If you work with other people (and who doesn’t?) reflect on the last week and notice how much time you wasted in drama: the energy-draining behaviors or exchanges that keep you from what you really want to be doing.  Think about all the infighting, water-cooler talk, meaningless meetings, turf wars, pouting, rants, and other behaviors that blocked positive, productive interactions in your organization.

Let’s pretend you find a genie in a lamp on your way to work Monday morning… when you rub the lamp, the genie will grant you mastery of one leadership skill that you can carry with you for the rest of your career.  Here’s my advice – choose the ability to listen.
 

Have you noticed that suddenly you’re negotiating with your customers and prospects through email? They don’t have time for face-to-face or phone meetings. Instead, they’d just like “a few quick questions” answered through email so they can make a decision.

As this occurs, it’s critical that sales reps adjust their easy-going sales prospecting email approach to a more formal and professional business writing style to successfully negotiate in this new manner.

Communication has always paid a major role in the success or failure of various businesses. Today a large part of our communication happens via email as a result of which most people are inundated with email jamming their inboxes throughout the day. Before a person actually opens an email his mind is conditioned by the sender’s identity and the subject line. Good subject lines can have an effect that is similar to good newspapers headlines. Within a few words they can inform as well as capture the attention of the receiver.

He is a blogger, she is a blogger, every other person seems to be a blogger these days. Even business organizations are encouraging their employees including senior management to blog. But is the strategy successful, not by a long shot in most organizations. Why? The writers are not always interesting in terms of writing style and content, and worse many especially those in the higher levels like CEOs do not even write their own blogs. Employees recognize when the stuff does not match their CEO’s personality but that of someone in the PR department of the company.

In the 1950s, the entertainment world coined the term "Cattle Call" for those mass auditions for stage plays, movies, commercials, and the like. The term immediately evokes the image of a stampede of eager, aspiring performers vying for the attention of a harried producer.