In 2018, Uber released their annual Lost and Found Index of things left behind in their cars. Not surprisingly, the most common items were phones, wallets, and keys. They also found a flat-screen TV, a love letter from a boyfriend in jail, someone's tax returns, and a cat carrier. There was no word on whether the cat carrier was empty. While finding a love letter from an imprisoned boyfriend might be unusual and surprising, what isn't surprising is when Uber identified the most likely time period when someone might lose something: Between 10 pm and 2 am. When I was in high school, my father used to tell me, "Nothing good happens after midnight." In our modern American culture, when we lose something and can't find it, we generally replace it with something new. In fact, we might not even look all that hard to find it. We've been called…
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While we live in a world of splinters and contradictions, we are hard-wired for connections. Literally. Our brains are designed to make connections, find patterns, and are troubled by dissonance. This is why understanding the power of nonverbal communication is vital. Our words say, "I'm happy" but our face tells a different story. I tell my wife, "I'm not upset" but my eyebrows are narrowed and I'm squinting at her through beady eyes! These mixed signals create red flags within our brains. This is why the most effective leaders, communicators, parents, and presenters are actively engaged in developing better self-awareness. For me to have good self-awareness, I must understand two things: Who I am How I appear to others Simply doing introspection isn't enough. It's important - even necessary. But knowing yourself better is only half of the equation. Let's say through introspection I discover that my tone of voice…
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Amy Boone of Ethos3 has an excellent article entitled, "How to Overcome Presentation Distractions." It's about how to minimize noise to improve the effectiveness of your presentations. One of the first things that struck me was research from the University of California Irvine. It found that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain attention and focus after encountering a distraction. Holy cow! If you're making a 30 minute presentation, any distraction might cost you the full impact of your message. The article goes on to point out two types of "noise" -- or distractions. As presenters, we have more control over one than the other. In broad strokes, there is external and internal noise. External noise consists of: Environment - this is the physical room and the various elements in it (phones, alarms, beeps, burps) Message - this refers to unnecessary (or hard-to-understand) jargon Presentation…
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What is the difference between being a boss and being a leader? It's not your title, rank, position on the org chart, or the location of your office. Any of these might describe a boss or leader. It's also not just a matter of semantics, a play on words. In both cases, they are surrounded by people. A boss is surrounded by employees. A leader has followers. Employees can be hired. Followers must be earned. This might seem like a simple shift in thinking, but it has the potential to inflate or deflate your influence -- and, therefore, your effectiveness. So ... two questions: How do you want people to see you? As a boss or a leader? How do you see the people who work with you? As employees or followers? Start the Conversation Professor at Warner University masters in business administration (mba) presenter at the WFX National Conference…
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Having been in senior leadership positions for nearly 30 years, here is one thing I've found to be true: leaders often overestimate their ability to communicate and underestimate the hurdles to good communication. In between lies the gap. The bigger the gap, the longer it will take to execute. The bigger the gap, the bigger the potential for conflict will be. Because of I've talked about it (and talked about it), I think I've communicated a message, strategy, or vision. In my mind, the message, strategy, or vision is crystal clear. In fact, I'm often thinking about it outside of meetings, rolling it over in my mind again and again. As every leader discovers, what we believe is crystal clear isn't always so clear to others on the team. There are many reasons for this: Our message wasn't as clear as we thought it was Our teammate was distracted by…
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