When I read the kiddie press chortling and cackling about Joe Biden’s “fumbles”, my mind goes back to the 1974 Canadian election. Pierre Trudeau’s government had fallen in a confidence vote and the country went to the polls. Without doubt, Trudeau was clever and charming and energetic, and all told not a bad Prime Minister….
For the public speaker, props can give wings to your talk. On the other hand, they can sink you like a stone. Props are the icing on the cake. Great icing can’t rescue a bad cake but bad icing can ruin a good cake. However, great icing on a great cake marks the master baker….
You’re not supposed to have “favourite clients”, but if I did, Fred would be high on my list. Fred was actually the barber in the building which contained all the Provincial Courts in Ottawa, and after he cut my hair enough times, became my client. We’re now both retired from our second professions, and we…
Everywhere you turn, somebody is offering “tips and tricks” to do something faster, smarter, cheaper, easier, or whatever. “Little known secrets” is one of my favourite lines, because if they weren’t “little known”, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they? “Tips and tricks” can be enormously helpful to someone who already has a solid grasp of…
You know those funny blobs you first encountered in high school, weird black on white blotches which you were asked to label. “I think that looks like a crow,” you might say, while your best friend would reply, “Don’t be silly, it looks exactly like Abraham Lincoln!” Hermann Rorschach didn’t likely invent the notion of…
Guest article by Lewis S. Eisen If you run a business that has employees or customers, you actually produce a lot of rules. Whether you call them “policies,” “terms and conditions” or simply “instructions,” essentially they are rules for other people to follow, for example, you might send out instructions for preparation or information explaining…
My Dad was an amazing horticulturist, even developing a variety of gladiolus which has been registered. But I am living proof that a green thumb is NOT hereditary. I can kill plants just by looking at them. Nevertheless, when we had to yank out some overgrown, straggly cedar bushes at our front step, I decided…
Before you conclude that this time Norm has really lost it, bear with me for a fun lesson in history, geography, business, and life. It has to do with the unique style of pizza served up in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Now, it’s well known that Nova Scotia has unique ways of doing a lot…
My friend and speaking colleague Mark Gasparotto, former Canadian army colonel, puts it bluntly: “Leadership training is an investment, not an expense.” Having led troops “outside the wire” in Afghanistan, he knows whereof he speaks. He could not be more correct about leadership training, in fact about any developmental exercise which enhances the value and…
In all the literature on communication, there’s not much said about the poker face. Pity. All of us engage in negotiating and in persuasion. Lawyers in particular spend huge amounts of time discussing with counsel opposite potential resolutions to contentious issues, and those engaged in sales (or purchasers) play out their lives in face to…