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 | Aug 26, 2020 | Persuasion
Stop Using These — Unless You WANT People to Tune You Out As an English major and a Listener (see who you are), spoken and written words have always been important to me. Yes: I’ve been accused of finding typos in menus at a restaurant (remember those?)...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Feb 18, 2020 | Persuasion
Don’t “Show Up and Throw Up” and Hope for the Best My first big presentation was as a senior in high school. I had to give a two-hour talk on “utopianism.” Little did I know that this would span the continuum between what makes a terrible...
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 | Nov 19, 2019 | Persuasion
For almost four years, I traveled the country one week a month, giving a workshop called “Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers” for people who were afraid of numbers. (Let me feel your thoughts of horror and pity!)When I asked why people came, the...
by Franklin Wordsmith | Nov 4, 2019 | Persuasion
Working at a big investor communications agency, I gained a reputation as a person who could resuscitate troubled accounts. But there was one time I really failed.The CEO was looking for someone to rubberstamp his ideas. I tended to question him. This was due in part...
