (Volume 14, Number 8) titled Orchestrating Teacher, Peer, and Self-Feedback to Enhance Learners’ Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Engagement and Public Speaking Confidence which I discussed in my post on May 14, 2026.

 

And the sixteenth reference is to another article which I blogged about on July 9, 2012 in a post titled A new scale (rubric) for evaluating speeches. The twenty-first reference is to the Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form from the U.S. National Communication Association (NCA). I blogged about it and others in a post on April 3, 2018 titled Speech evaluation rubrics: how many levels should be on the scale. And which way should it point?

 

My cartoon was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

A scale for measuring engagement in public speaking feedback

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the GLOBIBO blog there is a long undated post by Kenji Nakamura about The Role of Feedback in Improving Public Speaking Training Skills.

 

There also is a recent 23-page pdf article by Tingting Liu and Vahid Aryadoust in Behavioral Sciences magazine on August 20, 2024 (Volume 14, Number 8) that is titled Orchestrating Teacher, Peer, and Self-Feedback to Enhance Learners’ Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Engagement and Public Speaking Confidence.

 

Appendix A.1. has their Public Speaking Feedback Engagement Scale (PSFES) with 15 items. Each item is evaluated on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = not sure/neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree:

 

There are six items on Cognitive Engagement:

I pay attention to the feedback.

I understand the feedback.

I reflect on and evaluate the feedback.

I realize my strengths and weaknesses through the feedback.

I strategize to improve my speech based on the feedback.

I monitor myself against the feedback when I prepare my next speech.

 

There are another six items on Behavioral Engagement:

I take careful note of the feedback.

I discuss the feedback with my teachers and classmates after class.

I make revisions based on the feedback.

I mark the structure of my next speech based on the feedback.

I search relevant sources for evidence to support my point.

I practice my next speech based on the feedback.

 

Finally, there are three items on Emotional Engagement:

I enjoy receiving/providing feedback.

I find the feedback helpful and valuable.

I look forward to the feedback on my next speech.

 

And Appendix A.2. has the Feedback Sheet with 18 items

 

On May 10, 2010 I had blogged about Rubrics and figuring out where you are. 

 

In the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation Captain Picard says ‘Engage’ to start the warp drive, as shown in a brief YouTube video from Seasons 4 and 5.

 

My engage button was modified from a help button at OpenClipArt.

 

 

The Next Conversation is a thoughtful book by Jefferson Fisher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a thoughtful 292-page book from 2025 by Jefferson Fisher titled The Next Conversation: Argue less, talk more. He is a writer, speaker, and trial lawyer. At Google Books there is a brief preview of up to page 28.

 

On page 269 there is a summary, The 47-Second Version:

 

“Number one: Never win an argument, or you’ll lose a lot more than you gain. When you regulate your reactions before responding, you keep a clear head and a calm mind.

 

Number two: Confidence isn’t an act, it’s an outcome. Use words and short phrases that assert your needs and protect your values without fear of disappointment. When you embrace your assertive voice, you make a pathway for more positive change in your life.

 

Number three: Don’t worry yourself over how to change an entire relationship. Focus on changing the next conversation. When you frame a conversation as something to learn, rather than something to prove, you take out the difficulty in building connection.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He does a good job of illustrating concepts via simple line drawings, like one from page 37 showing what is said versus what is felt, which is shown above by my colorized version.

 

Chapter 7 is titled Assertive Voice. Jefferson describes:  

 

10 Ways to Practice Assertiveness Now

Lesson 1: Every Word matters

Lesson 2: Prove it to yourself

Lesson 3: Express your needs unapologetically

Lesson 4: Speak when it matters

Lesson 5: Say less

Lesson 6: Remove filler words

Lesson 7: Never undersell

Lesson 8: Cut the excess

Lesson 9: When in doubt, fall back on experience

Lesson 10: Say ‘I’m confident’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on page 159 he compares assertive voice with submissive or aggressive voice, which I have shown above via my colorized version.  

 

Chapter 10 is titled Frames. Beginning on page 215 he describes How to Frame a Conversation:

 

Set a direction

Call your shot

Get their commitment

One frame, one issue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have illustrated this by my own graphic, shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11 is titled Defensiveness and begins on page 225. My colorized version of his illustration on page 232 of how Defensiveness Builds a Wall is shown above. On page 238 he discusses How to Stop Yourself from Getting Defensive:

 

Catch yourself

Let their words fall

Get Curious

 

And on page 239 he discusses How to Prevent the Other Person from Getting Defensive:

 

Begin your sentence with ‘I,’ not ‘You’

Don’t begin your question with ‘Why?’

Acknowledge first

 

There is a pair of articles by Angela Haupt in TIME magazine about the book. One on May 14, 2025 is titled 8 Ways to Respond When Someone Interrupts You. Another on May 16, 2025 is titled The Best Way to Interrupt Someone.

 

Jefferson has a bunch of YouTube videos. A recent long one (1hr 35 min) on February 19, 2026 is titled Simple Phrases to INSTANTLY Silence Disrespect | Jefferson Fisher.

