#forbes; leadershipcommunication; executivecommunication; ceocommunication; communication

FORBES – Joining The Executive Ranks? Begin with the end in mind.

As featured in Forbes. Beginning a new executive role is exciting. It can also be daunting and overwhelming, with so many people to meet and things to think about, prepare, do, and achieve. The role begins as soon as your position is announced and everything you do from that moment on communicates and has a significant impact. Your first three months are critical. Get these early days right and the positive momentum you establish can do a great deal of work for you, making everything that follows that much easier. Get distracted and fail to think through who you need to be, the relationships you need to build, the communications you must have, and the culture you must live and foster, and this important first impression opportunity is lost. If you are beginning as an executive (or simply want to be more effective in the role you currently hold), take pen to paper and answer the following questions. Then, place your answers where you can see them daily and schedule time to review your progress weekly. What kind of leader do I aspire to be? Who do I want and need to be to foster the ideal culture and to [...]

FORBES: Artistic Unity – How To Radically Improve Your Leadership Communication

As published in Forbes. The human mind wanders. A lot. Almost a decade ago the Harvard Gazette reported that 47% of the time we are thinking about anything and everything other than what we are actually doing! In 2014, TIME reported that the average attention span, thanks to advances in technology, topped out a whopping eight-seconds, citing the attention-grabbing headline, You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish. However, apparently (but not surprisingly) many of us were too distracted to register these findings, as two years later they were reported again by the New York Times. Clearly, our monkey minds are alive (and not entirely well). Mindfulness, which might be best defined as the ability to give our full attention to what it is we are doing, is now billion-dollar industry! This October, Europe hosted its first conference focused on how we can best incorporate mindfulness into our organizations, but I digress. With our minds so easily distracted and the pings from our “smart” phone only making matters worse, it is no wonder we misinterpret, misunderstand, or completely miss entire communications we ought to have received. It is also why others fail to act upon the vision, values, [...]