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Communication

04.21.2020

Presence and Presentation – Personal Webcam Edition: The finer points of managing and optimizing your personal virtual presence

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Chris Paquette, Director of Survey Services at MOR Associates. Chris may be reached at [email protected].] Future historians will point to this as the moment when COVID-19 profoundly and instantly transformed how we worked and interacted. Videoconferencing, previously a useful supplement to in-person meetings and teleconferences, has become the primary way […]
04.14.2020

Leading and Managing in the time of COVID-19

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Jim Bruce, Senior Fellow and Executive Coach at MOR Associates. He previously was Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Vice President for Information Systems and CIO at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He may be reached at [email protected].] Tuesday Readings for the past four weeks have focused on how we can […]
07.23.2019

Asking more Questions

– Upping your game In last week’s Tuesday Reading, Questions: How many have you asked today, we argued that the practice of asking questions is more important than any one of the answers we may be given, as asking builds our knowledge, teaches us about people, engages others, communicates value, sets an example, and develops […]
03.26.2019

Your Addiction

… to Your Smartphone ad·dic·tion ––  the compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance, thing, or activity.   As individuals in today’s society we have become addicted to our smartphones. We are at a loss when it isn’t in our hand, on our person, out of sight, etc. And, the research is clear, for all […]
03.19.2019

Becoming Influential

Leaders must be men and women who influence others to enable them to become more effective. In her essay Five Principles to Follow If You Want to Influence Others,1 Amy Glass, writes “No matter your role, influence is key to solving problems and making things happen. … [T]his means persuading people to help you affect change, […]
03.12.2019

Why Should We Ask Questions?

Kids ask questions in order to learn about the world in which they live. And, sometimes they will answer their own question to show-off what they know – for example, my great-granddaughter holding out a stuffed rabbit and saying “rabbit” – and sometimes they want you to tell them. As they grow older, their questions […]
11.27.2018

On Positive Curiosity

Eric Abrams is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading.  He is Chief Inclusion Officer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. His essay first appeared as a leadership program reflection earlier this year. [Eric may be reached at [email protected].]   The MOR Tuesday Reading of October 23, 2018 focused on curiosity. Given my role at the Stanford Graduate […]
10.02.2018

Interrupted, Again!

In last week’s Tuesday Reading “Sleep”, I suggested that one of the ways to address sleep deprivation is to manage your work calendar aggressively, enabling you to complete more of your work before you to go home in the evening. One of the tactics I suggested there was for you set aside a specific time […]
07.24.2018

When I’m Called Upon In a Meeting Unexpectedly

… How Do I Respond?   Recently, I came across a short essay by one of my favorite leadership writers, Paul Axtell.  Axtell is an author of several books, including Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations,1 and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review blogs. The piece that caught my attention is “How to […]
07.10.2018

Watch Your Body Language

… Others Most Certainly Are   Some 150 years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”     What Emerson was saying is that the way you show up, your presence, can so over power what you say that your words have little […]