Have you ever gotten an email from customer service or an answer from a sales rep that left you feeling hopelessly misunderstood? This seems to happen to me more as I get older, and while I completely admit that the common denominator is me, nine times out of ten, it is a result of a brand representative not truly listening to me or “getting” the real issue. When an eCommerce site screwed up … [Read more...]
Go Beyond the Focus Group for Better Customer Insights
Focus groups make me cringe. These false environments place target customers in a room where they are asked a series of questions about what they think of products, services, or ad campaigns. We pay them to be there, get them in a room where they feel under pressure to offer an opinion or make one up, and to consider products or services in an artificial context that doesn’t at all … [Read more...]
3 Tips to Deliver a Great Speech
Have you had to deliver this yet? That once-in-a-lifetime speech. You know the kind of speech I’m referring to: the pivotal presentation that defines a person, cause or culture -- that crucial communications moment your audience members will remember for weeks afterward. This could be a TEDx talk, like one I recently did for TEDx CWRU, or your first all-hands meeting as CEO, or your … [Read more...]
How to Redefine Success with Empathy
Modern market trends, as well as the pandemic, show us that leaders and brands acting with genuine empathy are winning right now. When companies have been there for the community, valued employees, even made tough decisions like layoffs or closures with respect - the market has paid attention. Just look at the media attention lavished on Zoom for offering free K-12 access to schools, Salesforce … [Read more...]
3 Leadership and Innovation Lessons from 50 Empathy Interviews
50 EPISODES! I’ve now recorded 50 episodes of The Empathy Edge Podcast and have learned so much from these inspiring leaders, changemakers, and rockstars. This podcast was a way for me to continue my research and my own learnings about empathy in action after I was done writing the book. And man, I’m so glad I am doing this! If you’ve been listening, you’ve heard from CEO’s, CMO’s, … [Read more...]
5 Tips To End Social Media Overwhelm For Your Business
It’s a Tuesday afternoon. I have to leave, like, NOW to pick up my toddler from preschool. My old black lab has just laid his face in my lap and given me the “Shouldn’t we be walking right now?” eyes. But I’m stalling because for the last hour, I’ve been staring at Twitter, trying to come up with clever tweets. I pull up Facebook and immediately feel less-than. I click over to LinkedIn and … [Read more...]
Are you an Empathy Hijacker?
“We can relate to people without hijacking the conversation” Communication expert Sharon Steed. Sharon and I connected recently as we were both on an empathy panel together. I’m in love with her work transforming company culture with empathy. She has a great LinkedIn course about communicating with more empathy as well, and that’s where I got this insightful quote. People often assume that … [Read more...]
How to Set Boundaries…and Break Them.
We’re always talking about boundaries. How to set them. How to think outside of them. How to break them. So which is it? Set them or smash them? It’s both. Setting boundaries is key to getting more done. When you know who you are, and what needs doing, you can focus. And that means saying no to the wrong opportunities, clients, relationships that don’t serve your … [Read more...]
Say No…But Try it This Way
As a business owner, or even just a busy executive or changemaker, the best skill you can master is prioritization. Since you can’t clone yourself and you do need to sleep (and perhaps see your spouse every once in a while), the art of saying no is a powerful tool in your arsenal. Work and life are all about choices. You can say yes to more of the right things–the right projects, clients, … [Read more...]
Why a Brand Project is a Transformation Project
What can management consulting teach you about brand strategy work? Everything. My very first post-college job was as a change management consultant for a large consulting firm. My job was to equip people and teams at Fortune 1000 companies to adopt big changes, whether that was a new system implementation, workflow, or organizational structure. All of these projects … [Read more...]
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