Archive for July 2009

Another “Top 3” Placement for Communication Skills

If you’ve been in one of my keynote audiences, then you know I’m fond of referring to Top 3 lists.  Here’s another survey just in from Bolt Consulting, a firm specializing in executive development.  They interviewed 47 managers from 30 Global 1000 organizations to discover their secrets in identifying tomorrow’s top talent.  

Results?  Here’s the list of what they look for in these employees to put them “on the fast track” for the C-suite:

  1. Strong track record of performance and proven results in past or current roles
  2. Strong interpersonal skills
  3. Strong communication skills, including excellent verbal and written communication
  4. Drive, initiative, or an ambition to increase level of responsibility or readily accept new challenges
  5. Ability to create or articulate company vision and strategy, set direction, execute objectives, and understand the total business

Check out the rest of the article in the July issue of T+D for practical tips on developing this top talent, once identified.

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Facebook Users Aren’t the Only Ones Judging Your Grammar

When McGraw-Hill released my latest book Booher’s Rules of Business Grammar: 101 Fast and Easy Ways to Correct the Most Common Errors, I stumbled across the Facebook group, “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar.”

Well, it looks as though these Facebook group members are not alone. Marketing guru Seth Godin also admits to this “moral failing,” as he put it in his blog post on Saturday Am I the only one distracted by apostrophes and weird “quoting”.

If you haven’t already taken it, now might be a good time to test your grammar skills with my free online assessment at www.howsyourgrammar.com.

 

Good luck and good grammar!

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Imprecision Persists

When I lived in Okinawa many years ago, my boss’s wife, who was German, brought a cake to the office to celebrate her husband’s birthday. To this day, when I’m baking, I recall a remark she made to me when I asked about her cake recipe: “You Americans can’t bake because you don’t measure your eggs. Your recipes call for 3 eggs. Large eggs? Small eggs? We measure our eggs! A half cup of eggs. That’s the secret. Measure everything precisely.”

Yet imprecision persists in my kitchen. That is, on the rare occasions when I cook.

My pet peeve is imprecise language.

People often say something other than what they mean—for no good reason. They are not attempting to be politically correct. They are not wishing to avoid offending someone. They are not side-stepping accountability. They are just imprecise.

These same people ask questions and then do not listen to the answers they receive, but rather go on their merry way as if people hadn’t given them a precise answer.

I recently flew out to LA for a TV interview. After the interview, the producer asked the show’s host and three panelists to stay seated on the set for the next taping without a wardrobe change because they were running behind schedule. They resisted, promising to change clothes in 2 minutes or less. He granted 2 minutes. Ten minutes later, the host and panelists had not yet returned from wardrobe, and the producer still had me on the set doing cut-aways.

We wrapped up the interview at 12:45, so I dialed the limo service to say I had finished early and asked if the driver could pick me up for the airport earlier than the sheduled 1:30 pick-up.

“Hold on, and I’ll check,” the agent said, and she got on the other line to call the driver. Shortly, the agent came back on the line, “He says he can be there in 15 minutes.”

I thanked her, hung up the phone, and walked across the room to select a nice pasta salad for lunch. My cell phone rang. It was the limo driver, saying he was outside waiting to take me to the airport. So much for “15 minutes.” I dropped the pasta salad in the trash after my first bite.

Got the airport and went straight to the gate for the next flight to DFW, asking to be put on the standby list as a Lifetime Platinum. “No way are you going to get on this flight. It’s way overbooked and the list is already extremely long.

“Would you please add my name? I’m a Lifetime Platinum. Maybe that’ll help.”

“I’ll add it. It won’t help. You won’t get on.”

Two minutes later, the agent called my name with a confirmed seat. In fact, as far as I could tell, all standby passengers got on the flight.

Back home, I checked my email and found a contract that needed a response. I left this voice mail for my assistant: “Would you email Bryan for me and tell him I’m out of the office on vacation for a couple of days and that I’ll review the contract when I return to the office and then get back to him.” Her email to Bryan: “Dianna is out of the office today, but she’ll be back to you on the contract in short order.” I hope his definition of “short order” was not that day or the next because I intended to convey just the opposite—that it would be several days because I wanted to do some investigating before I responded.

All these examples are not meant to say there’s no place for generalities and vagueness. There is. Consider responses to these: Age? Weight? Paycheck?

But precision pays when clarity counts.

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Fistful of Talent Interview and Session Review

For those who weren’t able to attend the 61st SHRM Annual Conference in New Orleans, check out this Fistful of Talent video interview for tips these audience members picked up from my session on communicating with confidence in the c-suite.

SHRM09 – Dianna Booher from Fistful of Talent on Vimeo.

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Texting: Harmful to the Psyche?

If you have a teenager who can’t eat a meal without texting a friend to tell them what’s on the menu or a colleague who can’t sit through a half hour meeting without peeking at the screen to answer an “urgent” message, you may want to work the following opinion into your next conversation with them. 

According to Dr. Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist and professor of sociology of science at MIT and author of Life on the Screen, texting for teens (and maybe the rest of us) can be harmful when it becomes excessive.

In a recent interview on Good Morning America, Dr. Turkle elaborated on these dangers studied in her research:

  • Loss of intimacy:  Teens no longer talk face to face with those around them.  They interact with a keyboard.  For example, apologizing through a screen, without seeing the other person’s hurt, anger, or fear or any reaction at all has a dehumanizing effect.
  • Inability to feel:   Kids don’t know what they feel or think.  Whatever happens to them, they immediately text to a friend to ask for their reaction, opinion, or feelings rather than thinking or feeling for themselves.
  • Loss of reflection:  Teens who text excessively have no downtime to reflect, to think about who they are, where they’re going, what their goals are, what they want out of life.  They fill every waking moment with text messages about mundane matters rather than the meaningful.
  • Loss of identity:  Texting teens lose a sense of self for all the above reasons.

For years, society considered parents unfit who plopped their toddlers in front of TV as a “babysitter” for hours on end.  But what’s a parent to do with texting teens, who mesmerize themselves by the screen they’re holding in their hands?

At the least, rules may be in order for when texting is and is not appropriate—say during family meals? 

Comments on what works?

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