Progress, change, transformation and innovation are all plagued by one organizational culture virus that inhibits growth and success—Learned Helplessness. When leaders and team members alike shut down all new ideas with responses like “It will never work,” “that will never get approved,” or “I wouldn’t even bother…” it’s clear that they’ve given up the hope that anything will change. Learned Helplessness is a phenomenon that was originally studied in a lab. Psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier used the term to describe the behavior of dogs who, after experiencing inescapable electric shocks behaved as if they were helpless. They stopped … Read More
Do You Stay Calm Under Fire?
Last month we wrote about 50 ways you can betray your message. This week, we’ll take a deep dive into what happens then everything goes wrong. No matter how hard we prepare for an event, no matter how many contingency plans we put in place, and no matter how many times you’ve been through the same routine, eventually things will go awry. Wifi goes down. Computers crash. Videos don’t load. Speakers’ flights are cancelled. The event organizer quits. The customer is a no-show. Shipments don’t arrive on time. Hotels and flights are overbooked. Print collateral has an error. You might … Read More
Creating a Culture of Lifelong Learning
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” – Albert Einstein What do Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet have in common? Other than being wildly successful billionaires, they devote several hours a day to reading. These moguls are at the top of their fields. They could retire today and never need another dime to live on, yet they choose to continue learning and work hard to build their own skills. There is no such thing as “enough” wisdom. In life, work, and personal relationships, professional development, etc., there is always room for improvement. When we wake up, … Read More
Presentation Skills: 50 Ways to Betray the Message
Effective presentation skills are almost as important as the material you are presenting. After spending weeks crafting the perfect presentation script, slide deck and handouts, it is devastating to receive feedback that the audience failed to receive your message because your body language was disengaging. Or your hair was messy. Or there was a stain on your shirt. Anyone who has received anonymous feedback from a presentation knows how fickle an audience can be. While you’re entitled to complain about the insignificant issues the audience focuses on, the reality is we have thousands of ways to betray our message by … Read More
For Effective Communication, Ask Three More Questions
“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge”—Thomas Berger In our fast-paced world of virtual meetings and overly packed calendars, communication for most managers involves an endless rut of “report and update” meetings. In these meetings, each party is responsible for reporting out updates on their progress, results, issues, etc. One by one, each person delivers prepared status updates that may or may not be the exact same updates they delivered a week ago. The meetings are usually so packed with updates (or the façade of new information) that, in the interest of allowing everyone … Read More
Leaders Must Provide Honest Answers: Beware of Open Wounds
We all carry around a certain degree of baggage with us daily. Relationships that went awry, painful life events, and regrets haunt us on the inside, in spite of the smile we show to coworkers and colleagues. The most innocent event can trigger all the old emotions we’ve stuffed deep down and hoped to forget. Recently, I spoke with a friend who experienced a full anxiety attack at the mere mention of a team meeting to discuss roles/responsibilities. In spite of the leader being very clear that the goal of the meeting was to reduce the extraneous activities that had … Read More