Whitfield and Strong wrote it. Marvin Gaye sang it (and made it famous). Leaders everywhere deal with it – and worry about it all too often. If you know the song, hum along as we talk about how leaders can work with the grapevine and make gossip less daunting and scary. The subtitle gives you

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It isn’t always easy to hold two seemingly conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time.  I believe this is why too often too many people live in a But World.  When they mention two different ideas or opinions to link them together with ” but” which linguistically implies and telegraphs that the latter one

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What images, thoughts and feelings come to mind when you think of or hear the word “salesperson”? Stereotypical, slick-talking, used car sales people Well-spoken financial manager The guy everyone loves who sells his wares on the golf course Whether you have positive thoughts and feelings about salespeople or decidedly un-positive, the purpose of this article

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I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a couple of days.  It seems that everytime I turn around this message comes to me in a new way.  The last straw was last night, when my soon-t0-be-twelve year old daughter hit the nail on the head. The messages is in this video . . .

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A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with Kim Watson, one of our interns last summer, who retruned to help with a couple projects in her spare time this summer.  She was talking about experiences from her first year in Law School ath the University of Illinois.  After our conversation, I asked her

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Ask most anyone to think of a great leader and on their short list you will find someone considered to be a great orator or powerful public speaker. Ask anyone to list the skills of a great leader and communication skills or public speaking skills will invariably make the list. The reasons are clear and

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Last weekend my wife and I were at a conference in Cleveland.  As I walked through the hotel, I noticed a pair of shoe shine chairs – with no one to do any shining. Later in the day I noticed the chairs still unmanned. Then I looked up and saw the sign above the chairs. Since

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What? I mean Willie is and has been a lot of things, but an interpersonal skills guru? Over the past few weeks one phrase from Willie and his buddy Waylon Jenning’s mega-hit Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys keeps popping into my head.  (Actually the song was written by Ed and Patsy

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Monday 17th, I saw a morning news report that included a commercial for Dale Peterson running fro Commissioner of Agriculture in Alabama.  After seeing it, I went online to find it.  On YouTube I found it with about 3000 views. Here is the video: As of this writing, 8 days later, this video has over

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