I remember the first times that I had to use Skype, GoToMeeting, and Facetime for business. Those were awkward moments. Truth be told, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. But I had to pretend like I did. You know, the fake it ‘til you make it approach. Nerve-racking! There was one [read more]
Is the telephone your friend or foe? Are you comfortable presenting yourself and your ideas with just your voice to represent you? How confident are you that you could “pass” a phone screening as a job applicant? How would you go about preparing for a telephone interview? This week, I have asked professional recruiter Nancy Anton [read more]
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” –Ken Blanchard, consultant, author of The One Minute Manager For the past two months, I’ve been studying the topic of influence without authority. I find it fascinating… and to be honest, frustrating, too. The topic is extremely relevant to how work gets done these days. It’s integral to how change and [read more]
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Matt and Peggy Bud. Matt is the chairman of The Financial Executives Networking Group (The FENG). He had invited me to be a guest speaker at his monthly meeting. Following the speaking engagement, we went out to dinner and I got to know more about [read more]
In my last blog post, I shared strategies for giving and receiving feedback at work. I was feeling pretty savvy until the feedback that I had asked for on my article started coming in. Suddenly, I was feeling puny. The nature of the feedback that I received on my blog post was pretty innocuous. Things [read more]
This month I’ve been immersed in the topic of feedback. I’m getting ready to give a seminar for a large company on the value of feedback in the context of teams and team effectiveness. My seminar title is “Everyday Feedback for High Performance Teams.” As an executive presentation coach, I am paid to give people [read more]
I had the opportunity last week to work with Leesa Wallace, The Performance Architect. She is an expert in leadership and management learning strategy, curriculum design, and program facilitation. During a pilot program, she introduced a concept that I found fascinating – Eye Connection. With her permission I would like to share it with you [read more]
Is there a cure for company jargon? Why do most on-boarding programs include a list of organizational acronyms that every new employee must commit to memory and use routinely? I remember fondly a time in an earlier career as a marketing manager when I had to use the PPP process whenever I wanted to initiate [read more]
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that our obsession with and overuse of mobile devices is resulting in the decline of eye contact. “It feels like this is happening more than ever – in meetings, at the dinner table, even at intimate cocktail parties,” say reporter Sue Shellenbarger in her article, Just [read more]
Are you curious as to the dynamics that are at play when people get together for networking? It’s especially interesting when you are meeting someone new for the first time. First impressions are pretty powerful, but I sense that there is other chemistry at work in these face-to-face interactions. What draws you to some people [read more]
