Employers want communications professionals who continue to develop key skills Recruiters are actively seeking to place internal communications professionals who are developing good business judgment and skills. These are among the top 10 most important skills and competencies employers want in their new comms staff, according to feedback in interviews with 10 global leaders in employee communication (The Next Level Global Report, 2018, page 125.) Likewise, most practitioners (81%) interviewed in a major international ...
Read moreMost managers communicate poorly with their employees. Managerial communication is extremely important, but Gallup consultants report that few managers have the talent to achieve excellence: "Gallup's research reveals that about one in 10 people possess the talent to manage." Although many people have some of the necessary traits, few have the unique combination of talent needed to help a team achieve excellence in a way that significantly improves a company's performance." The firm's research ...
Read moreThese days, isn’t the need for journalistic skills fading fast? Don’t the web and social media mean news writing skills are going the way of traditional news media – dying out in front of our eyes? Actually, it's quite the opposite! Strong headlines and intros/leads (first paragraphs) are even more crucial to good writing on websites, in social media and in mobile technology. Research shows that readers these days scan text most of the ...
Read moreNearly all of us reach our peak performance for different things at a different time of the day. An inner clock in our brain - our circadian pacemaker, or biological clock - keeps time for us. And it makes perfect sense to do our best work when we are in sync with our biological clock. Learning something new Sleep doctor Michael Breus, author of The Power of When, says the best time to learn ...
Read moreReflecting today's more complex issues, today’s search engine results pages can have many possible complex layouts, and users don’t always process search results sequentially. Their attention on a page tends to jump around more across the page than in the past, and has been compared to the pattern in a pinball game. A traditional pinball machine arcade game (left in the image) is a glass-covered cabinet using an angled play field with various bumpers, ...
Read moreAn elevator pitch is the brief summary or pitch relating to your organization, your product or yourself that can be made in about 30 seconds, ie the time it takes to ride in the typical elevator and tell someone your story. Elevator pitches are valuable to senior executives to use in business and sales presentations, speeches and interviews. They are also valuable for interesting someone important to you. For many people, without even realizing ...
Read moreAll bosses are human! They are just as susceptible to self-doubts as anyone else. And they all share with us one of the deepest desires in human nature – the need to feel important, to receive a compliment, to be appreciated. That’s why so many bosses and chief executives like having ‘yes men’ around them! As subordinates, most of us crave appreciation and encouragement from our boss, a ‘parent’ figure in our life. Unfortunately, ...
Read moreOne of life's great questions :) - Should a period/full stop be put at the end of a headline or heading? Printed and online newspaper and magazine headlines don't seem to do it. But what about advertisements and media releases - Should the headlines finish with a period/full stop? Newspaper headlines Above image: Front page headline and subheading from the New York Times, 17 April 2020. The above image shows a New York Times ...
Read moreDo you get plagued by bosses who want to replace your clean, clear writing and speeches with jargon, marketing hype and mangled sentences? As communicators we have all suffered from the problem of managers, clients or others turning our words into mush. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of our work. These people not only interfere with the integrity of carefully written text, but they invariably slow down the process and outcome ...
Read moreMuch of the focus in the business world is about technological advances. Imagine the shock in the Google high-tech environment when internal research made senior management realize 'soft' skills are more important qualities in the firm's top employees than tech skills. An article in the Washington Post quoted a post by eminent Professor Cathy Davidson discussing the Google findings. Davidson noted that in its first 15 years after being founded in 1998, Google sought ...
Read moreImage: World Economic Forum 'COVID Action Platform.' More details in the 'Resources' section below. The effects of the catastrophic COVID-19
If you want a high performing organization, you need to engage and inspire your middle managers. They are the key
Employers want communications professionals who continue to develop key skills Recruiters are actively seeking to place internal communications professionals who