The Quantified Communications Blog

For many leaders, thought leaders, and experts, public speaking is an attractive opportunity to both share expertise and create an additional revenue stream. So how can you get started? Unfortunately, there’s no clear, one-size-fits-all process for breaking into the business. However, there are a few strategies you can take to build your personal brand and your network that will help you open doors to paid speaking gigs (and other opportunities, as well).

In case you hadn’t heard, 2020 is an election year. And that means we’ll be inundated with political news from all sides (as if we hadn’t been already). But in this “post-truth” world of fake news and alternative facts, how can we ensure that what we’re reading, believing, and sharing leading up to the election is real news?

Where has the year gone? It seems like just yesterday we were gearing up for 2019, and now here we are, getting ready to ring in 2020 and a new decade.

This past year, many of our discussions have been around planning for “the future of work” and how technology will transform the way businesses operate, the way leaders steer the ship, and the capabilities employees and aspiring leaders need to support their brands and build their careers. All this talk of disruption can certainly be anxiety inducing, but when companies get ahead of it, leveraging innovations in technology and performance science to prepare for the next iterations of business, they can establish serious advantages that propel significant growth in 2020 and beyond.

In the last couple of decades, leadership development has undergone drastic transformation. From the physical universities like GE Crotonville and Accenture St. Charles to virtual, e-learning software platforms to bite-sized MOOCs from platforms like Lynda.com and even YouTube, L&D has been desperately seeking a structure that both fits into employees’ schedules and enables lasting improvement.

Last month, I had the honor of speaking at the Professional Speechwriters Association’s 2019 World Conference in Washington, D.C. The theme of this year’s conference was “Leadership Communication: Next,” and the program promised to shake up attendees’ ideas of executive communication best practices and challenge us to think more deeply about time-tested techniques.

And boy did executive director David Murray and my fellow speakers deliver. Here are four of my favorite takeaways from the conference.

These days, it seems like once a week, some public figure or another is making a controversial statement that’s met by many with demands for apologies and/or consequences. And general consensus would argue that, when a leader—corporate, political, or otherwise—realizes he or she has made an insensitive statement, a sincere apology is in order to save face, demonstrate character and make peace with the public. But recent research shows that, following a gaffe, apologizing might not be the right way to go.

When we talk about leadership capabilities, we often talk about book smarts, or IQ. “He’s a sharp guy.” “She’s got a mind for business.” But there’s another kind of intelligence that we don’t emphasize nearly as much, and in many ways, it’s even more important than IQ.

Last week, Katie Kuehner-Hebert of Chief Executive published an article outlining what makes JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon the leader of the US financial pack. She gave an overview of Dimon’s career and leadership experience, but celebrated his candor as one of his chief assets, citing his top spot in Quantified’s 2017 CEO Authenticity Index as evidence.

At the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Leadership Communication Council last month, the headline was this: “Social media, digital communication and technology-enabled connection have created an era of radical—sometimes painful—transparency for businesses,” and “…the best means to communicate successfully given the disruptive state of constant transparency is to align communication with action.”

Do you remember a time, as a kid, when you wanted to ask your parents for something—a new toy, a raise in your allowance, a dog? How did you go about it? Did you just come right out and ask, or did you spend time preparing your arguments, collecting your reasoning, and maybe even making a visual presentation? Did you debate with yourself whether to ask your parents together or individually? Who did you ask first?