Remembering Jeffrey Zaslow, Author and Father

“It’s taken a while for speakers to get used to that fact that audience members are going to be using their smartphones to tweet their on-stage messages to the outside world. There is still a dwindling minority of presenters who believe that their content is for the exclusive consumption of the people in the room”, says Alan Stevens of in the Media Coach ezine. Continue reading the rest of this article...

The courtyard at American Funds’ Irvine campus serves as more than just a meeting place, according to at least one expert. Jennifer Kahnweiler, executive coach and leadership consultant, strongly encourages employees to get outside during the workday. “Much of our creativity comes when we’re not in the cubicle,” she says.

Kahnweiler, author of The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength, also emphasizes that firms that have opted for more open work spaces must also provide employees with more private rooms where they can work and think in a quiet environment, and encourage workers to use them. While some employees may not want such space, the introverts among us, who make up about 40% to 50% of the population, need those spaces to be productive, she says.

There needs to be enough of these kinds of rooms so that they don’t always have to be booked in advance. At a lot of companies, she says, people have to fight for a conference room because of their scarcity. Continue reading the rest of this article...

We live in such an extroverted, centric world that the people who are the talkers – whether it be in brainstorming sessions or in coaching itself do a real disservice to people when they fill in the sentences. I think that equation we’ve all heard as coaches, is that you should have the 80:20 rule, coaches speaking 20%. That should mirror a lot of conversations you’re having, when you’re trying to get the best out of the introverts in your organization, allow them the dignity of their own rhythm. Continue reading the rest of this article...