By now you’ve probably received at least a dozen emails from companies and organizations that want to let you know how they’re taking care of business and their customers during this scary Coronavirus reality. While a flood of emails is usually annoying, we’re beginning to view the flow as heartwarming. It feels like community, like all of us trying to take care of each other, to keep the world as we know it, turning.
Think of a storyteller who had you on the edge of your seat. Now, consider why that person was so engaging. Yes, the story itself was probably interesting, but likely, he or she made the story come alive in the telling, with a captivating voice.
Best-selling author, Harvard instructor, keynote speaker, and brand adviser, Carmine Gallo, has an interesting proposition: that business is in sore need of employees and leaders who are masters of the ancient art of persuasion.
I read a recent study by tech giant IBM that came to a pretty startling conclusion: In the next three years, approximately 120 million professionals worldwide will need to develop more effective behavioral skills and new ways of working together in order to succeed in the evolving digital age.
They’d just done a tour of the NBC studios in New York City and were walking down to the merchandising area when someone from Seth Meyers’ Late Night show walked up and asked if they’d like to sit in on a rehearsal of that evening’s show. Mary McGlynn, owner of PowerSpeaking, Inc. and Melinda Henning, longtime Master Facilitator, looked at each other and said, “Absolutely!” We talked with them about what turned out to be an extraordinary experience...
For most of us, the Labor Day weekend merely marked the unofficial end of summer (back to school! back to work!). But of course, the holiday has its origins in much more serious issues about the workplace and workers’ rights. Today, it’s meant to honor the value of labor and laborers—no matter what the work entails.
People with big, bold, sometimes disruptive ideas are the ones who will help us meet the dramatic changes happening in the workplace now, and in the future (think, evolving global markets, warp-speed technology advances, and a new and very different generation of workers). But people with trailblazing ideas need to be effective, persuasive communicators in order to convince people to follow their lead. That’s where PowerSpeaking and its new partnership with DisruptHR San Francisco come in.
If running effective, productive, in-person meetings wasn’t hard enough, nowadays video and teleconferencing add a whole new layer of complication. “There’s no doubt that virtual meetings give us flexibility and global reach that creates all kinds of possibilities for collaboration,” says PowerSpeaking’s Chief Learning Officer, Carrie Beckstrom. “But like any technology, we have to learn to use it well. And when it comes to virtual meetings, that technical know-how must be in addition to the application of best practices that make any kind of meeting, in any setting, successful.”
Immediately after the recent U.S. Democratic debates, newspapers and social media ran commentaries observing how much more often the male candidates, vs. the female, interrupted other panelists and the moderators (especially on the first night). Because of those interruptions, the men commanded much more airtime over the course of the debates. The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Inc. Magazine were just a few media we read that took a closer look at that gender phenomenon. Then there was the Los Angeles Times, which didn’t mince words with this headline: “Democratic debates mirror life: Men yell and interrupt. Women (mostly) wait their turn.”
Minutes before political commentator Jon Stewart took his seat in front of the House Judiciary Committee to advocate for extending the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, 9/11 first responder John Feal took Jon’s prepared script away from him. Feal, who knew Stewart well because of their longtime activism on behalf of 9/11 first responders, had lost part of his left foot working as a demolition supervisor at Ground Zero. In the past 15 years Feal had organized more than 250 trips like this to D.C. to fight for continuing the fund. And here they were again. Feal wanted Stewart to do what he does best: speak from the heart.