My colleagues and I coach people on their communication skills for a living… all day, every day, for the last 21+ years. And one of our biggest lessons learned over these last two decades is this:

People are constantly evolving. As we grow, get older, and experience new things, the sum total of who we are is constantly changing. We are not the same people we were a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago. Because every experience,

No one, and I mean NO ONE, leads ALL the time. At some point, we all need to know how to follow. And following is not a bad thing.

Your people will follow you for one of two reasons: because they want to, or because they have no choice. One of those is better than the other. How will you choose to show up?

We now live in an “information overload” environment. We have too much information, and it flows at us in overwhelming ways.

In this sort of an environment, the best organizations need to be very clear about what information is most important to their success, and then make sure that it is flowing in the healthiest ways possible.

There are lots of ways to think about persuasion. And our team always advocates an approach that is based on preparation and a thorough understanding of the audience. But there’s one fundamental and additional element that can never be forgotten.

Keeping your energy level up all the time is hard. We all get tired. We all get frustrated. We all get sick of our work/colleagues/friends/selves. And when we are any of these things,

We hear many of our senior executive clients say, over and over, that their Gen Z employees are lacking certain critical communication skills that are required for business success. We get asked all the time to help bridge this gap,

In our communication workshops, we work with clients from many countries, across several continents, and of course, in varying age groups, from just-out-of-college Gen Z’ers to Millennials to Gen X’ers to late Baby-Boomers.

There are two ways we can get people to do what we want or need them to do: because we have influence over them, or because we have authority over them. We can have influence without authority, and we can have authority without influence.

Leaders, mentors and people with positions of authority have enormous power in many, many ways. But today our topic is not about the power to make decisions, or set rules or regulations, or run the P&L. No… today our topic is the power to impact the way people around that leader see themselves. Because the

I spend a lot of my time coaching business leaders, emerging and established ones, on their leadership and communication skills. And the best versions of these conversations occur when the leader is willing to make themselves

We do an enormous amount of writing here about how to prepare well, and not waste other people’s time… especially if that person is your boss. We all know how important it is to be able to communicate well to people above you on the org chart. But let’s flip that around for a moment.

Before you start your day, take a moment and walk with me… a quick, figurative one. I know you are busy and you have a lot to do today. Just a few minutes, is all I ask.

In all the communication coaching that we do, one question seems to come up all the time. “How do I get my leader to realize he/she needs some coaching as well?”

We just finished an intensive workshop, designed in multiple modules and spread out over multiple days, with one of our top clients. The topic was Executive Communication Skills, and the goal was to coach a small group of