Recently, I was part of an audience for several product demos. This was part of a bidding process to select an enterprise solution for my company. A specific audience, with various calibers, expertise and interests were assembled from IT and business. There were finance managers and executives, procurement officers, project managers, business analysts and...

Though simply, yet provocative and crucial to consider next time you write an email or deliver a presentation! “The speaker had just been introduced. A slide behind him had his name and institution on it. A program in each member of the audience’s hands had the same information. And still, how did he begin? “Good Morning, my name is Gary Anderson...

This article summarizes in a way the main ideas and insights of Ulrich & Smallwood in their book: “Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value“. It’s one of the good books I read on Leadership and the role of leadership celebrities.Ulrich and Smallwood articulated the way to build a...

I’m sharing an article from HBR blogs that summarizes and adds to the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study, a wonderful and insightful piece of work to energize today’s corporations. Go thru the article, and download IBM study here. “IBM just released its 2010 Global CEO Study based on face-to-face interviews conducted with over 1,500 CEOs spanning 60...

In addition to McKinsey ideas on how to avoid bias in meetings; I also suggest using techniques like the Six Thinking Hats approach. I’ve blogged about it here. In this technique, you ask one of your audience to wear the hat of optimism, while another one wears the hat of pessimism, other with the hat of facts, hat of creativity, and hat of intuition, and you...

This is an interesting article and interview with Tedlow, the author of “Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face-and What to Do About It.” The author talks about the impact of denial which controls CEO’s minds and actions, though they don’t admit it, on their organizations and companies. He defines denial as “the...