Category Archive for : ‘Communication Skills’

by Brian Becker

I’m beginning a new series of posts about culture. Why? Because the more experiences I have as a consultant and executive coach, I realize that everything is affected by culture.

Peter Drucker, organizational guru for over 30 years was right when he said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how on-target your goals are or how much you want to succeed. If the culture is weak or dysfunctional, it will negatively affect everything!

Culture is the intangible made up by myriad forces that are

After blogging regularly for 2½ years I took an eight month break from writing. It wasn’t that I wasn’t working or caring about the father son relationship or leadership. It’s that I was feeling depleted. Depleted from the “white noise” caused by isolation due to COVID, intense political and racial ugliness, and trying to make sense (and grieving) the lack of empathy and love for our fellow neighbors.

I don’t have it figured out by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that writing helps me process my thoughts and

Last week I had the privilege of leading a webinar for numerous nonprofit board members, CEO’s and other executives. The Christopher Family Foundation of Hinsdale Illinois offered this webinar (and periodically offers others) to their grantee network in mostly the Chicagoland region.

The webinar covers five key topics: 1) 6 G’s of Successful Boards 2) Improving board culture 3) Recruiting the “right” people 4) Implementing best practices 5) When the pendulum swings back.

Just click “Read More” in the blue box to go to the video of the webinar.

Unbound Webinar Series – Hosted by Jay Frost on www.donorsearch.net Tuesday, May 12, 2020 – 1:00 p.m. CT

The Executive Director – What is the board doing, particularly the board chair, to support and be engaged with Executive Director during these challenging times? Donor Relations – What is the board doing to ensure that donors and stakeholders are well informed and cared for?Best Practices – What best practices should be maintained and jettisoned during this time? Long Term View – Short Term Decisions – What is the board doing to

My friend Roger was an outstanding sprinter on his high
school track team. He ran the anchor leg of the 4 x 400-yard relay team. At one
particular track meet, his relay was the last event of the day. If they won the
relay, the school would also win the entire meet.

The first three legs of the relay were very close. Roger
received the “anchor leg” baton in second place, but was able to sprint past
his opponent to a comfortable lead with quite a bit of track left until the
finish line. Roger became over-confident

Stress is caused by uncertainty,
uncontrollable situations, and sustained volatility according a stress researcher
from Harvard University. The research I’ve read finds that the “big three”
elements that cause stress is when “family, finances and/or health” are
threatened. It appears that all of these elements are in the bullseye right
now, and it’s almost certainly going to get worse before it gets better.

Who could have imagined the lightning speed at which the
world has changed in just the last few days. In many parts of the world the
number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 is

Are you talking to yourself right now? Listen…whose voice is it? Your voice, your boss, coworkers, dad, the devil? Yes, we all have many voices, but the reality is that you can only listen to one at a time. But…you get to choose. So listening to the “right voice” is essential.

We all have internal speech that “beats up” on us from
time-to-time. For some of us, the “saboteur” can be brutal. Have you heard this
rattling around in your head, “He’s never going to listen to me right now, I
can’t lose that

In the bestseller, Leadership and Self-Deception the story is told of an upper level manager, “Tom”, who has an inability to see his own problem – self-deception. Self-deception caused a number of significant problems both for Tom and those he worked and lived with. Let’s take a look at this scenario:

Tom always saw others as the source of his problems.Tom had an overblown sense of his importance, always saw himself as the most committed, the most dedicated, and the smartest guy in the room.Tom actually, unknowingly, provoked others to resist

Last week I attended the Global Leadership Summit. 7,500 leaders from around the world learned from 14 outstanding speakers representing the best of corporate, nonprofit and religious circles. While the environment was positive and electric, many of the lessons taught came in the form of warnings for leaders who aren’t willing to do the hard work and have the difficult conversations that are essential in these challenging times. Those who avoid or abdicate the hard decisions are destined to fail. Here are the one dozen “warnings”:

The CEO or executive

Just this last week I witnessed numerous situations where people were frustrated, disappointed and angry, myself included. In each encounter the upset person felt unheard or unappreciated or discounted. It left me thinking how a little bit of listening or empathy could go along way to help these situations.

Here are a few of these situations:

A young friend of mine has a new boss who is highly transactional, and my friend is highly relational. He now feels insignificant, as if his opinion and work don’t matter.
My four-month-old granddaughter cried out, which