A bi-weekly roundup of mad-->argue-->sad-->move on October 19 - November 1 Talk About Change!I recently delivered a full day training on Change Management and a good third of it was about communication. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kübler-Ross Change Curve, think about the last time that someone broke up with you: first you get emotional, then you rationalize how much better you are off without that person, then you eat a whole pizza and cry a little bit while watching Moana, and eventually you move on in life. A tale as old as time. Organizationally, though, this emotional rollercoaster is what happens to your people when you announce a new strategy, restructure a budget, promote one person over another, lose a client, etc. mad-->argue-->sad-->move on Communication happens at all of these stages, but how you communicate needs to adapt. For example, when someone is just hearing news about a change (The Thrill), you have to take their reactions with a grain of salt. They're having an emotional reaction: SHOCK. Denial. Anger! If you take their responses at face value, you might start walking a road that two hours later would look very different. Being able to reduce the magnitude of someone's emotional reaction during this phase will make it less traumatic for them and less difficult for you to get them to move through the change curve. The longer they grind their axe about how bad the change is, the longer that they drag their feet in pivoting to the new normal. Or in other words: if you break bad news effectively, then your people can change more effectively I'm partnering with the American Marketing Association (AMA) to run a workshop on November 14th on two communication techniques (pre-mortems and retrospectives) that helps you communicate change more effectively, as well as a host of other benefits like delivering better results and fostering team trust. I'll be bringing in a real-life agency professional, Stephanie Torres, to talk about how those practices have actually played out at her agency. Free webinar! Real skills! Real examples! Come and join us!
A TL;DR from the CROAre you telling me that The Thrill is NOT about throwing frisbees, thrillingly? -Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer New Blog Post- How to Prioritize Your Strategic GoalsDo you have difficulty saying NO to the really cool but not-that-relevant-to-your-business thing? *cough cough the newest AI thing Stop wasting time and money on fleeting trends! Learn how to laser-focus your strategy and achieve real results with these 3 powerful techniques.
ROCK TUMBLING UPDATE I've finally tumbled through ALL my rocks, or at least the ones I've specifically picked out and ordered from The Rock Shed. Protip: If you were thinking of getting your hands on consistently sized and packaged rocks, then the Rock Shed is the place to go. I know this is a real problem that you think about a lot. I'm trying to decide what my next batch of tumbled stones should be: do I go classic with the Rose Quartz or try something edgy like Coquina Jasper? Or bring back an oldie-but-goodie, the Amethyst? These are the kind of hard choices that they don't teach you how to solve at business school. Caught between a rock and a rock, Dan from Learn to Scale Opt-out from the newsletter | Unsubscribe from all emails | Update your Preferences | www.learntoscale.us, Boston, MA 02119 PS. Roll around with this short nature documentary on the chubby roly-poly Spheal |
Entrepreneur, Professional Learner, & Proud Failure. Writes about sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship from the eyes of a learning and development nerd. Lead teams, manage people, scale a business, and learn better through the biweekly irreverent newsletter, the TL;DR.
A bi-weekly roundup of quietly suppressed opinions October 4 - October 17 What If Your Slack Got Wikileaked? Picture this: imagine that whatever you and your team use for private communication (Slack, Teams, long rambling email threads, texts, etc.) became public knowledge. And when I mean public, I don't only mean to other internal team members, but also clients, prospects, job candidates, etc. Yes, even Charlie. He's...horrified. And hurt. That mental image that's giving you the willies is...
Hey Reader, For six years, I’ve been a founder. The journey has been a winding road of trial, error, and a whole lot of learning. I’ve sold to HR departments, consulted for startups, and chased opportunities across different industries, always feeling like I was just one step away from "figuring it out." I was a generalist trying to solve everyone's problems. And it was exhausting. But looking back, a clear pattern emerged. Every time I did my best work, every time a client had a true...
A bi-weekly roundup of insights from six years of failure September 20 - October 3 Stitching A New Birthday Suit Next week, Learn to Scale turns six years old. I've been a professional failure for almost six years. I don't know about you, but birthdays make me reflective. It's a special event that connects you to previous versions of yourself: the person who used to believe one thing is the same person that you are today, but you've changed what you believe. And every year, the Dan from...