Bs Seminar Reading Summaries PDF

Bs seminar reading summaries Are you a Collaborative Leader? How great CEOs keep their teams connected What could he do to bring the top tier of the company closer to the workforce? Benioff asked himself. And then it hit him: Let’s use Chatter to blow open the doors of the management off-site. Wh...

Bs seminar reading summaries Are you a Collaborative Leader? How great CEOs keep their teams connected What could he do to bring the top tier of the company closer to the workforce? Benioff asked himself. And then it hit him: Let’s use Chatter to blow open the doors of the management off-site. What greeted the 200 executives who attended that meeting was atypical. All 5,000 Salesforce.com employees had been invited to join them—virtually. Huge TV monitors placed throughout the meeting room displayed the special Chatter forum set up for the off-site. Every manager received an iPod Touch, and every table had an iPad, which attendees could use to post to the forum. A video service broadcast the meeting in real time to all employees, who could beam in and instantaneously express their views on Chatter, too. In the end the dialogue lasted for weeks beyond the actual meeting. More important, by fostering a discussion across the entire organization, Benioff has been able to better align the whole workforce around its mission. The event served as a catalyst for the creation of a more open and empowered culture at the company. Like Salesforce.com’s managers and employees, business people today are working more collaboratively than ever before, not just inside companies but also with suppliers, customers, governments, and universities. Global virtual teams are the norm, not the exception. A host of other technologies have put connectivity on steroids and enabled new forms of collaboration that would have been impossible a short while ago.Many executives realize that they need a new playbook for this hyper connected environment. Managers who try to lead by consensus can quickly see decision making and execution grind to a halt. Crafting the right leadership style isn’t easy. As part of our research on top-performing CEOs (see “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World,” HBR January–February 2010), we’ve examined what it means to be a collaborative leader. We’ve discovered that it requires strong skills in four areas: playing the role of connector, attracting diverse talent, modeling collaboration at the top, and showing a strong hand to keep teams from getting mired in debate. Play Global Connector In his best-selling book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell used the term “connector” to describe individuals who have many ties to different social worlds. It’s not the number of people they know that makes connectors significant, however; it’s their ability to link people, ideas, and resources that wouldn’t normally bump into one another. In business, connectors are critical facilitators of collaboration. To connect their organizations to the wider world, collaborative leaders develop contacts not only in the typical areas—local clubs, industry associations, and customer and supplier relations—but beyond them. Networking in adjacent industries, innovation hot spots like Silicon Valley, or emerging economies or with people of different educational or ethnic backgrounds helps open their eyes to new business opportunities and partners. Engage Talent at the Periphery Research has consistently shown that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led. The ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders. Yet many companies spend inordinate amounts of time, money, and energy attracting talented employees only to subject them to homogenizing processes that kill creativity. France’s Danone, one of the top performers in our research, makes sure its executives don’t encounter such obstacles. When all the managers worldwide get together for the company’s annual strategic review, many choose to present in their native tongue. Says CEO Franck Riboud: “We spend a fortune on interpreters so that being less articulate in English is not a barrier. Left to their own devices, people will choose to collaborate with others they know well—which can be deadly for innovation. industries shows that the collaborations that are most successful (whether in terms of patent citation, critical acclaim, or financial return) include both experienced people and newcomers and bring together people who haven’t worked with one another before. Collaborate at the Top First Part of the problem is that many leadership teams, composed of the CEO and his or her direct reports, actually don’t operate as teams. Each member runs his or her own region, function, or product or service category, without much responsibility—or incentive—for aligning the organization’s various projects and operations into a coherent whole. If leaders are to encourage more innovation through partnerships across sectors and with suppliers, customers, and consumers, they need to stop re- lying heavily on short-term performance indicators. According to the psychologist Carol Dweck, people are driven to do tasks by either performance or learning goals. When performance goals dominate an environment, people are motivated to show others that they have a valued attribute, such as intelligence or leadership. When learning goals dominate, they are motivated to develop the attribute. Performance goals, she finds, induce people to favor tasks that will make them look good over tasks that will help them learn. A shift toward learning goals will make managers more open to exploring opportunities to acquire knowledge from others. COMMAND