by Franklin Wordsmith | Aug 17, 2021 | Culture
Help Remote Participants to Up Their Engagement We’ve seen the dreaded black square, with a name typed over it, during our virtual meetings. Then we asked all participants to turn on their cameras. This may nudge a handful of folks. But there are always those...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Nov 24, 2020 | Culture, Neuroscience
Why Our Brains Hate This “I’ve got a few minutes,” said my boss, the VP of Communications. “Why don’t you come into my office and we’ll do your first annual performance appraisal interview.” It was a statement, not a question. The Performance Review Ambush I hadn’t...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Sep 22, 2020 | Culture, Persuasion
Moving Beyond the Blame Game I was doing leadership communication coaching with a president—let’s call him Jim—who was the heir apparent at a large company. He had a love/hate relationship with the chairman—let’s call him Ted. Jim would spend a good portion of our...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Jan 7, 2020 | Culture, Neuroscience
It’s one of our biggest fears as leaders. We look at our people and see troubling behaviors:They forget what we tell themThey are more anxious and stressedThey aren’t coming up with creative ideas to solve problems or identify new opportunitiesTheir...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Dec 16, 2019 | Culture, Persuasion
My friend’s eyes were wide with sadness and fear. She’d been avoiding a tough talk with her boyfriend, wasn’t sure where to begin, and asked me to role play with her.(Stick with this, business leaders, because we make the same mistakes in difficult conversations at...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Jun 24, 2019 | Culture, Persuasion
It happens to us all. Maybe this is your boss. Or the chairman of the board. Or a client.You want, need or deserve something you believe the other person probably doesn’t want to give.Maybe you’ve been putting off this conversation for a while, hoping for...
