Category Archives: Persuasion and Influence

Openness and Clarity are Overrated: an Interview with Professor Eric Eisenberg (Part 1)

In the mid-1980s, a young communications scholar, Eric Eisenberg, published what would become a highly influential paper, “Ambiguity as Strategy in Organizational Communications.” In it, he argued against the then prevailing view inside and outside of academia that clarity and … Continue reading

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2 Reasons to Use Numbers in Your Titles; and 2 Reasons to Ignore Anyone Who Does.

As I’m sure many of you do, I get feeds from web-based business news aggregators, like SmartBrief.  What you get on a daily basis is an email with a bunch of headlines and links.  If the headline is sufficiently compelling, … Continue reading

Posted in Communication and Cognition, Communication Media, Persuasion and Influence | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Lessons from “Three Non-Leadership Lessons from the Life of Steve Jobs”

The last Strategic Leadership Communication blog entry, “Three Non-Leadership Lessons from the Life of Steve Jobs,” generated more comments than any other entry yet – mostly positive and most sent as personal notes to me. A couple of resulting observations: … Continue reading

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Three Non-Leadership Lessons from the Life of Steve Jobs

The untimely death of Steve Jobs, amidst the astonishing success of Apple, resulted in an enormous, effusive and understandable outpouring of worshipful praise for him and for his leadership. He was celebrated for his genius by the Technorati, mourned around-the-world … Continue reading

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Getting in Touch with Reality: Three Simple Suggestions for CEOs Who Want to Connect with their Front Line

In the last entry of Strategic Leadership Communication, we pointed out something probably self-evident already, and aptly demonstrated by the show Undercover Boss: those at the top are out of touch with the reality of those on the front lines. … Continue reading

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The Best Ideas Don’t Win, The Best Advocates Do: An Interview With John Daly, Author of Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Results (Part 4)

John Daly, one of the world’s leading communication experts, is the Liddell Centennial Professor of Communication, TCB Professor of Management and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. In Part 1 of the interview, we discussed why … Continue reading

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The Best Ideas Don’t Win, The Best Advocates Do: An Interview With John Daly, Author of “Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Results” (Part 3)

John Daly, one of the world’s leading communication experts, is the Liddell Centennial Professor of Communication, TCB Professor of Management and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. In Part 1 of the interview, we discussed why … Continue reading

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The Best Ideas Don’t Win, the Best Advocates Do: An Interview with John Daly, Author of “Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Results” (Part 2)

John Daly, one of the world’s leading communication experts, is the Liddell Centennial Professor of Communication, TCB Professor of Management and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. In Part 1 of the interview, we discussed why … Continue reading

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The Best Ideas Don’t Win, the Best Advocates Do: An interview with John Daly, Author of “Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Results” (1)

John Daly, one of the world’s leading communication experts, is the Liddell Centennial Professor of Communication, TCB Professor of Management, and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. Daly is the author of numerous books and over … Continue reading

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Power and Persuasion: A CEO Responds

My last entry, “Power and Persuasion: Friends or Foes? (Part 2),” cited evidence that the “subjective experience of power” tended to result in what researcher Leigh Plunkett Tost of Duke University called the “power-induced neglect of the judgments of others.”[1] … Continue reading

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