AND CONTROL CONSENSUS COLLABORATIVE Hierarchy Matrix or small group Dispersed, cross- organizational network  Senior management Formally designated members or Employees at all levels and locations and a representatives of the relevant variety of external stakeholders geographies and disciplines The people at the top of the organization All parties have equal authority The people leading collaborations have have clear authority clear authority Financial results against plan Many performance indicators, by Performance on achieving shared goals function or geography Works well within a defined hierarchy; Works in small teams; works Works well for diverse groups and works poorly for complex organizations poorly when speed is important cross-unit and cross-company work, and and when innovation is important when innovation and creativity are critical Show a Strong Hand Once leaders start getting employees to collaborate, they face a different problem: overdoing it. Too of- ten people will try to collaborate on everything and wind up in endless meetings, debating ideas and struggling to find consensus. Effective collaborative leaders assume a strong role directing teams. They maintain agility by form- ing and disbanding them as opportunities come and go. Effective leaders also assign clear decision rights and responsibilities, so that at the appropriate point someone can end the discussion and make a final call. If no obvious agreement is reached in time, the person chairing the meeting normally makes a decision and the rest of the group falls in line. This ensures vigorous debate but clear decisions and quick action—diversity in counsel, unity in command. Loosening Control Without Losing Control Leaders today must be able to harness ideas, people, and resources from across boundaries of all kinds. That requires reinventing their talent strategies and building strong connections both inside and outside their organizations. To get all the disparate players to work together effectively, they also need to know when to wield influence rather than authority to move things forward, and when to halt unproductive discussions, squash politicking, and make final calls. Differences in convictions, cultural values, and operating norms inevitably add complexity to collaborative efforts. But they also make them richer, more innovative, and more valuable. Getting that value is the heart of collaborative leadership. BRINGING MINDS TOGETHER - reading 2 Some projects that are touted as collaborations are like Potemkin villages— great facades without much substance behind them. Meanwhile, some of the best collaborative efforts aren’t even seen as collaborations. For instance:  Automated chemistry analysis is known as Jack Whitehead’s great accomplishment at Technicon—but his real gift was in assembling the early adopters who would advance the technology as a community. Andreas Gruentzig invented an ingenious technique for balloon catheterization. But the real breakthroughs wouldn’t have come without the input of many other innovators—and the humility he displayed about what had so far been achieved. The Live Demonstration Course is seen by most as a surgical training method—and a controversial one at that. Its real value, though, lies in the “wisdom of crowds” approach to advancing and proliferating the best new techniques. Software tools for collabora- tion abound, but it’s the soft skills that bring minds together. It takes a great collaborative leader. Persuading people to contribute countless hours of effort in partnership with people they don’t necessarily like to solve important prob- lems requires consummate leadership skills. Managing egos so that each person’s commitment, energy, and creativity is unleashed in a way without disadvantaging others demands an impresario personality. Earning customers’ trust and convincing them that their valuable contributions won’t be used for anything other than moving the technology forward requires an authenticity few people can project. ESTABLISHMENT BUCKING can’t be avoided. When a group collaborates on a new solution, there’s usually another, bigger, group invested in the way things are done today. Be sure to: Recruit some of their respected players into your vanguard Create your own center stage to prevent your star project from being pushed into the wings Downplay, rather than underscore, the threat your breakthrough poses to their livelihood COLLABORATION is the natural by-product of leaders who are Passionately curious—who crave new insights and suspect that others have them Modestly confident— who can bounce ideas off brilliant collaborators, without turning it into a competition Mildly obsessed—who care more about the collective mission than about how achieving it will benefit their personal fortunes...and may be the only leadership mode that produces breakthrough results. True collaboration requires more than handy applications—in fact, the same tools can just as easily derail it. Effective collaborative leaders are inclusive, curious, and unafraid to admit what they don’t know. They inspire trust, manage egos, and foster a sense of shared mission. Leaders like Whitehead and Gruentzig demonstrated how to leverage emotional intelligence, authenticity, and a willingness to cede control to enable collective progress. Key Elements for Effective Collaboration: Inspiring a shared vision. Emphasizing mutual dependence and equal contribution. Creating platforms for interaction, such as user groups, live demonstrations, or registries, to facilitate shared learning and innovation Soft Skills Over Tools: While technology can enable collaboration, Abele stresses that effective teamwork depends on human factors like trust, humility, and shared purpose rather than just software tools. 