According to a recent study, the average attention span of an adult is 8 seconds. People will listen to you longer, however to get their attention you need to have passion, energy, excitment and be interesting. In my presentation skills training sessions and coaching we go over a number of ways to keep your audience…
DetailsThe US and Canadian armies (among others, I’m sure) are famous for its post-event after action review (AAR). Whether it’s a mission, a tactical maneuver, or just a patrol, the individuals involved meet immediately afterward to debrief on how it went and what they can learn for the next time. This goal is to quickly…
DetailsThe more I get to know people, the more I love my dog – Frederick the Great Writing in The Book of Business Anecdotes, Peter Hay shares a story that back in the 1950’s, marketing whiz Stanley Arnold was working at Young & Rubicam, where he was asked to come up with a marketing campaign…
DetailsDale Carnegie who wrote the book, “How to win friends and influence people” shared how he won a major sale by making himself memorable in a positive way. While sitting at dinner he started talking with a gentleman at his table. The man at his table spoke for four hours while only allowing Dale Carnegie…
DetailsI can’t stand it when a manager, hearing me broach the importance of building trusting relationships with their employees, blurts out the tired old term, touchy-feely. To dismiss the complex role of relationships in fostering sustained high performance is to just not get it as a leader in the 21st century. In a recent posting…
DetailsOnly a life lived for others is a life worthwhile – Albert Einstein In a column for Success magazine (http://bit.ly/ZeyOzV) , John Maxwell shares a story about a picture of his son taken with Mother Teresa. Maxwell had sent him to India for a month so he could see the world as it was,…
DetailsThen all the reindeer loved him as they shouted out with glee, Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, you’ll go down in history!– Robert L. May For many years, the story goes; Montgomery Ward department store in Chicago purchased and gave away coloring books as a promotional during the Christmas season. In 1939, company executives wanted to…
DetailsStrength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle – Napoleon Hill If you are like me you have heard this statement a thousand times over. And like me, you may have had your struggle with it. The statement has always been presented with good motives usually coupled with a strong dose of motivation.…
DetailsThe best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy. – Dwight D. Eisenhower Two recent studies have put the spotlight back on employee-employer relations and more specifically the issue of performance and morale. The two separate reports combine to give us…
DetailsRecently, consulting firm Emergent partnered with a Fortune 500 apparel company to undertake the biggest business transformation in the company’s history. Below is a mini case study that provides insights from that project. Building upon its solid performance in 2012, the company chose to implement a new global structure designed to fuel its long-term, international growth. The project…
DetailsConsider the following two versions of feedback given by a boss, in response to an employee leaving errors in an important report for the Board: “I’ve gone over your report and found you didn’t include the sidebar paragraph that explains Figure 6 on page 18. Please add it in right away and get the revised…
DetailsEvery person you meet is better at something than you are – Robert A. Cook Last year on a whim I had the opportunity to be an “extra” on the Lifetime TV series Army Wives which is filmed where I live in Charleston, SC. I was excited about this opportunity to make an appearance on…
DetailsAs a young man, I was drawn to the sport of wrestling. I started at a very young age and practiced through my college life. I have medals and messed up ears to prove it. I liked wrestling because there was a degree of personal accountability unlike any other sport. The wrestling team worked out…
DetailsIt seems to be a “no brainer” that better mid level managers and supervisors will, by the way they lead their people, yield better results. Yet this relationship has been very little researched, formally and academically. A study published in August, however, does shed some light on this. It is available through the (U.S.) National…
DetailsIn my workshops,training sessions and coaching on communication, emotional intelligence, people skills and team building, I find that one of the key factors that gets in the way of companies and organizations being positive, productive and profitable involves how they deal with conflict. In this article, we will explore why conflicts start and how to…
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