GK Training

You have something AI never will!

What to do if you lose your audience’s attention? Michael explores this in this month’s Good Talk.

Most people prepare for interviews by thinking about what to say. This approach is incomplete. Join Shawn Fagan, Master Executive Coach at GK Training, for a live breakdown of how strong candidates think, structure, and deliver their answers under pressure. If you have an upcoming interview, this will change how you prepare.

Most people prepare for interviews by thinking about what to say. This approach is incomplete. Join Shawn Fagan, Master Executive Coach at GK Training, for a live breakdown of how strong candidates think, structure, and deliver their answers under pressure. If you have an upcoming interview, this will change how you prepare.

At GK, we’ve been actively exploring the idea of authenticity in the age of AI across our work, and it is clear how strongly it is resonating. As AI continues to shape how content is created, the role of human delivery becomes more important, not less. We see AI as a shift that raises the value of how people show up, speak, and connect. This is where communication becomes a differentiator.

Hilary Kole is performing 𝘎𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘩: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘐𝘤𝘰𝘯. If you know GK, you also know Hilary is not just a world-class vocalist. She is our Vice President and a Master Executive Coach. That is not a coincidence. At GK, all of our coaches come from performing backgrounds. Performers train something most professionals never do: how to deliver under pressure, in real time, with an audience in front of them. There are no edits on stage. No second takes. No chance to rewrite the message after it lands. What matters is presence, control, pacing, and the ability to connect. Those are the same skills that determine the outcome of a pitch, a presentation, or a critical conversation. Hilary has spent years refining those skills at the highest level. What she brings into the room with clients is not theory. It is lived experience of what it takes to make a message land when it matters. That is the foundation of how we think about communication.

If you’re leading a panel or facilitating a Q&A anytime soon, this month’s Good Talk breaks down five common myths about moderating conversations and what makes a panel engaging, useful, and memorable for your audience.

AI can build you an awesome presentation. But it can't take the meeting for you. The New York Times, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 newsletter echoes what we see every day: AI is taking over the creation of content and presentations, but it cannot replace the ability to deliver them in a clear and compelling way. From this morning’s issue. Read the article below. We’ll share the link to subscribe to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 in the comments. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔.𝗜. 𝗰𝗮𝗻’𝘁 𝗱𝗼 Artificial intelligence has sped up a lot of tasks at the office, reports Noam Scheiber, who covers the plight of white-collar workers. In some cases A.I. just does the tasks outright. (That’s the plight.) But what A.I. can’t do — at least for the moment — is take a meeting: As A.I. makes the production of knowledge work more and more efficient, the job of presenting, debating, lobbying, arm-twisting, reassuring or just plain selling the work appears to be rising in importance. And the need for those sometimes messy human tasks may limit the number of people A.I. displaces. “These were always important skills,” said David Deming, an economist who is the dean of Harvard College. “But as the information landscape becomes more saturated, the ability to tell a story out of it — to take a ton of text and turn it into something people want — is more valuable.” Noam spoke to a number of executives who feel the same way. I particularly liked his interaction with a consultant who had historically relied on experts (in, say, tax law or coding). The consultant told him A.I. was reducing the need for that expertise and increasing the value of generalists who excel at the complex business of dealing with clients. What he needs now are people “who have their phone glued to their head, who are everybody’s best friend, who are go-go-go.” Take a moment to think about that — ideally during a meeting you hate. It could save your job! Thanks Sam Sifton.

The pitch rarely decides the outcome. The Q&A does. Most founders spend weeks preparing the story. The slides are refined, the narrative is clear, the market is well explained. Every part of the planned message receives attention. But the moment that often decides the meeting happens after the pitch ends. It happens when an investor challenges an assumption. When someone pushes on the numbers. When a partner asks a question the founder did not expect. At that point the prepared message stops helping. What matters then is the ability to think clearly while speaking, to organize ideas in real time, and to stay composed while the conversation moves in an unpredictable direction. Many founders discover this gap only when they are already in that moment. The pitch was strong. The slides were clear. But the conversation that followed felt harder to control. Explaining a prepared idea and responding under pressure are two different skills. One relies on preparation. The other relies on real-time communication. In most high-stakes conversations, the second part is what actually decides the outcome.

Most professionals rarely receive honest feedback about their communication. Not because people are unwilling to help, but because the moments that matter most are also the moments where feedback becomes the most delicate. Think about a startup founder pitching investors. The meeting goes well, the conversation is polite, and the feedback sounds encouraging. A few days later the message arrives: “𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥.” What the founder rarely hears is the real reason behind the decision. The same pattern appears in other situations. A candidate leaves a job interview feeling confident, only to receive a polite rejection. A potential client says they are “not ready to move forward.” A promotion goes to someone else. The explanations usually sound neutral, sometimes even supportive. What almost never happens is someone saying, “Your idea was strong, but the way you explained it made us hesitate,” or “Your credentials are impressive, but you sounded unsure when we challenged you.” Those moments rarely produce direct feedback. Yet they often decide the outcome. Over time, working around thousands of high-stakes conversations, we have seen the same dynamic repeatedly: the opportunity is often lost in a moment of communication, but the signal is subtle enough that the person experiencing it rarely connects the outcome to their delivery. Instead, they walk away believing the issue was strategy, experience, timing, or politics. And if the diagnosis is wrong, the improvement never happens.