168 Posts Found

Continually ask yourself: ‘Why the hell should anyone want to read what I am writing?’ If you can’t give at least three good reasons, stop writing and start thinking. Otherwise, you will be wasting everyone’s time – principally your own.

Content: Quotation | Author: Philip Yaffe | Source: CEO Refresher | Subject: Communication

If we…create pictures [by] breaking down any problem and its corresponding picture into distinct “who,” “what,” “how much,” “where,” and “when” elements, we can convey the “how” and “why” to anyone in a way they will understand.

Content: Quotation | Author: Dan Roam | Source: Sun Microsystems | Subjects: Communication, Creativity

Ultimately, it is the quality of the company’s dialogue that will determine how it receives the incoming flow of rapidly changing information. Whether the information confuses and overwhelms, or informs and inspires will have a direct impact on the decision-making process, and by extension, on the performance of the company.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jan Birchfield, M. Carl Johnson III, Paul Wieand | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Communication

Bad news isn’t bad wine. It doesn’t improve with age.

Content: Quotation | Author: Colin Powell | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Communication

Dialogue…is the single-most important factor underlying the productivity and growth of the knowledge worker…dialogue shapes…the corporate culture…faster and more permanently than any reward system, structural change, or vision statement.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ram Charan | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Communication

Candor can be measured by the question, “How close are our public conversations to our private ones? How well do the water cooler conversations line up with the conversations we have in public meetings?”

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jan Birchfield, M. Carl Johnson III, Paul Wieand | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subject: Communication

An old rule of thumb suggests asking yourself before you speak: Is it true; is it kind; is it useful? If it is not all three, you have not found a skillful way to communicate.

Content: Quotation | Author: Clint Korver | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Communication

Very few organisations can match the highly sophisticated five senses of humans. Many companies do not listen to their environment; they simply wait to speak. This means that 80 per cent of information flows outwards from the organization and only 20 per cent flows inwards. For humans, these figures are reversed.

Companies should have a team of “information-gathering personnel” who are constantly feeding information into the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Paul Jackson, Vincent-Wayne Mitchell | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

Communication…always makes demands. It always demands that the recipient become somebody, do something, believe something. It always appeals to motivation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Subject: Communication

When the first person said, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” he or she permanently warped our understanding of pictures. The point of a good picture isn’t to eliminate words, it’s to replace as many as possible so that the words we do use are the important ones. (Rather than spending time verbally describing coordinates, positions, percentages, qualities and quantities, if we simply show … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Dan Roam | Source: ChangeThis | Subject: Communication

People need something familiar to relate to in order to gain a sense of comfort with the new, the strange. Creative ideas take the facts, feelings and everyday fictions we all share and find new ways to connect them. By making the new and strange seem familiar, you not only establish an opening for your audience to interpret your idea, you create a backdrop against … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Parr, Karen Ansbaugh | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Change Management, Communication, Storytelling

In describing something new, something beyond most people’s vision, you need to create a mental map for them to follow you and your idea to its successful conclusion. The art of making a mental map is to hook your audience with what they know and then explain what they don’t know. Start with a construct that everyone is familiar with and add to it.

So … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Parr, Karen Ansbaugh | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Change Management, Communication, Storytelling

In all great storylines, the author creates a problem, and then solves a problem.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Parr, Karen Ansbaugh | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Communication, Storytelling

Giving feedback is a tricky business, and nearly 40% of feedback programs actually demotivate people. There is a skill to be learned here, and there are two things we can do to give feedback that’s motivating, accurate, and tactful. The first thing is to give feedback that is concrete, as opposed to feedback that’s about the person’s character. You want to talk at the behavioral … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Dunning | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Communication, Human Resources, Management

PowerPoint has a dark side. It squeezes ideas into a preconceived format, organizing and condensing not only your material but-inevitably, it seems-your way of thinking about and looking at that material. A complicated, nuanced issue invariably is reduced to headings and bullets. And if that doesn’t stultify your thinking about the subject, it may have that effect on your audience-which is at the mercy of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subject: Communication

The Curse of Knowledge says that once we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine what it was like not to know it. And that, in turn, makes us communicate to others like speakers of a foreign language. We forget to translate.

Content: Quotation | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Communication, Knowledge

You need a story to displace a story. Metaphors and stories are far more potent (alas) than ideas; they are also easier to remember and more fun to read. Ideas come and go, stories stay.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Communication, Storytelling

Messages should do four things: establish a Connection, promise a Reward, inspire Action, and stick in Memory. (CRAM)

Content: Quotation | Source: 800-CEO-READ (8CR) | Subjects: Communication, Marketing / Sales

I try to argue as if I am right, but listen as if I am wrong.

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Communication, Persuasion

Effective communication demands the recognition that individuals organize information in different ways. The first step to communicating effectively is to become aware of the way we take in and process information. As you become more aware of what goes on in your mind and in the minds of the people with whom you communicate, you’ll be able to make better use of their skills. Having … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Chief Learning Officer | Subject: Communication