There is always the intense excitement when you see runners in the starting blocks waiting for the gun to go off to signal the race is on. There is also the heartbreak of a runner who ‘jumps the gun’ which is also called a false start. There is absolutely an equivalent of the false start in communication and five ways to avoid it.
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Small talk is challenging for most of us – and yet, we are faced with times at work and in social...
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Rewarding dinner table conversations have a lot in common with effective facilitation skills....
Read MoreWhen we go to the theatre and see actors on the stage communicating a story we get wrapped-up in the action and forget that the lines that are spoken are scripted and the movement on stage is choreographed. If the production and talent are good it all looks and feels organic and yet it was orchestrated well in advance.
Read MoreWe all attend more meetings than we would like. Some are more effective than others. Many are status updates or reporting forums while others are brainstorming or idea-generation sessions. It is rare, however, to find a team...
Read MoreSometimes what is old is new again. The Boy Scout Handbook was first published in 1910 and it has recently been used to turn around a troubled school and transform boys into men.
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In a recent episode of 60 Minutes that aired on March 20th, St. Benedicts Prep School in Newark, New Jersey was featured. The school, once a mostly white, prestigious prep school had fallen on hard times. Today the all-boys school is 50% African American and a third Hispanic – with the remainder white. The majority of the student population live in poverty and gangs, violence and drugs rule their neighborhoods. The odds are against these kids.
Read MoreAnother meeting? Ugh. Arrgghhhh. Most of us complain about meetings and here’s why – Most meetings are not well organized, are too long and lack a clear purpose. To become a Meeting Rock Star, here is what you need to know to host a great meeting –
Read MoreOver this past weekend, visiting with family friends, I noticed my friend David’s 10-year old son, Carter, immersed in his iPad during the entire afternoon’s get-together. Carter sat in the living room surrounded by guests but in his own separate world playing games on his device, never really interacting with the group. In an attempt to engage him, I presented him with a good-natured challenge – for every thirty minutes he did not engage with his technology, I’d give him a dollar. Excited to earn some money, Carter took the challenge and by the end of the afternoon, devoid of the temptation of technology, he was interacting with guests, played outside with friends and even managed to do some homework. He earned five dollars and remarked that it was “more fun than I thought it would be.”
Read MoreA recent Time Magazine article, titled “Code Red” by Steven Brill, revealed how a quickly assembled group of tech gurus descended on D.C. to help revive HealthCare.gov late Fall 2013. We are all familiar with the story of the disastrous launch of the site but what the article revealed is how this team of tech wizards (the same team that the Obama campaign had used for his re-election in 2012) came together to quickly and effectively revitalize the site and reduced the response times from eight seconds in late October to under ½ a second in January and the site has now processed 1.9 million enrollments.
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