Successful Workplace

Once again, the pitfalls of using social media rears it’s head and someone pays the price. This time it’s not an internal department falling asleep at the wheel a la Burger King when it was hacked but something a little more worrying. Paris Brown is Britain’s first youth police and crime commissioner, a position she […]

In 2008, I founded Storyleaders to create a more relevant, more effective way to help salespeople.  Along the way, I’ve discovered some things I never would have imagined. Yesterday, I had a sales call with a VP sales. I’d never met Adam before; he was a referral. I guess he knew a little about Storyleaders, […]

This guest post was contributed by Clare Jeeves. Airlines are usually at the mercy of our acid tongues when it all goes wrong and the flight is delayed. However it is a rare thing to read about when they get it right, and in United Airlines case when they go more than the extra mile […]

David Bowie releases his new album, The Next Day, this week. I’ve not had a chance to listen to it yet but the title itself was provocative enough for this post. The disciplines of Big Data and real-time predictive analytics present organizations with the ability to understand behaviour at a relentless pace and also predict […]

LinkedIn is running another INfluencer series called “Best Advice I ever received” so here at SuccessfulWorkplace we’re doing the same. I wrote a piece about how being a rebel meant more in business than being a subject matter expert. Despite comments to the contrary I stand by it, I do after all have a career […]

The NY Times is under attack on multiple levels, which isn’t all the newsworthy in itself. What is remarkable is the way this ‘story about a story’ is playing out in the age of social media and empowered people. Owners join the fight Today, seven Tesla S owners set out to recreate the test drive […]

Holidays are a fantastic time to get together with the people that you just somehow lost touch with during the year. We’ve been doing exactly that in a very intentional way. Today, however, was a special opportunity to have pizza at Mama’s in South Pasadena with Jon Dephouse, a friend who was diagnosed with a […]

Last week, the New York Times broke new ground on the Internet without a great deal of fanfare. Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek came out as a serial novel, a pattern from the days of Dickens and Hugo. This was no simple story of tragedy or triumph. It started with a video, complete […]

It’s funny how no matter how much times change, many things stay the same…or quickly return to established norms. Marketing has gone through a significant revolution over the past ten years as the Web matured and then social media arrived. But just as before our interconnected days, has settled into a groove of ‘safe’ targets […]

I just read Daniel Goleman’s piece on storytelling & leadership. I thought about all my own lessons learned as a sales manager; and how easy it was for me to stop doing the things that served me well as a salesperson, when I became a manager. You know those times in life where you catch […]

I’ve been thinking about my WHY a lot lately. I met Simon Sinek, the ‘why guy’, a couple of weeks ago.  And I was super excited to meet him, but right before hand, got really nervous. See, a few days earlier, I watched another one of his talks, but in this clip, he was calling […]

I was always curious how some people, the very few, get others to open up and reveal themselves, while the majority of us struggle.  The sales training industry has given us the ‘diagnose/prescribe’ model, as a way to get other human beings to open up. But does it? Maybe it’s not about diagnosing/prescribing?  What if […]

I read a blog posting this morning in HBR on ‘Change Leadership‘.  It was basically: “Here are the 10 bullet points you leaders must know on how to affect change below you…” Really?!? I’m 41.  I spent the first 15 years of my career being “below”: just doing, trying to get ahead: get promoted, head-down ‘just doing‘; […]

On Monday night, Brene Brown spoke at my daughter’s school in front of about 300 parents, faculty & staff. I was so excited going into the evening… I’m gonna have a chance to hear her speak live, plus I’d be able to meet her in person. Her talk was awesome. It was all about vulnerability, shame, […]

How is it that we all missed the boat all these years on what’s important? Our most basic human need is to connect with each other; to connect with our ideas and beliefs. Isn’t that something that we, in the sales profession, should strive for? My personal story I was never given permission to go […]

I just read an article from Neuromarketing and it reminded me of the research I did when I wrote my book, What Great Salespeople Do. As part of my research, I wanted to know how other professions understood influence and persuasion. I didn’t believe that we in Corporate America, especially in mainstream corporate training departments, had cracked […]