Perceptual Positions – Communication Skills Training

An imperative skill for all leadership and management.  Check out the “tool” to help you.

Excerpt:  The Perceptual Positions exercise is taken from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Its goal is to show you, in a structured way, how to see other people’s points of view. It’s a straightforward exercise that you can do in just a few minutes.

Read full article via Perceptual Positions – Communication Skills Training from MindTools.com.

Board Engagement with Corporate Shareholders — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Small business of-interest, need-to-know takeaways and news-to-watch.   Board of directors and shareholders communication.

Excerpt:  Historically, there has been little direct dialogue between individual board members and shareholders. This is changing, however, as directors, particularly lead directors, face increasing pressure to meet directly with their companies’ largest shareholders. Accordingly, at many companies, individual directors are beginning to engage with investors on an ongoing basis, and not just in response to a particular issue or crisis.

The Lead Director Network (the “LDN”), a group of lead directors, presiding directors and non-executive chairmen from many of America’s leading companies, met on June 19, 2012 to discuss the relationship between directors and major shareholders. Representatives of two institutional investors also participated in the meeting. Following this meeting, King & Spalding and Tapestry Networks have published a ViewPoints report here to present highlights of the discussion that occurred at the meeting and to stimulate further consideration of this subject.

The following provides highlights from the LDN meeting, as described in the ViewPoints report.

Read full article via Board Engagement with Corporate Shareholders — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

Auditors to Increase Your Financial Credibility

Accounting, finance and audit.  The article is written from the view of internal audit committee but the advice and takeaways hold true for the small business using external auditors for the role.

Excerpt: The key is communication on all sides in order to understand risks and decisions that are being recommended and approved, including with board members who are not financially oriented. Don’t wait until a meeting to communicate what is happening. The decision-making processes should be transparent, with no surprises. If you encounter dissent, it should be noted and discussed thoroughly at approval time, whether it’s from auditors or audit committee members

Read full article via How to build and run an effective audit committee to increase your financial credibility | Smart Business.

Stakeholder Dialogue in Germany, Italy, and the United States — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Good read and takeaways in governance for small business.  Communications

Excerpt: ….. information disclosed in the sustainability reports and the concentration on certain forms of dialogues and categories of stakeholders reveals a need for improvement in social disclosure and SD practices. In particular, the promotion of CSR values and standards could generate additional incentives for firms that can lead to richer disclosure and more diverse SD initiatives. In addition, as explained by various streams of literature on CSR, firms must more ethically and consistently consider the importance of SD. The findings also revealed remarkable national differences. Characteristics of national business systems are associated with the firm approach to SD, and explain differences between SD practices in Germany, Italy, and the United States.

Due to differences across countries, for example, in terms of legislation and corporate governance structures, attempts to create universal principles and guidelines for CSR may be misguided

Read full article via Stakeholder Dialogue in Germany, Italy, and the United States — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

Cross-Cultural Communication Takes More than Manners – HBR

Global small business or want to be?   Read this.  You need to understand a culture from their side of the fence, trying to see through your “current eyes” means you are probably missing the important points and worse, offending the other person (s).

Excerpt:  A case in point: I facilitated an important global marketing meeting in Beijing not long ago with a U.S.-based multi-national food company, which had just purchased a specialty food product line from one of its rivals. The newly-adopted subsidiary had recently become a market leader under its old ownership, based mostly on very good market research that was informed and driven by a deep cultural understanding of the habits and behavioral preferences of the average urban Chinese.

The new owners sent their US team to participate in a strategy session, a discussion of where this Chinese subsidiary believes its market is heading and how it must respond to new and mounting competitive threats. The U.S. team set about asking questions as they would do in any meeting in the U.S. They tried to be sensitive to their hosts and believed they were treading lightly. To their surprise, the Chinese nationals reacted defensively to even the smallest and seemingly most innocent questions. “Who were these ‘outsiders’ telling us about our market?” In essence, perhaps without recognizing it, the Americans slighted them without even knowing how or why

Read full article via Cross-Cultural Communication Takes More than Manners – Leonard Fuld – Harvard Business Review.

10 Top Tools for Business Brainstorming and Collaboration

More tools today to help effective team communication and collaboration in your business meetings and projects.

Excerpt:  ….  regardless of whether your team members are working remotely or in the cubicles around you, a handful of online tools can ensure that your next brainstorming meeting will be full of fresh ideas and effective communication among your employees.

Read full article via 10 Top Tools for Business Brainstorming and Collaboration.  From Apps and YEC

Communicating What Matters – HBR Events

Recommended and this webinar ties in with topic of the previous post today.  Leadership and management roles and tasks are made harder with the overload and distractions.

Excerpt introduction: Constantly multitasking. Overwhelmed with information. Juggling multiple devices and numerous information streams. Does this describe you? In today’s always-on, 24/7 society, we’re all constantly receiving information — and pushing out more. But how can we be sure we’re communicating the right things?

