Thirty years helping capable people
become the communicator they should be
Most professionals are more impressive than they appear. The gap is not competence. It is charisma.
And charisma, despite what most people assume, is not a personality trait you either have or lack. It is a measurable skill with identifiable components that can be learned, practised, and made your own.
That observation is not a theory. It is the pattern that emerged from three decades of working with senior leaders, sales teams, and client-facing professionals — watching talented people be overlooked, underestimated, or misread in rooms where they should have been thriving.
It was never competence that held them back. It was visibility, presence, and the specific social skills that turn expertise into influence.
That pattern became a framework. The framework became this book.
Jim Harvey is CEO of The Message Business, a communication consultancy working with FTSE 100 companies, senior leaders, and client-facing teams. His core work is charisma and personal impact — helping professionals who are already capable become the kind of communicator people remember, follow, and trust.
Open-Source Charisma is the distillation of that work. 125 specific, practical activities organised around four communicator types, drawn from real client situations across thirty years.
The Open-Source Charisma Indicator brings the framework online. Forty questions. Instant results. A precise picture of where you sit right now — and what to work on first.
Beyond charisma
Jim is also the founder of Presentation Guru, one of the world’s leading resources for presentation skills, and the creator of the FFF framework — a diagnostic model for presenters built around three questions: are you right for the room, do you know what you are there to say, and are you delivering it in a way only you could?
The FFF Presentation Skills Assessment is free and takes ten minutes. It tells you which of the three to work on first.
For managers, Management Ignite is Jim’s programme for leaders who want to develop their people with greater clarity and confidence.
Work with Jim
Jim works directly with organisations on the communication skills that determine how people are perceived and how much influence they have — executive coaching, team programmes, and commercial message and pitch work.