A plumbing company’s billboard in Roanoke, Va., gave me a powerful reminder of just what the right message can do in recruiting. It would have stopped me in my tracks if I hadn’t been driving at 50 mph. But that didn’t matter, because the message was unforgettable. It read: “Have humility, drive, & communications skills? [...]
It was a quiet exchange with thunderous effect—and I hope I’ll never forget it. A few years ago a letter in a magazine caught my eye because I’d read the article it referred to, on the history of women running for president in the United States. On reading the letter, I was so unsettled that [...]
It’s a question every business transformation offers (or presses upon) every leader: How can we help our employees buy into the plan—and then thrive? Whether the transformation is inspired by strength or compelled by vulnerability, the core answer is the same for every employee: she wants to believe in the organization’s purpose, belong to a team of people helping [...]
Andy and Napoleon would be proud. When Ampere Computing emerged from its quiet (and private) gestation, with Renee James as its chairman and CEO, I couldn’t help but smile. The boldness of the venture is striking. The stealth of the preparation was impressive. And the implications for computing and leadership are intriguing. Renee James, [...]
I wasn’t expecting to care so much. When I got the call from Intel’s head of HR in 2006, asking me to come help with employee communications during the major corporate restructuring that was under way, I had been with the company for 11 years, working in external communications roles. I had spent my time [...]
The New Year offers a sense of potential, and if we’re smart we’ll grab that offer with both hands. Never decline an invitation to see fresh possibilities. With us humans, though, fresh possibilities can become brown bananas. I’ve been thinking about an approach to capturing and keeping that sense of potential in our professional and [...]
As we approach the end of 2017, when leaders are pondering (or should be pondering) their year-end messages to their teams, let’s not miss an opportunity: the deep potential and power that's waiting to be harnessed in those communications. It’s easy (and no crime) to quickly write a brief note of thanks and email it [...]
When I learned of former Intel CEO Paul Otellini’s death this week, it wasn’t the big things about Paul that flashed through my mind—not his ushering in of the Wi-Fi era with Centrino laptop chips in 2003, not the massive restructuring of Intel he drove in 2006, not the surprising decision he made to retire [...]
When Donald Trump rotated through his first press secretary, Sean Spicer, and then the communications director Anthony Scaramucci, the president no doubt had high hopes for a new morning in America, where he finally would get the media coverage he deserves. But he keeps running up against two laws of communications physics. Because while the [...]
Transitions tell us things we didn’t know before, such as what’s working and what’s not. They also force us to change some things, whether in location or relationships or flow. That combination is powerful. Because when we know more than we did before, and we’re moving in some way, we have the chance to adjust [...]