 

A 1919 drawing by Taylor F. Walter of men conversing is from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Tips for tackling wordiness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brief article by Barbara Bashein on page 28 in the November 2019 Toastmaster magazine titled Shed the Dread of Business Writing. Her tips are to:

 

Eliminate wordiness. For example, change ‘at the present time’ to ‘currently’ or ‘now’.

 

Use clear and concise words. For example, change ‘utilize’ to ‘use.’

 

Use active rather than passive sentence structures. For example: ‘The team wrote the report,’ rather than ‘The report was written by the team.’

 

And there is a web page by Margaret Procter at University of Toronto: Writing Advice titled Wordiness: Danger Signals and Ways to React with tips about how to change:

 

Doubling of Words (choose one)

 

Intensifiers, Qualifiers (omit or give specific details)

 

Formulaic Phrases (use a one-word form or omit)

 

Catch-all Terms (can sometimes omit)

 

Padded Verbs (use a one-word form)

 

Unnecessary ‘to be’ and ‘being’ (omit)

 

Passive Verbs (change to active voice, if possible with a personal subject)

 

Overuse of Relative Structures (‘Who,’ ‘Which,’ ‘That’) (omit when possible)

 

And a four-page pdf article by Barb Every in Medical Writing magazine for March 2017, pages 17 to 20 (Volume 6, Number 1) is titled Writing economically in medicine and science: Tips for tackling wordiness. She says to avoid repetition, eliminate redundancy, and minimize purposeless words. Barb’s Table 1 on omitting redundant words is as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cartoon was modifed from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

Excellent Tips and Techniques for Accelerating Your Writing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a terse two-page article by Noe Lorona on pages 41 and 42 in the Spring 2025 issue of Army Communicator [professional bulletin] titled Tips and Techniques for Accelerating Your Writing. I found it in the MasterFILE Premier database in the EBSCOhost collection at my friendly local public library. You can download the entire issue here. Noe’s paragraph titles are:

 

Set Writing Targets and Deadlines

Take a Stroll in the Idea Phase

Write First, Edit Later

Leverage AI Tools

Find Your Flow

Embrace Collaboration and Accountability

Overcome Writer’s Block

Iterate and Refine

Final Thoughts

 

Both motivation and urgency are important, as is shown above in my colorized version of his table. Under Set Writing Targets and Deadlines he says that: 

“Deadlines create urgency, which helps overcome procrastination. Without clear goals, writing projects can linger indefinitely. To stay on track, set word count goals by breaking your writing into manageable word count targets per session. Use timers, such as the Pomodoro technique, to write for 25-30 minutes with short breaks to maintain momentum. Commit to a publishing date, even if self-imposed, as having a target completion date adds accountability. Writing with intent makes a difference, so align ideas with the format and audience.”

 And under Take a Stroll in the Idea Phase Noe says:

“Before you start drafting, invest time in generating and refining your ideas. Rushing into writing without a clear direction often leads to disorganized thoughts and multiple rounds of heavy revisions. Do not rush into drafting; instead, stay in the idea phase longer. Use mind mapping to create a visual representation of your ideas and their connections to ensure logical progression. Brainstorm by jotting down all your thoughts, no matter how scattered they may seem, and categorize them later. Backward planning is useful. Begin with the final goal in mind to make it easier to structure the supporting arguments or sections leading up to it. Sticky notes or index cards help by allowing you to write key points down and arrange them physically to sort and prioritize content.”

 

 

Watch out for different cultural styles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a good, brief article by Maria Garaitonandia on pages 26 and 27 in the February 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Untangling cultural knots and subtitled How to turn misunderstandings into bridges between cultures. Also there is a 32-minute Toastmasters Podcast (on YouTube) with Bo Bennett titled #292 Untangling Cultural Knots to Create Mutual Connection – Maria Garaitonandia.

 

Maria talks about two different cultural types that focus on either relationships or tasks. She begins with an example of Mexican executive Pedro and his American colleague Owen in her second and third paragraphs:

 

“When an urgent matter needed Owen’s sign-off, Pedro hurried to his office, only to find him on the phone. Pedro peeked in, but Owen didn’t acknowledge him, so he walked in and interrupted Owen by signaling with his hand.

 

Taken aback, Owen interrupted his conversation and said to Pedro, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Pedro apologized and tried to explain, but Owen interrupted him and said, ‘When I’m finished, I’ll take care of it,’ and promptly turned his back on Pedro.”

 

Then Maria talks about cultures focused either on relationships or tasks. In cultures focused on relationships (like Brazil, Mexico or in the Middle East) trust and loyalty are the priorities. Communication is contextual and layered. Being attentive and available shows respect. In cultures focused on tasks (like Germany Switzerland or the United States) efficiency and results. Communication is direct, concise, and explicit. Following schedules and procedures shows respect. These differences are summarized above via my PowerPoint table based on her discussion. I think a similar table would have been a useful addition to the article, but could have been left out due to squeezing it into just two pages.

 

Of course, if we were doing a speech that table better would be a build with the following four PowerPoint slides – adding the new information in green and graying out the previous information: