Daily insights to help you change minds and drive action. Bi-weekly premium essays that dive deep on how the world’s best leaders communicate.
Why is this so rare?
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Look at any message that actually moved people. You will find the same four properties every time. Plain and simple so people understand it immediately. Conveniently, the four spell PATH. Once you see the pattern, it feels almost embarrassingly obvious. Which makes this hard to explain: Why is it so rare? You would expect to see it everywhere. Most leadership messages fail at least one test. Often more. Crazy, given that it takes about 30 seconds to test your message against the checklist. Keep lighting the path, __ |
What the Best Leaders Say
Daily insights to help you change minds and drive action. Bi-weekly premium essays that dive deep on how the world’s best leaders communicate.
What the Best Leaders Say Issue 9 Strategy discussions often revolve around the search for the next big idea. When performance stalls or alignment loosens, leadership teams frequently respond by changing the strategy in search of that big idea. Yet in many organizations the deeper problem is not the absence of a new idea. It is that the existing one has never been refined enough to guide decisions. This essay explores a pattern visible in companies as different as Yahoo, IKEA, Google, and...
Here is something most leadership communication advice completely ignores: The higher you rise as a leader, the harder it becomes to say things plainly. Which has nothing to do with skill. The reason is much simpler. And it hurts a little: Clarity creates consequences. Plain and simple words force a choice. If a CEO says: “We will exit this business within two years.” Everyone knows what that means. If they say: “We are exploring strategic alternatives to sharpen our portfolio.” Everyone can...
“I’m just not charismatic enough.”This thought has killed more careers than you’d believe. The problem is that it’s simply not true.Because it gets charisma upside down. Charisma is an effect, not a cause. It’s what people experience when they are in the same room with someone who is fully present. Who listens so intensely that they feel “this person really gets me”. Who gives you the feeling that nothing is more important right now than being here in this room with you. Who often says the...