Most Recent Articles
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Blog / ChangeThis
3 Strategies to Persuade Any Audience
By Kenny Nguyen, Gus Murillo, Robert Killeen, Luke Jones
"While it takes skill and practice to be a great persuasive speaker, anyone can do it. It's all about understanding your role as a speaker, knowing the audience you're talking to, and appealing to your audience's hearts and minds. In order to best accomplish this, the world's best speakers use a variety of arguments and strategies, most of which can be summed up into the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos. When used effectively, these three appeals can be powerful tools for achieving a speaker's persuasive goal."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Bridge the Generational Divide and Build Sustainable Innovation
By Robert F. Brands
"The U.S. business community is facing a war of intelligence attrition. Fortune 500s will see countless experienced knowledge workers walk out the door over the next two decades. The U.S. Armed Forces are losing millions of officers and key personnel to retirement. For even those companies that thrive on innovation, the numbers are daunting—and demand action. Some 900,000 white-collar workers from the Executive Branch of government, and another 5,400 federal executives, will be up for retirement over the next decade, according to a study from Tandberg. A McKinsey Quarterly survey found that the Baby Boomer generation is 'the best educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history.' Though they're 'only' about 40 percent of the workforce, they comprise more than half of all managers and almost half of all professionals, such as doctors and lawyers. Many are preparing to leave—and American leadership isn't prepared to lose them."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Art of Supportive Confrontation: An Essential Element in Creative Conflict
By Flip Brown
"Wouldn't it be amazing if, in the initial interviews, your potential supervisor would say something like 'We're a little unusual here. We actively practice creative conflict, and in case you haven't come across that term I'll define how it works. We're willing to tolerate reasonable unease in having different thoughts, opinions, or feelings because we know that if we don't we're going to short-circuit the best solutions. We expect everyone—from the top down and the bottom up—to practice what we call 'appropriate professional vulnerability.' Because we are committed to work with a shared set of values, a clear mission, and a compelling vision, we don't make or take things personally. When we get stuck, we get coached, and when we succeed we know it is because everyone was able to move through the process without avoidance, collusion, or negativity.' Wow! Heck, I'd want to work there."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
It's Time To Drive "Customer Obsession" From The Top
By Joseph Michelli
"Companies know that their end result—a consistently great (actually, greater and greater) customer experience—needs to drive everything they do. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all strategies must lead to the delighted customer, and the fewer twists and turns along the way, the better. That's the directive handed down by the gods of globalization and cyberspace, who've decreed that customers can jump from one company to another on a whim (often armed with reams of research on your product). The problem is that most big corporations were forged in different fires, the fires of an era where competition was less intense and issues like product quality trumped service. Customers were more like to simply accept what you had to offer. As a result, many players (even market leaders) are fundamentally unsuited for the new marketplace. What's more, they're painfully aware of it."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Consumer Engagement: Holy Grail or Fool's Gold?
By Bob Nease
"We all dream of the perfect customer: the fiercely loyal, energetic word-of-mouth advocate for the brand, who's willing to let our service mistakes roll off their back, and who comes back time after time to buy what our company offers. These consumers are willing to invest their time, energy and money in our products and services and do so with glee. Do such amazing customers actually exist? ... Moving the needle on consumer engagement is exceptionally difficult, and a bit of neuroscience explains why. The human brain processes about 10 million bits of information per second. That's roughly the throughput of the original Ethernet cable. Our conscious minds, however, use only 50 bits per second. This means that most of what we do happens automatically, under the radar, and beyond our conscious grasp. We point our attention at things that are either pressing or pleasurable, and the rest of the time we let things ride. In short, we are wired for inattention and inertia."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Showing Up: 32 Ways
By Anese Cavanaugh
"You are contagious and you get to decide what that means. You have super powers galore. It does not matter if you are a student, a doctor, a CEO, a mom, a dad, a kid, a janitor, a florist, a designer, or a fighter pilot; you have super powers and they're yours for the taking to use and conquer the world with. You get this life, this company, this adventure, this family, this culture, to show up for. Show up well."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / Excerpts
Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World
By Blyth Meier
Al Pittampalli's new book argues that a genuine willingness for leaders to change their own minds it the ultimate competitive advantage.
Categories: excerpts
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Blog / Book Giveaways
An Awards Grab-Bag Giveaway
By Porchlight
We're culling and shelving the books of 2015, which means we have some books to give away!
Categories: giveaways
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Blog / Staff Picks
The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It...Every Time
Book Review by Sally Haldorson
The author of Mastermind, a book that instructed us to think with deduction and precision in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, brings us The Confidence Game, a look at some of the most skillful cons every executed, how the grifters performed them, why people were often willing participants to the bitter end, and how we can be more aware and less likely to be taken for a ride.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Editor's Choice
The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation
Book Review by Dylan Schleicher
Adam Steltzner takes readers on fascinating leadership journey that ends with landing a the Curiosity rover on Mars.
Categories: editors-choice
