On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style. On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more customer-centric, a challenge he embraced with enthusiasm. … Read More »The New is hard
Years ago I splurged on a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where, among other things, I learned that leadership is a constant tug between assertiveness and empathy. Assertiveness without empathy, I learned, leads to conflict with followers and… Read More »Empathy in Action
This from Body Odd: Before now, those with performance jitters have had to contend with the nausea and the nerves on their own, or take beta blockers to battle the symptoms. New research has come up with another way to… Read More »Stage Fright Vanquished
I read the following in The Alternative Board’s newsletter today and want to pass this on to presenters and persuasive speakers. What conversations are you avoiding? Maybe it’s with a good friend you don’t want to hurt. Maybe it’s with… Read More »Fierce Conversations
I spent a day working on sales messages and presentation of those messages with a sales force, except the sales force was divided in two—half were an outside field force, and half were inside sales. We discovered that it was… Read More »Two kinds of selling
It is Sunday afternoon. My wife is away for a week at a poetry summit in California. No food in the fridge, dishes in the sink, bed unmade. Too much TV. My daughter is engrossed in the music scene of… Read More »The autobiography of a speech coach