Effective team communication does more than pass information along. It strengthens relationships, builds trust, and aligns people toward a shared purpose. A leader’s ability to communicate well can shape the culture of an entire organization. Some leaders make the mistake of thinking communication is about speaking well. Great communication, however, is about connection. Every leader has a message to share, but not every leader knows how to ensure that message is heard, understood, and acted upon.

A friend reached out to me last week with a problem. He took on a new job a few months ago, but he’s also building his own business on the side and will likely leave in time—something he was clear about with his employer from the beginning. Here’s where things get tricky: He wants to start posting more content about his business on LinkedIn, but he doesn’t want to upset his employer, who may see his posts.

Are you a “boss” or a “leader”? What’s the difference, anyway? The terms are often used interchangeably, but they don’t point to the same skill set at all. A boss is someone who’s focused on the day-to-day operations, prioritizing things like scheduling, hiring, firing, supply management, processes, compliance — keeping the trains running and keeping people in line. Bosses are often guilty of micromanagement. They don’t trust people to be fully functioning adults.

Back in the late 1980s, when I was in the early stages of establishing my advertising agency, an invitation came my way to speak at a Chamber of Commerce event in Upstate New York. I turned it down. At that moment, the idea of declining might have seemed counterintuitive, especially given my aspirations to grow my business. The reason? I was afraid. Fear held me back from seizing an opportunity that could have propelled my agency forward.

In November of last year, I spoke at the CX NXT - Customer Experience Summit in Dubai on the topic of failure, fumbles, and fiascos in customer experience. Now, we can all learn from failures, but rather than just doing a talk about service and experience mishaps and what we can learn from them specifically, I wanted to try and elevate the discussion to illustrate that failure is inherent in every organizational system and is something that we need to both acknowledge and do something about.

“Most people feel meetings are not as effective as they could be,” says Abrahams, a lecturer in organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and host of Think Fast Talk Smart: The Podcast. “However, it is possible to have well-run meetings that are productive, that you look forward to, and that good things come from.”

It's that time of the year when many people are thinking hard about how to be better. Either to be new and improved or to work smarter, if not harder. For salespeople, that means focusing on what has been—and will likely remain—the biggest challenge: not just keeping their clients, but finding new ones. I wrote will likely remain because of one trend in particular. Salespeople must find new ways of remaining vital, as I've written here before.

Growing up, I was social and outgoing, but I was never fond of putting on a show, even in smaller settings. In my high school years, I hosted several online and offline events that improved my public speaking skills. Shortly after moving to the Netherlands, I got a speaker slot at a TEDx event happening at the University of Groningen. Funny enough, I'm a first-year student at the university myself, so the pressure from age discrimination was definitely on. Plus, my family and friends were in the audience, making it infinitely harder.

Using ineffective and poor sales words and phrases can damage your sales conversations. In the modern world, where sales are driven by science, our choice of vocabulary can emotionally connect or disconnect with our buyer’s brains and emotions in different ways. Sometimes, using the wrong choice of words can make your prospects think and feel differently about both you and your company with the click of a finger. A slip of the tongue can rapidly change the dynamics of a conversation and sales opportunity.

Schools probably don’t do this anymore, but when I was in elementary school (GenX-er here), we were taught how to use the telephone. The telephone company donated a dozen rotary phones, and we paired up to practice how to answer the phone, take a message, call a neighbor, and call 911. It was a room full of 8-year-olds running through call scripts like pint-sized sales reps. Then we had to do the role-playing exercises in front of the entire class (!), and the teacher critiqued and graded us.

“It’s a fact that the ability to influence and persuade others is simply not a ‘nice to have’ anymore,” says Steve Martin, faculty director of behavioral science at Columbia University’s School of Business and CEO of Influence at Work. Martin is also the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don't and Why. In his LinkedIn Learning course, The 10 Essentials of Influence and Persuasion, Martin shares insights on how you can improve your ability to influence and persuade others. And influencing and persuading others is what sales is all about.

If you’re seeking to become a better version of yourself, there are plenty of people and organizations willing to offer (or sell) a helping hand. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that there are helpers. We need their lived experiences and expertise to help guide and direct us and their frameworks help make sense of our complex lives.

Group meetings can be intimidating. Lots of people, often at different levels of the organization, are sitting in one place throwing out ideas. Meetings are an opportunity to have an impact on ideas in development, but they are also a place where you can display your ignorance in front of a large group.

We can all name them: Who in your organization holds your attention when they speak up? Who can you count on to be the most engaging dinner conversationalist? What speaker do you see on a program who pulls you in? The names that come to mind are those who tell stories so well that time seems to stand still.

There’s no question that the pandemic brought significant changes to the way buyers and sellers interact. But today, as the worst of the pandemic seems to be behind us, sellers are wondering: What changes are here to stay?

Think about the last time you received service that was exceptional. And by exceptional, I mean exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. How you were communicated with is often what shapes your impression — good or bad.

Your friend is devastated. She’s just lost her job and looks like she’s about to burst into tears in the middle of the busy coffee shop. You don’t know what to do. You want to help her, but what do you say in this horrible situation? How do you make her feel better right now, and how can you help her get through the tough time to come?