Soft power is a term usually associated with international diplomacy - what we do when we're not sending in the military. It's how we foster relationships and advance policy goals. It's no less real in the business world. When the sales team is frustrated by the policies or practices of a group or department they rely on, rather than circle the wagons and indulge in blame and outrage, great leaders look inward and ask a crucial question: What can we do to motivate them to work better with us?
Interviews are Not about Fact-finding: Make your minimum standards on skills and experience clear to your HR team or recruiter. Then leave the candidate's resume in your desk. Too many interviews end up being about the facts on the page ("...so you worked at AOL?") You're wasting a lot of time confirming data points, which could be better spent on higher order discussion. Focus Instead on Understanding the Candidate's Process.
It's not often that I've used this space to review or comment on business books. But the blend of industry perspective and salacious beach reading found in Ken Auletta's Frenemies: The Epic Disruption…
The best meetings are sometimes the ones we don't have at all. Many of your meetings are automatic: the weekly update, the kickoff meeting for the project and so on. Before hitting send on that calendar invite, ask the question: can we accomplish what we need to do without bringing everyone into the same physical or virtual space? You'll be surprised how often the answer is yes.
If swapping out just a single word in your vocabulary would create enormous positive change in you and those around you - massively shift attitudes and perspective for the better - would you do it? It will take discipline and consistency to normalize the new word, and it will feel awkward at first. So...would you make the change? You just need to start using the word for in place of other prepositions like in and to.
A consistent thread connects hundreds of workshop discussions I've had with sales teams over the past 20 years: how to generate and foster a sense of urgency in a channel where there are no closing- or…
The RFO - request-for-opportunity - isn't an incremental change to the RFP; it is its complete opposite. In the RFP process the seller reacts. In the RFO process, the seller drives. Where the RFP is based on a bunch of issues and qualifications that were agreed upon by various committees, the RFO is disruptive and driven by a strong POV.
In our industry, we tend to think of innovation almost exclusively in terms of technology: it's always about a new algorithm or bidding engine or streaming solution that's going to change everything. But there are two major problems with this narrative. First, it disempowers the rest of us. The second problem with this fixation on "the next big thing" is that it's not even true. The next big thing is usually NOT a thing at all.
Your client - that elusive marketer you've been trying to access -- is taking a meeting with you today. Are you sure you're ready? And are you certain you even deserve it?
This week's Drift is proudly…
Most interpersonal conflict occurs because of how we react immediately in the moment. We read an email or hear a comment...we feel slighted or hurt...and we immediately lash back. A destructive cycle thus begins and rapidly escalates. We are only very rarely responding to what others do or say. We instead are responding to the story our ego is telling us about what's been done or said. Someone seems distracted and not paying attention to you in a meeting: your ego says They don't respect you! How arrogant! But your ego may be an unreliable narrator. What if that person was dealing with a very ill child or parent? Someone else chimes in on an email string and seems to dismiss the concern you've raised. Out to get you? Undermining your value? Or is she attempting to calm everything down but her note loses context as an email?
You may be a business man or some high-degree thief
They may call you doctor or they may call you chief
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody - Bob Dylan
There…
Indulge me. I've been at this since the very beginning of web advertising (1994) and I'm seeing patterns.
Each massive, tectonic shift in our business has been preceded by an equally massive economic or…
