Weekly Posts and Insights
I have to run meetings now! Where do I start? 13 tips to keep your meetings on track as a young leader
Do you know how much your meetings cost? Seriously. It’s so common now to be 5 minutes late, not have a direction to meetings, scribble a half-baked agenda (if that) and rarely have action items coming out of the meetings. Sometimes we meet just to say we met!
I’m A New Manager! Help!
Many of those that have gone through one of my workshops know that I despise the word manager. It’s too sterile and authoritarian. It doesn’t describe the actual purpose of the role. When you have entered the arena of manager (welcome!), you take on a new role. You are no longer suppose to make the widgets, work in the weeds, mow the lawn! Yes, you doing so well at those jobs probably got you there, but it is important to know when you receive the title of manager, supervisor or coach, you are putting down your widget making ability and picking up the skillsets of guiding a team to success!
Crush Your Next Presentation With These 40 Tips
You probably aren’t going to have to do a TED talk anytime soon in your near future. However, we all have to present, communicate and convince other people. Asking for that salary raise? Discussing the new project with your team? Needing to get buy in from stakeholders? Speaking in front of your board? This all requires crushing it during the presentation. Presentation skills, I believe, are one of the most undervalued, least taught, and difficult skill for many leaders to master. Here are 40 tips, hints and facts that I practice, use routinely and hope you find some help with: crushing your next presentation…
I'm not always the best at being assertive, here are 7 Steps I learned to become more assertive
I have to be honest, and you may not believe me, but this is one of the hardest skills I am in the works of learning. Perhaps it's my 8-person family, puritan upbringing, and as a middle child I just went along with what the group wanted, but assertiveness has never been a strength of mine. I believe in a give, give, give, ask method of forward movement (in marketing, sales, strategy, people, etc.), however sometimes I recognize the ask has to come a little bit sooner. Assertiveness is not being tough or arrogant. It’s actually a very humble and thoughtful dance. It is recognizing that we have value and we sometimes need to put up boundaries for others to recognize our value.
Forget the New 2019 Leadership Fad and Try These 13 Back-To-Basics Disciplines To Be A Great Leader
As I continue to travel around and see various businesses and organizations trying to get the edge on their competition or the market, I’m still astonished at the lack of basics from our leaders. Don’t get me wrong, the basics are hard. And, sometimes they’re not hot or new. And, so they are rarely discussed (even though some of them have been around for years) and barely used. However, they are time-tested and worth consideration. Forget the the 2019 leadership buzzwords and try some of these concepts as you develop your leadership.
Stop Talking about Generations and Start Talking About Better People-Skills!
My punch line at the end of most of my talks is, “we don’t have a Millennial problem, or even a generation problem, we have a people to people problem.” As the generation guy, I’m saying we need to stop talking about generations and start talking about empowering our workers (Boomers, Xers, Yers, all) to better handle people!
The Leaderverse
Welcome to 2019! I’m excited to boot up the blog again and hope to be pushing out more content this year with a focus on leadership.
Growing Millennial Leadership is a passion project for me and like many things, it needs to evolve. This year many of my topics will be around real practical leadership skills, as well as the innovation, grit and resilience that is needed to not just be a good employee, entrepreneur or leader, but also to lead a healthier life.
At The Heart of True Innovation are Trust and Vulnerability
Innovation, or the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market, has a lot to do with the tasks, processes, and smart people! However, true innovation relies more on the ability to trust and be vulnerable in the incubator stage of an idea or innovation.
False innovation can be defined, if we borrow some language from vulnerability author Brené Brown as, “the absence of honest conversation about the hard work that takes us from lying facedown in the arena to rising strong has led to two dangerous outcomes: the propensity to gold-plate grit and a badassery deficit.”
White Paper: Millennials, Brands and Trust - FREE DOWNLOAD
Based on a presentation given at NYC Relate Live Conference, this 10-page white paper digs down into the concept of the Beloved Brand Triangle that author Matt Harrington created and showcased at the conference. Learn how Millennials, trust are all intertwined and walk away with key questions to ask your organization and customers to build a more beloved, Millennial-friendly company.
Part 3: How "Narrative Belonging" Should Define Today’s Brands for Millennials
Let’s build out the Beloved Brand Triangle with thesis #3. The final point on our triangle is narrative belonging. Narrative Belonging is the ongoing effort by a brand to tell the story continually of how a customer that uses the brand will have a sense of belonging to the product and service that will greatly enhance the customer’s existence and experience.