by Franklin Wordsmith | Mar 7, 2019 | Leadership
Two weeks ago, I talked about the world’s best customer experience, delivered to me by a total stranger.This week’s story is about the most demeaning customer experience. The irony is that it happened with someone I’d worked closely with for over a...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Feb 20, 2019 | Leadership
When you live in Chicago and are lucky enough to be invited to speak in Orlando in February (thanks SEFA Academy!), you find ways to hang around for a few days.I was joined by two Harry Potter aficionado friends, and we spent a day at Universal Studios. (Don’t...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Jan 30, 2019 | Leadership
For months, my client—the CEO of a steel processing company—had been negotiating a joint venture with an international partner. The news release announcing this deal had finally been blessed by countless executives and attorneys. (See “The Hydrant Theory.”) It was...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Jan 12, 2019 | Leadership
It’s all in your head — and theirs.Last week, we talked about why our brains hate goals. This week, here’s a powerful, easy-to-use idea on how to make goals and requests more irresistible to the part of our brain that decides to take...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Jan 2, 2019 | Leadership
New Year’s resolutions. Organizational goals.We all feel pressured to set them. Yet research indicates that 92% of us won’t achieve our goals. And we often abandon them before January ends.There’s a lot of speculation on why that happens. This...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Dec 5, 2018 | Leadership
There are two types of listening.The first is the most common: listening to respond. You know this. You can see the person you’re speaking with is just waiting for you to take a breath, so she can tell you something. (Often a story that one-ups yours.)The second is...