8 WAYS TO BUILD COLLABORATIVE TEAMS you need complex teams. Such teams’ defining characteristics—large, virtual, diverse, and specialized—are crucial for handling daunting projects. Yet these very characteristics can also destroy team members’ ability to work together, say Gratton and Erickson. For instance, as team size grows, collaboration diminishes. To maximize your complex teams’ effectiveness, construct a basis for collaboration in your company. Eight practices hinging on relationship building and cultural change can help. For example, create a strong sense of community by sponsoring events and activities that bring people together and help them get to know one another. And use informal mentoring and coaching to encourage employees to view interaction with leaders and colleagues as valuable. What execs can do: Invest in building and maintaining social relationships throughout your organization Model collaborative behavior Use coaching to reinforce collab culture What team leaders can do: Ensure that at least 20%–40% of a new team’s members already know one another Change your leadership style as your team develops. At early stages in the project, be task-oriented: articulate the team’s goal and accountabilities. As inevitable conflicts start emerging, switch to relationship building. Assign distinct roles so team members can do their work independently. They’ll spend less time negotiating responsibilities or protecting turf. But leave thepath to achiev ing the team’s goal somewhat ambiguous. Lacking well-defined tasks, members are more likely to invest time and energy collaborating. distinct roles but no distinct tasks to foster collaborations What HR can do: Train employees in the specific skills required for collaboration: appreciating others, engaging in purposeful conversation, productively and creatively resolving conflicts, and managing programs. Support a sense of community by sponsor- ing events and activities such as networking groups, cooking weekends, or tennis coaching. Spontaneous, unannounced ac tivities can further foster community spirit Members of complex teams are less likely—absent other influences—to share knowledge freely, to learn from one another, to shift workloads flexibly to break up unexpected bottlenecks, to help one another complete jobs and meet deadlines, and to share resources—in other words, to col- laborate. They are less likely to say that they “sink or swim” together, want one another to succeed, or view their goals as compatible. Consider the issue of size. Teams have grown considerably over the past ten years. New technologies help companies extend participation on a project to an ever greater number of people, allowing firms to tap into a wide body of knowledge and expertise. A decade or so ago, the common view was that true teams rarely had more than 20 members. Today, according to our research, many complex tasks involve teams of 100 or more. However, as the size of a team increases beyond 20 members, the tendency to collaborate naturally decreases, we have found. Under the right conditions, large teams can achieve high levels of cooperation, but creating those conditions requires thoughtful, and sometimes significant, investments in the capacity for collaboration across the organization. As for diversity, the challenging tasks facing businesses today almost always require the input and expertise of people with disparate views and backgrounds to create cross-fertilization that sparks insight and innovation. But diversity also creates problems. Our research shows that team members collaborate more easily and naturally if they perceive themselves as being alike. The differences that inhibit collaboration include not only nationality but also age, educational level, and even tenure. Greater diversity also often means that team members are working with people that they know only superficially or have never met before. We have found that the higher the proportion of strangers on the team and the greater the diversity of background and experience, the less likely the team members are to share knowledge or exhibit other collaborative behaviors. In the same way, the higher the educational level of the team members is, the more chal- lenging collaboration appears to be for them. We found that the greater the proportion of experts a team had, the more likely it was to disintegrate into nonproductive conflict or stalemate Virtual Participation Today most complex collaborative teams have members who are working at a distance from one another. Again, the logic is that the assigned tasks require the insights and knowledge of people from many locations. Team members may be working in offices in the same city or strung across the world. Only 40% of the teams in our sample had members all in one place. Our research shows that as teams become more virtual, collaboration declines. Teams do well when executives invest in supporting social relationships, demonstrate collaborative behavior themselves, and create what we call a “gift culture”—one in which employees experience interactions with leaders and colleagues as something valuable and generously offered, a gift. The most collaborative companies had what we call “signature” practices— practices that were memorable, difficult for others to replicate, and particularly well suited to their own business environment. Changing roles frequently—it would not be uncommon for a senior leader at BP to have worked in four businesses and three geo- graphic locations over the past decade— forces executives to become very good at meeting new people and building relationships