Leadership Effectiveness

Keeping Balance in Your Life During the Holidays

For many CEOs and C-Suite executives, holidays can be particularly stressful. Many people tell us that although they may be on vacation at some point during this time, they never feel like they can completely go offline and relax.

Yes, we all know that it’s important to shut off devices and tune out so you can restore your mental and spiritual reserves. But there are always competing demands for time and attention. You don’t want to miss out on opportunities, but burning out is not a good option either.

So how do you balance everything and truly refresh over the holidays? One way that we’ve found to juggle all the “balls” of our lives, including downtime, is to… Read More

How Buzzwords and Jargon Can Actually Be Valuable

Call them “corporate speak”, “buzzwords”, “jargon”, or something else. The conventional wisdom is that we should banish this language from our vocabulary in favor of speaking more plainly. But now we just saw an article in the Harvard Business Review that challenges this belief: Why Business Jargon Isn’t Bad.

As a matter of fact, for years we’ve been saying that there are legitimate reasons why every company culture reinforces all kinds of acronyms, buzzwords, and jargon. We came up with three theories for this: Read More

In Memory of Judith E. Glaser, A Game-Changer in Leadership

We are sad to share news of the recent passing of our friend and colleague, Judith E. Glaser, Founder and CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc. and Chairman of The CreatingWE® Institute. She was widely acknowledged as one of the most pioneering and innovative change agents, consultants and executive coaches in the consulting and coaching industry.

Judith was the world’s leading authority on Conversational Intelligence® (C-IQ). Her transformational approaches use neuroscience and anthropology to enable leaders to raise their Conversational Intelligence and build agile and higher performing individuals and teams. She was the author of 7 best-selling business books, including her most recent best-seller, Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results.

Over the years, Scott and I have been powerfully impacted by Judith’s research and framework for Conversational Intelligence®, which makes complex scientific concepts simple to understand and apply. As described on her website, “Conversational Intelligence is a framework for knowing which kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain and which conversations activate higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment.”

Judith definitely lived into her philosophy. We enjoyed our conversations with her so much that she held the honor of being our most frequent guest on Growth Igniters® Radio over the past three+ years. She was willing to discuss anything that would be helpful to us and our top executive listeners, no matter what was happening in her own life. In fact, she was always so bright and engaged in our conversations that during one of our recording sessions Read More

How You Can Increase Top Leadership Diversity

In a bold move, on September 30, 2018, the California legislature enacted legislation that mandates Boards of any company based in the state to include a minimum of at least 1 woman. (see Wall Street Journal – “California Becomes First State to Mandate Female Board Directors“)

While it’s difficult to predict the success of this legislation, we can confidently predict that your leadership team’s authentic commitment to increasing diversity will always create a more powerful outcome than simply complying with a law. Given this, how can you find the best candidates for increasing the diversity of your top leadership? Read More

Why broadening your view of the world matters more than ever

This morning, when we were at our neighborhood sports club, we happened to notice that many of the monitors on the exercise equipment were tuned to different news channels. Some were on Fox; some were on CNN; some were on MSNBC, and some were on CNBC. Located no more than two feet apart, the rows of monitors displayed very different headlines that told different stories about the world from different points of view.

Now if you’re like us, you’ve grown accustomed to relying on particular media for news. What’s worth considering, however, is whether habitually relying only upon a narrow sample of channels could be limiting all of our views of the world. How could gaining an understanding of the same situation in new ways actually contribute to game-changing success? Our sports club offered clues…. Read More

The best way to distinguish between helpful and harmful assumptions

We were recently asked, “When is it most helpful for leaders to make assumptions?” Here’s our answer.

We believe there are definitely times when assumptions can be very helpful. The key is to recognize when you’re making assumptions and to distinguish between those that can benefit you and those that can harm you.

It’s true that you can’t afford to take the time to question everything. In fact, research shows that our tendency to make assumptions is hard-wired into our brains and helps us function in the world. Consider the following scenarios: Read More

One More Way To Become The Employer Of Choice

In a tight labor market, every advantage counts. One of those advantages is a CEO’s credibility and trustworthiness. However, comparing the Edelman Trust Barometer surveys of 2017 and 2018 makes it clear that trust is a moving target. Continuously nurturing trust of top leadership is one of the best ways to attract and retain top talent.

In good news, the results of the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer show that CEO credibility has risen from 37% in 2017 to 44% in 2018 – a 7% increase. Why? Read More

Looking for ways to become more productive and less busy?

A holiday break can be the perfect time to catch up on reading. A book we highly recommend is Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and NY Times investigative reporter.

In a world that’s changing more rapidly than ever, all of us need to be even more mindful about the choices we make in every aspect of our life. Through rich story-telling and cutting edge science, Duhigg shows how the way we think about the world is critical to becoming more productive and less busy.

Listen to to the conversation we had with Charles Duhigg on Growth Igniters® Radio: How to Be More Productive And Less Busy [Episode 108]. Be sure to scroll down the episode page for links to the book and other related episodes.

A Surprising Truth About Influencing Behavior

This photo comes from one of our international trips. It’s clear that visitors to the park where the sign is posted aren’t allowed to do a lot of things. In fact, we’ve seen “NO” signs of many kinds all around the world.

Now think about this — how often do we talk about what we don’t want instead of what we do want?

For example, we took a small survey the other day in a waiting room here in the U.S., and counted at least four NO signs: “No eating,” “No drinking,” “No smoking,” and “No mobile devices.” While these types of signs may get some people to comply (although at least one person was still using a phone), they have scant effect on fostering positive relationships. Ironically, one other sign in the waiting room was “Exceed customer expectations.”

What might happen if we reversed “NO” signs and asked for the behaviors we actually need? Research in cognitive science offers a surprising insight into influencing behavior. Read More

Choosing the Best Executive Mentor For You

I was recently interviewed on The Small Business Advocate Radio Show about the evolution of mentoring over the past few years/decades.

While much has changed, one issue that remains a constant is the challenge of choosing the best professional mentor for your executive development. Of course, recommendations from peers are the gold standard for reducing uncertainty and risk. But as with any bespoke service, just because a mentor has a great reputation and worked well with a peer, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this person is a fit with your unique needs.

So how do you safely venture outside of the comfort of peer recommendations to choose the mentor who is right for you? Read More