Online Articles

By Guy L. Smith IV, Executive Vice President, Diageo North America, and the Diageo North America Corporate Relations Team How many times in your life has someone said to you, “You can’t do that; that’s impossible”? You just can’t do it!” A parent? A teacher? A coach? A colleague at work? Your boss? “It’s impossible to do that. No one has ever done that.” “You can never go faster than the speed of sound.” “Man cannot fly.”

By Margery Weinstein

By Kevin Cope, Founder, Acumen Learning Years ago a colleague of mine was consulting with a group of senior NASA managers at Cape Canaveral. He tried to explain, in simple terms, an organizational change strategy. The managers seemed confused. In an effort to clarify, he said, “Please don’t make this more complicated than it is. It’s not rocket science.” To which they sincerely answered, “We wish it were. We’d understand it better!”

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP As professional speakers, it’s our goal to implant our messages firmly in our listeners’ minds. But some research indicates that 90 percent of audience members forget every brilliant thing you uttered within 30 days. To use a computing analogy, if the speech’s underlying message doesn’t get written into long-term storage, then new experiences eventually crowd it out of the listener’s short-term memory buffer.

By Robert Cooperman, Training Academy Program Director, Ohio Office of Budget and Management

By Dennis N.T. Perkins “For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” —Sir Edmund Hillary

By Dulce Gonell-Holderby, Training Account Manager Signature Worldwide Dealing with customer complaints is not fun. We all have been through an experience in which the customer was not a happy camper. So how do you prevent this unhappy customer from passing on their negative experience to their friends, family, and the world, especially since we are a society of technology and we share things at a moment’s notice?

By Jeff Cohen Ed had two reputations. In financial circles, he was perceived as a confident, larger-than- life and creative CFO. At his company, he was known to direct reports and colleagues as the “equal opportunity abuser.” Arrogant and caustic, he often treated anyone who disagreed with him with hostility and sarcasm. After receiving this feedback, the president had heard enough about Ed’s incivility and brought in an executive coach to “straighten Ed out.” The coach was given three months (it took eight) to help Ed modify his acerbic behavior.

By Shirzad Chamine, Chairman, CTI Billions of dollars are wasted on training and development each year. Within six months of most expensive trainings, whether meant to strengthen leadership skills, emotional intelligence, selling ability, or customer service, many participants can barely recount what they learned or point to what has changed.

By David Zahn, President, Zahn Consulting, LLC