with them. We found that the perceived behavior of senior executives plays a significant role in determining how cooperative teams are prepared to be. While the behavior of the executive team is crucial to supporting a culture of collaboration, the challenge is to make executives’ behavior visible. Creating a “gift culture.” A third important role for executives is to ensure that mentoring and coaching become embedded in their own routine behavior—and throughout the company. We looked at both formal mentoring processes, with clear roles and responsibilities, and less formal processes, where mentoring was integrated into everyday activities. It turned out that while both types were important, the latter was more likely to increase collaborative behavior. Daily coaching helps establish a cooperative “gift culture” in place of a more transactional “tit- for-tat culture.” We found some surprises: for example, that the type of reward system—whether based on team or individual achievement, or tied explicitly to collaborative behavior or not—had no discernible effect on complex teams’ productivity and innovation. 1. Investing in signature relationship practices. Executives can encourage collaborative behavior by making highly visible investments—in facilities with open floor plans to foster communication, for example—that demonstrate their commitment to collaboration. 2. Modeling collaborative behavior. At companies where the senior executives demonstrate highly collaborative behavior themselves, teams collaborate well. 3.Creatinga“gift culture.”Mentoring and coaching—especially on an informal basis— help people build the networks they need to work across corporate boundaries. 4. Ensuring the requisite skills. Human resources departments that teach employees how to build relationships, communicate well, and resolve conflicts creatively can have a major impact on team collaboration. Many of the factors that support collaboration relate to what we call the “container” of collaboration— the underlying culture and habits of the company or team. However, we found that some teams had a collaborative culture but were not skilled in the practice of collaboration it- self. They were encouraged to cooperate, they wanted to cooperate, but they didn’t know how to work together very well in teams. Our study showed that a number of skills were crucial: appreciating others, being able to engage in purposeful conversations, productively and creatively resolving conflicts, and program management. By training employees in those areas, a company’s human resources or corporate learning department can make an important difference in team performance. 5. Supporting a strong sense of community. When people feel a sense of community, they are more comfortable reaching out to others and more likely to share knowledge. HR can also play a critical role in cultivating it, by sponsoring group events and activities such as women’s networks, cooking weekends, and tennis coaching, or creating policies and practices that encourage them.Many of the firm’s HR investments rein- force a friendly, family-like culture. Almost every communication reflects an element of staff appreciation. A range of “pop-up” events—spontaneous activities—create a sense of fun and community. 6. Assigning team leaders that are both task- and relationship-oriented. The debate has traditionally focused on whether a task or a relationship orientation creates better leadership, but in fact both are key to successfully leading a team. Typically, leaning more heavily on a task orientation at the outset of a project and shifting toward a relationship orientation once the work is in full swing works best. 7. Building on heritage relationships. When too many team members are strangers, people may be reluctant to share knowledge. The best practice is to put at least a few people who know one another on the team. 8. Understanding role clarity and task ambiguity. Cooperation increases when the roles of individual team members are sharply defined yet the team is given latitude on how to achieve the task. The most productive, innovative teams were led by people who were both task- and relationship-oriented. What’s more, these leaders changed their style during the project. Strengthening your organization’s capacity for collaboration requires a combination of long-term investments—in building relationships and trust, in developing a culture in which senior leaders are role models of cooperation— and smart near-term decisions about the ways teams are formed, roles are defined, and challenges and tasks are articulated. Want collaboration? Accept and actively manage conflict Misconceptions About Collaboration 1. Collaboration Equals Teamwork: ○ Misplaced focus on teamwork training often ignores the unstructured, cross-functional interactions where collaboration breaks down. ○ Overemphasis on harmony discourages addressing conflicts that could drive problem-solving. 2. Incentives Guarantee Collaboration: ○ Incentives alone fail because the costs of collaboration (time, effort, frustration) often outweigh rewards. ○ Misaligned incentives can perpetuate siloed thinking. 3. Organizational Structures Solve Conflict: ○ Structural changes like cross-functional teams and collaborative tools often exacerbate conflicts by creating unclear roles and priorities. Framework for Managing Conflict 1. Manage Disagreements at Their Origin: Common Conflict Resolution Method: ○ Equip employees with a standardized process for resolving disputes to minimize wasted time and ill will. ○ Example: Intel provides decision-making and conflict-resolution training for all employees. Provide Trade-Off Criteria: ○ Clearly articulate organizational priorities to guide decisions (e.g., profitability vs. market share). ○ Example: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida uses tools to weigh trade-offs collaboratively. Coaching Opportunities: ○ Managers should coach employees to handle conflicts independently rather than escalating them immediately. 