Stop Selling When Interviewing Candidates

When I was a recruiter, interviews started off with a little overview of the organization.  I’d tell them a little bit about what it was like to work for our company and also cover information about how the interview and hiring process worked before launching into questions.   I often had the chance to sit with hiring managers interviewing candidates as well.   The difference in how the hiring manager handled the first part of the interview related to information about the company was always interesting.  Some said very little if anything about the organization or their department and/or team, while

Birthing Babies & Businesses

I seem to have a knack for birthing babies and businesses at the same time.  Blaming the hormones as a cause of a healthy dose of insanity, I launched my first business almost nine years ago when my now nine-year-old son was a newborn.  Our second child, a girl, came three years behind her brother. She was a well thought out and planned decision.  Her current personality actually reflects this truth. No businesses were birthed during her arrival but taking a leap to go beyond myself and out of the desire to integrate home and work in a way that

3 Ways to Go Upstream

“What the world needs now is a quieter breed of hero, one actively fighting for a world in which rescues are no longer required. How many problems in our lives and society are we tolerating simply because we have forgotten we can fix them?” Dan Heath- Upstream I just finished one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time.  But what made the book great was that it took the thought-provoking a step further and provided some keen insights and tools about acting on the information.   Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by

Do Only the Really Smart (or Stupid) Fly Without PowerPoint?

When I get ready for a training or a speech, the first thing I do is outline content in PowerPoint slides.  It helps me frame my thoughts and gauge for flow of material.  Then I go back and provide content for a supporting document like a handout.  And I’m lucky, I hand it off to someone else to make it all look pretty, cohesive, and professional before it ever goes live.  I’m working on a pitch now for some seed funding, and my first thought is how do I organize the pitch through PowerPoint slides.  The information on guidelines for

The Most Popular Slide in All My Leadership Trainings

I often glance at what people take note of when they are a part of one of our training sessions.  Not the notes or handout questions we make them fill in, but the notes where they turn over to a blank handout page or pull out their own notebook and jot things down.  The notes people take because they want to make sure they remember something. The times when people say, “Can you go back to that slide for a minute please?” And then they start furiously writing. We also get feedback from all participants at the end of each