Unlocking Leadership Influence: The Art of Communication

As leaders, one of the thing that we are expected to do is to communicate with the teams that we work with all the time. In many cases, our effectiveness as a leader may even depend on our ability to communicate. We might communicate to inform, inspire or influence. We need different strategies for different objectives. If we are communicating to inform, we need clarity in our communication. If we are communicating to inspire, we need our message to have contrast and colour. We need to be able to paint a picture of what is possible. If we are communicating […]

How To Be Different and Stand Out

Premise: One of the side effect of the explosion of social media is that every one is trying to be seen (views), heard (downloads) and appreciated (likes/shares). In this constant struggle to be seen/heard/appreciated, everyone is trying to be different and unique and authentic. And that is the true challenge. According to National Human Genome Research institute, “All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup.” Which means that we are all that different from each other genetically. The 0.1 percent that does differentiate us genetically is influenced by our environment, exposure and experience we have had in […]

Crafting an Effective Elevator Pitch

I am sure that at some point in time, you would have had the need to come up with an elevator pitch for an idea that you wanted to share with others to either inspire them to action or elicit a commitment. There are a lot of ways one can go about designing an elevator pitch but I came across Randy Olson‘s TEDMED speech where he shares this simple framework for crafting an elevator pitch.  “{Premise} and {premise} but {problem} therefore {Solution}”  This is a simple yet powerful framework for crafting an effective elevator pitch.  You can watch his entire […]

David Ogilvy on Big Ideas, Creativity And Selling

Here is a video where one of the best minds when it comes to running some of the most prolific marketing campaigns shares his thoughts about how he approached his work. This is a must watch video (~ 5 Mins) if you are in the field of sales or marketing or in any other profession that requires you to persuade others.