Dianna Booher's Blog, page 31

Are You Telling a Story––or an Anecdote?

No, it’s not just you. You’re not just imagining that half the blogs and books you’ve read in the last few years have urged you to learn to tell a great story. Here’s why.

Stories make things stick. Professional speakers, CEOs, entertainers, trainers, and leaders have learned that data, marketing messages, instructions, procedures, or just about any kind of information burrows into the brain better and stays longer when wrapped in a good story.

That in itself––besides the entertainment val...

Cybersecurity: So Much Time, So Little Progress

As I read of the latest cyberattack, the worst in history, involving hospitals, shipping systems, and corporations in more than 150 countries, I see much hand-wringing. But the first thing that comes to my mind is the old mantra: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

That’s not to play “blame the victim” as so often happens with crime. It is to say that customers, employees, and investors have been victimized by their government and corporate leaders burying their colle...

What Great Leaders Learn About Communication From Moms

As people celebrate their mothers this week, most expressions of love and gratitude will be about family, sacrifice, and serving. Yet leaders also owe a great deal of respect to their moms for their model of how communication works in the marketplace. For parallels, consider these lessons learned at your mom’s knee:

Good Moms and Good Leaders Need to Be Both Demanding and Understanding

Good moms demand that you brush your teeth, eat nutritious food, and go to school. But they understand th...

Should You Just Do It or Delegate It? Neither!

“Can you deliver your proposal on the 20th to a group of our executives?”

“That’ll work,” I confirmed. Never mind that I was booked solid right up until the delivery date. So I called in a newly hired VP to ask him to prepare the proposal for this hot new prospect and accompany me to deliver it.

“Sure thing. No problem. I’ve done dozens of these,” Doug said.

“The prospect wants a new communication campaign, something we’ve never done previously. But it’s well within our wheelhouse.” I quic...

How to Speak Up & Find Your Voice As a Leader

Chances are that as children, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama watched and admired a parent or another close relative speak their mind and take charge of difficult situations. The inclination to speak out on issues and the ability to influence others to act involves the will and the skill. You can increase both by observation, reflection, and practice.

How to Speak Up As a Leader: 5 Tips to Find Your Voice

Start with Empathy and Encouragement

Do you know someone or some grou...

Are You a Leader With a Vague Vision?

The epithet “all flash and no dash” can be devastating to a leader’s career. When a leader has been highly successful as an individual contributor, he or she is often baffled about why their team has difficulty delivering results.

Eventually the whole organization suffers because great employees leave weak leaders. Their exit means costs to recruit, hire, and train a replacement. And that cost may be the least of the impact. In the transition, everybody else has to pick up the slack. If th...

5 Tips for Executives Who Become Public Speakers

Many professional speakers have a talk in search of an audience and then wonder why their listeners don’t find what they say relevant! The preparation is exactly backward. This process is particularly true of executives—both before and after they leave their corporate positions.

Having coached executives for three decades, I routinely see the process: Someone lower in the bowels of the organization puts together the first deck of slides for audience A and purpose A. Another speaker grabs t...

Are You Emotionally “Up” As A Leader?

Anybody who’s managed people can tell you about good days and bad days. On the good days, you feel like a winning coach at the Super Bowl. On the bad days, you feel like you’re skiing just a few yards ahead of an avalanche. Most days fall somewhere in between.

To increase your odds of having more good days than bad, “up” your leadership attitude and aptitudes:

6 Measures of Emotional Maturity As A Leader:

Show UP as a Leader

It’s no secret that for many decades, the citizenry has consiste...

Collaborator, Coauthor, or Ghostwriter? How to Decide Which You Need

Early in my career, I collaborated with CEO Jim on his business book. After I’d completed the first draft and he reviewed it, we sat together to discuss a few revisions. Primarily, he wavered over whether to include this or that anecdote collected from an interview with a client or staff member.

His wife didn’t like X story; could I remove it? His son really liked Y story, but thought it might be a better illustration in Chapter 6 than Chapter 5. But our strongest conflict? The phrase “win...

How to Reduce Stress as a Leader and Feel Peaceful

Key employee leaving? Team conflict? Not making your numbers? Tight client deadline? New competitor entering the market? Family conflict? Health challenges? Few leaders are strangers to stress. Some succumb to a heart attack or stroke. Others simply endure in silence. Only a few feel rock-solid serene through it all.

From the very opening pages of John Addison’s book Real Leadership: 9 Simple Practices for Leading and Living With Purpose, I got the sense that this man feels at peace with t...