2. Manage Escalated Conflicts Effectively: Joint Escalation: ○ Require conflicting parties to present disputes jointly to their supervisors to ensure transparency and mutual accountability. ○ Example: Telus improved its conflict management through a structured joint escalation process. Manager Collaboration: ○ Managers resolving disputes should directly collaborate with their counterparts rather than unilaterally making decisions. Transparent Processes: ○ Document and share the rationale for conflict resolutions to guide future decisions. Tapping Into the Value of Conflict Organizations should treat conflict as a resource: ○ Patterns in recurring disputes can highlight systemic issues. ○ Example: Johnson & Johnson analyzes disagreements to identify trends, improving collaboration and supplier relationships. Key Takeaways Conflict is inevitable in complex organizations and often necessary for effective collaboration. Companies must embrace and institutionalize conflict management processes to turn conflict into a strategic advantage.  Clear guidelines, transparency, and fostering a culture of constructive disagreement are essential to achieving the benefits of collaboration. Which kind of Collaboration is right for you? - reading Key Premise: Collaboration Requires Strategic Choices Innovation increasingly depends on external collaboration due to the global spread of expertise and reduced IT costs. There is no universally "best" model of collaboration. Companies must evaluate their strategy to determine the optimal collaboration mode. The authors introduce a framework to help managers make these decisions, focusing on: ○ Openness: How accessible the network of collaborators should be. ○ Governance: Whether decision-making power is centralized (hierarchical) or distributed (flat). Four Modes of Collaboration The framework identifies four modes of collaboration based on the openness of participation and governance structure: 1. Elite Circle (Closed and Hierarchical): ○ A select group of participants chosen by the company defines the problem and decides on solutions. ○ Example: Alessi handpicks 200+ designers to develop radical, aesthetically-driven product designs. ○ Advantages: Attracts top experts, allows the company to maintain control over direction and value capture. ○ Challenges: Requires deep knowledge to identify the right domain and collaborators. ○ Best for: Complex problems requiring specific expertise and centralized oversight. 2. Innovation Mall (Open and Hierarchical): ○ A company posts problems publicly, and anyone can propose solutions; the company chooses the best ideas. ○ Example: InnoCentive.com, where companies crowdsource scientific solutions. ○ Advantages: Broad access to diverse solutions from unexpected sources.  ○ Challenges: High costs of screening and evaluating numerous contributions. ○ Best for: Modular problems that can be evaluated easily at low cost. 3. Innovation Community (Open and Flat): ○ Anyone can propose problems, suggest solutions, and decide which to implement. ○ Example: Linux open-source software community. ○ Advantages: Shares risks and costs with a large, diverse group. ○ Challenges: Difficult to control outcomes and capture value from innovations. ○ Best for: When user input is critical and problems can be broken into manageable parts. 4. Consortium (Closed and Flat): ○ A private group jointly selects problems, determines methods, and chooses solutions. ○ Example: IBM’s microelectronics consortium with companies like Siemens and Samsung. ○ Advantages: Shares the burden of innovation while ensuring all parties have a stake in the outcomes. ○ Challenges: Requires trust, clear rules, and aligned interests among participants. ○ Best for: Large, indivisible problems needing close collaboration among specialized partners. Key Considerations for Choosing a Mode Strategic Alignment: The collaboration mode must align with the company’s goals and competitive strategy. For instance: ○ IBM uses both innovation communities (to commoditize operating systems like Linux) and consortia (to differentiate hardware through advanced microprocessor technology). Nature of the Problem: ○ Open modes work for well-defined, modular problems where evaluation is inexpensive. ○ Closed modes are better for complex, integrated challenges requiring expertise. Governance Requirements: ○ Hierarchical governance suits projects where the company can define and evaluate solutions. ○ Flat governance is ideal when multiple parties contribute critical expertise or share interests in the solution. Strategic Trade-Offs 1. Openness vs. Exclusivity: ○ Open networks generate diverse ideas but may dilute quality. ○ Closed networks focus on expertise but risk overlooking unexpected solutions. 2. Control vs. Collaboration: ○ Hierarchical structures ensure control and value capture. ○ Flat structures foster shared risks, costs, and broader participation. 