Listen as Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, speaks about how to manage and communicate effectively.

View webinar: A conversation with Peter Bregman.

Listen and view webinar here via Communicating What Matters – Jason Sylva – HBR Events – Harvard Business Review.

6 Exercises To Strengthen Compassionate Leadership

To be effective, a lot depends on your communication ability.   This is an interesting “steps” article of how-to for leadership.

Excerpt: When you use compassionate communication in your conversations, something quite surprising occurs: both your brain and the brain of the person you’re talking to begin to align themselves with each other. This special bond is a phenomenon referred to as “neural resonance,” and in this enhanced state of mutual attunement, two people can accomplish remarkable things together. Why? Because it eliminates the natural defensiveness that normally exists when people casually converse.

Read full article via 6 Exercises To Strengthen Compassionate Leadership | Fast Company.

Why communication is essential for great leaders

The article is from the book……good read and valid proven points……communication plays a huge role in your effectiveness…..leadership and management

Excerpt…….Sharing information is critical, but it is substantially less than half the battle. Yes, you must communicate clearly about the organization’s strategy, speed, direction, and results. But you cannot stop there. Verbally and nonverbally, the way in which you communicate – humbly, passionately, confidently – has more impact than the words you choose.

Read full article…..via Why communication is essential for great leaders – The Globe and Mail.

Measure Your Team’s Success – Video – HBR

Recommended for all leadership and management……..  I think this might surprise you.

Excerpt……..Alex “Sandy” Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory, discusses the sociometric badge, a wearable electronic sensor that uses patterns of communication to measure a team’s productivity

See video here….via Measure Your Team’s Success – Video – Harvard Business Review.

Behavior Lessons for Leadership and Teamwork | Stanford Graduate School of Business

Recommended read for everyone in business……  the critical non verbal cues of all leadership and management…..communications.

Excerpt……….As someone who has researched power for two decades, Gruenfeld has plenty of evidence of the importance of body posture and tone of voice. She pulls bits and pieces from her brain in order to persuade her audience with rational arguments. Yet that research tells her — and you — that it isn’t the quality of her argument that will persuade people. It is rather how she conveys it. “Your status,” she says, “is determined by physical attributes and nonverbal cues. People decide if you are competent in less than 100 milliseconds.”

Read full article….via Behavior Lessons for Leadership and Teamwork | Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The Fallacy Of Architecting Behavioral Change With Social Technologies

This is a reprint from 2011 but it is an interesting read and absolutely holds true today.

Excerpt……..Social networking is hot, and it’s smart to think about how your organization might use it to generate benefit equal to the market hype. As you develop your social technology strategy, it’s particularly important to steer clear of a fallacy of thought that often creeps into technology strategies for enterprise communication and collaboration.

Oftentimes, an enterprise social strategy, like enterprise collaboration strategies before them, will have among its goals a phrase suggesting that the technology should “change the way people communicate.”

Read full article…..via The Fallacy Of Architecting Behavioral Change With Social Technologies | Forrester Blogs.

The Master CFO Series -Building Investor Confidence in Long-Term Health – Ernst & Young

All C-Suite and leadership, particularly CFOs, recommended read….    Shareholder and communications…….innovation and growth

Excerpt…….As companies rebalance investments across markets to secure their future, it’s the CFO’s job to ensure the investors are with them for the journey. This requires them to clearly and coherently narrate two distinctly different chapters of a single story. One is about today’s established business, its competitive performance and ability to generate profit: it is often a tale of difficult conditions and hard won margin. The other is about tomorrow’s opportunity: it is about capital investment in new and unfamiliar territories in pursuit of growth.

Read full article……..via The Master CFO Series – A tale of two markets – Building investor confidence in long-term health – Ernst & Young – Global.

Technology Forecast: Transforming Collaboration with Social Tools: PwC

More today on tools to use to manage information overload ……Social media and communication

Excerpt…….Technology Forecast: Transforming collaboration with social tools explores how to confront communications overload and boost collaboration potential by making best use of the new powerful social tools. Business is inherently social, which is why collaboration and communications that scale are so fundamental.

Read full article…….via Technology Forecast: Transforming collaboration with social tools: PwC.

CFO Communication Collaboration Skills

Great advice….management finance and accounting very importantly includes communication skills …for all C-Suite, CEO and CFO

Excerpt……Even CFOs who are bona-fide strategic partners may still fumble when talking finance to the rest of the company. To effectively collaborate with the executive team, the board, and other departments on key financial decisions, they should tell the story behind the numbers, not just interpret them, says Suzanne Bates, founder and CEO of Bates Communications. That may mean delegating some accounting responsibilities to direct reports and investing more time into honing communication skills, Bates says. “When you get to this level, 80% of your job is communication,” she says. With that in mind, here are 5 tips to become a more influential, engaging communicator.

Read full article…….via CFO communication collaboration skills Maw Bates Garfinkle Cramm. From CFO.com