3. Flexibility and Evolution: ○ Collaboration modes may need to evolve with the company’s strategy. ○ Example: Apple started with an elite circle to design early iPhone applications but later transitioned to an innovation community to expand its app ecosystem. Takeaway: Strategic Collaboration as a Competitive Edge Effective collaboration requires understanding the trade-offs of each mode and aligning the approach with company capabilities and goals. Companies like IBM and Apple demonstrate how combining different collaboration modes can amplify innovation and market advantage. When internal collaboration is bad? - reading To evaluate whether a collaboration effort is worthwhile, consider the Collaboration Premium: Formula: Projected Return – Opportunity Cost – Collaboration Costs = Collaboration Premium ○ Projected Return: The financial gains expected from collaboration. ○ Opportunity Cost: The value of alternative projects sacrificed to focus on the collaborative initiative. ○ Collaboration Costs: The extra effort, time, and resources required to manage collaboration effectively, including conflicts and delays. If the Collaboration Premium is negative (a Collaboration Penalty), the initiative should not proceed. How Collaboration Goes Wrong 1. Ineffective Knowledge Sharing: ○ Experienced teams may gain little from collaboration because the shared knowledge is either redundant or marginal. ○ Example: A study of IT consulting teams found that greater collaboration often led to worse outcomes because time spent seeking advice detracted from actual work. 2. Turf Battles and Conflicting Goals: ○ Units may resist sharing resources, customers, or information, leading to inefficiencies. ○ Example: In Det Norske Veritas’s (DNV) food-safety initiative, two business units refused to share customer data, undermining cross-selling opportunities. 3. Opportunity Costs: ○ Focusing on collaboration can divert attention and resources from more lucrative, non-collaborative opportunities. ○ Example: DNV’s consulting unit missed out on a high-potential IT project because its resources were tied up in the food initiative. 4. High Collaboration Costs: ○ Costs include delays, budget overruns, reduced quality, and damaged relationships. ○ Example: Coordination issues between DNV’s units delayed the creation of a shared customer database, increasing costs and reducing effectiveness. Strategies to Avoid Bad Collaboration 1. Perform a Collaboration Cost-Benefit Analysis: ○ Assess the potential financial return, opportunity costs, and collaboration costs before committing. ○ Example: DNV could have avoided its failed food-safety project by recognizing that the opportunity cost of pursuing IT services was higher. 2. Avoid Overestimating Benefits: ○ Collaboration is not an end in itself; it should generate tangible business results. ○ Example: Daimler’s acquisition of Chrysler promised synergies but failed to deliver measurable value. 3. Align Goals and Incentives: ○ Ensure that team members are not pulled in conflicting directions by their individual targets or unit priorities. ○ Example: DNV’s team members struggled to balance cross-unit goals with their own unit’s revenue targets. 4. Reduce Collaboration Costs: ○ Address mistrust, clarify roles, and streamline logistics to minimize the costs of working across units. ○ Example: In later efforts, DNV appointed trusted liaisons and cautiously phased collaboration to build trust and avoid conflicts. When Collaboration Goes Right: Lessons from DNV Under a new CEO, DNV revamped its collaboration strategy: The company systematically evaluated potential cross-unit projects, prioritizing initiatives with the highest returns and lowest collaboration costs. Example: DNV’s maritime and IT units collaborated successfully on risk-management services for ships, leveraging their respective expertise. Key Takeaways 1. Collaboration is a strategic tool, not a universal solution. It should only be pursued when it creates value that outweighs the associated costs and opportunity losses. 2. Effective collaboration requires: ○ Rigorous evaluation of financial and operational trade-offs. ○ Alignment of incentives and reduction of friction between units.  ○ Disciplined prioritization to avoid spreading resources too thin. 3. Leaders should focus on cultivating the right collaboration, ensuring initiatives deliver measurable results. Change is Healthy Companies go through the following life cycle: starting up, growing, maturing and, eventually, declining. In order to avoid this potential decline, organizations should make continual shifts and improvements to stay healthy. Communicating to all stakeholders becomes critical. This is why you need to learn how to manage presentations. As a leader, in order to get ahead of the next curve, you need to persuade your team and stakeholders about the merits and the necessity of implementing change. This requires courage and communication skills: courage to determine the next move and communication to keep the team committed to the value of moving forward. How to connect with your audience? ETHICAL APPEAL: shared values and experiences to gain credibility. The audience will feel connected and have respect for your idea. EMOTIONAL APPEAL: employ feelings of pleasure and pain to stir imagination. People make important decisions based on emotions like these. LOGICAL APPEAL: structure, words and data to support your idea (evidence). It is necessary to use logical appeal in all presentations to convince your audience. Identify the core message of your presentation (your “big idea”) and reinforce it by organizing your speech around it Foster the interest of your audience (highlight the “how?” and “why?”) Introduce your arguments one by one following a planned order, so as to turn your presentation into a story or a journey Use metaphors, analogies and emotions Prepare a few clear examples to support your key points Balance the rational and emotional contents of your presentation depending on the audience you will address (large vs small audience, technical vs broad, etc.) Use a language that your audience can share and understand