ARIEL GROUP INTERACT BLOG
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WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP: NEGOTIATING WITH THE INNER CRITIC
Kate Nugent My name is Kate and I have an Inner Critic. Mine is a first cousin to the devil that sits on your shoulder and whispers bad things in your ear. Instead of prompting me to commit devilish acts, however, this devil says bad things about me to me, and at the worst possible [...]
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Happy New Year and Welcome to 2012! Since we spend so much time coaching you around YOUR Presence, we decided to make some PRESolutions of our own for 2012…what’s a PRESolution you ask? A PRESolution is a resolution relating to our PRES Model for Leadership Presence: Present, Reaching Out, Expressive, Self-Knowing. To thank you for [...]
SKYPING WITH PRESENCE: LEADERSHIP FROM YOUR LAPTOP
Chris von Baeyer Several months ago the new virtual global economy caught up with me. An important new business partner based in the UK, with whom I was about to sign a very large contract, suggested that our introductory meeting be on Skype. I was initially surprised, as this technology has always had the connotation [...]
THE PRESENCE OF A (WOMAN) LEADER
Kate Nugent As an Ariel Group Senior Consultant, I have been privileged to lead several Leadership Presence programs for senior and high potential women leaders. I find these gatherings incredible inspiring and challenging; at this point in our history, only 11 chief executives of Fortune 500 companies are women. We’ve come a long way, baby, [...]
SHOULD YOU HAVE A COACH?
Carol Lempert Top Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps have a coach. Winning sports teams like the New York Yankees employ several coaches. World class Opera Singers even hire a vocal coaches. And now we come to find out that a top surgeon has one too. Atul Gawande, writes about his experience of deciding to get [...]
VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP PART II: YOUR LEADERSHIP CREDO
Kate Nugent Recently I was leading a Leading with Presence program for a large biotech company. As I passed through the lobby, I noticed that the company’s values were stenciled on the walls—words and phrases like “Respect,” “Do the Right Thing,” “Quality”, etc., festooned the area in tastefully muted colors. As I continued down the [...]
RETRIEVING PRESENCE
Chris von Baeyer One of the most important principles informing the practice of leadership presence is the concept that we all have a natural presence—fully available to us at all times. This contrasts with the notion that effective presence is something that we have to acquire. Rather, presence, if we want to get “better” at [...]
VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP PART I: STORYTELLING
Kate Nugent Part one of a two-part piece on Values-Based Leadership. Next InterMission: How do you align your personal values with your company’s values? And how do you communicate that connection to your people? Recently there has been much literature and discussion around we as individuals living our personal values (see practically any episode of [...]
LEADING WITHOUT A SCRIPT
Kate Nugent In a former life I was a professional improv comedienne. I performed weekly in clubs, coffeehouses and theaters in major cities and college towns all over the country. If you’ve ever seen “Whose Line is it Anyway?” you know that improv performers come onto a stage with no script, ready to create original [...]
PRESENCE COACHING BEST PRACTICES
Kate Nugent During a Leadership Presence program last week, a participant pulled me aside and said, “This is a totally different kind of training. I’ve been to a lot of trainings but I’ve never had the opportunity to try something, get coaching and then try it again. It feels like it could stick.” That’s no [...]
11th HOUR PRESENTATION TIPS
Rob Salafia While nothing beats thoughtfully planning your presentation in advance and practicing until it’s perfect, you may, occasionally, find yourself in a situation that necessitates putting together your slides on a plane and practicing in the cab ride on the way to your presentation. When this happens, try to fight the instinct to accept [...]
THE THREE (WELL-KEPT) SECRETS OF EMPATHY
Kate Nugent When I bring up the concept of Empathy during our Leading with Presence programs, participants tend to look confused, vexed or uncomfortable. Why? A lot of us think empathy looks like this: we sit across from a direct report who is complaining, grieving, or just needs help and we nod sympathetically and say [...]
A SCHOOLING ON BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
Sean Kavanagh To be, to know or to do–is that the question? The answer might be all three. Clark Aldrich is a renowned education thought leader who designs and builds learning simulation programs for corporations, governments and the military. In his book, Unschooling Rules: 55 Ways to Unlearn What We Know About Schools and Rediscover [...]
THREE STEPS TO EFFECTIVE BUSINESS STORYTELLING
Kate Nugent Kate Nugent is a facilitator, coach, performer and director and our current guest blogger. The number one question I get in the classroom is: What story should I tell? The number two question is Okay, now that I have this personal story that connects with the hearts and minds of my audience – [...]
CREATING ENGAGING PRESENTATIONS: HOP OFF THE MONOTONE MONORAIL
Kate Nugent Kate Nugent is a facilitator, coach, performer, director and—lucky for us—our guest blogger for the month of March! You can read more about her here. You’ve just finished a lengthy presentation. Your audience is filing out of the conference room and a colleague approaches you. “Nice job,” he says. Because you are a [...]
TAKE A DOORWAY MOMENT: BREATHING THROUGH THE BUSINESS DAY
If you’re familiar with the Ariel Group’s PRES model, you’ll remember that the “P” in the model is Being Present. To me, Being Present is the bedrock of executive presence–and fundamental to leadership and life. Henry Ford backs me up. In 1916 he said, “We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present [...]
NOTES FROM THE CLASSROOM: TELL YOUR OWN STORY BEFORE OTHERS TELL IT FOR YOU
Kate Nugent Kate Nugent is a facilitator, coach, performer, director and—lucky for us—our guest blogger for the month of March! You can read more about her here. Years ago I was facilitating a training program around Leadership Presence with participants from different companies all over the country. The program started at 8:30. At 8:35 I [...]
WHEN COMMUNICATION GETS UGLY: POWERING THROUGH A DIFFICULT CONVERSATION
Sean Kavanagh -What do you mean you want us to cut our prices in half? -Why do you continuously shoot down my ideas before hearing me out? -How on earth is the project running that much over budget? -Why did you hire a junior external candidate over me for that position? Ah, business. Just when [...]
TIPS FOR A BETTER PHONE PRESENCE
Sean Kavanagh Picture this: You’re on a phone meeting with a team member who is talking away about something that frankly, you lost track of five minutes ago. At this point you’re gazing out the window, totally transfixed by a guy making his third attempt to back into what is clearly a huge parking spot. [...]
PRESENCE, AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION AND THE WEBINAR
Gabriella Salvatore Richard Richards, our VP of Learning Design, recently delivered a webinar on behalf of eCornell and Training Magazine. The title of it was Capturing the DNA: A Practical Approach for Keeping Leadership Alive Across the Generations. Participating in it left me thinking about how we build authentic connections with each other when the [...]
STORYTELLING: “A STORY OF SELF, A STORY OF US, AND A STORY OF NOW
Richard Richards I watched the documentary, Budrus the other night—a story about an on-going non-violent protest movement on the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. I have lived in a number of countries in the Middle East and worked in Jerusalem, specifically in Mount Scopus one of the demilitarized “no man’s land” zones established in [...]
PRESENCE: THE GREAT DIFFERENTIATOR
Chris von Baeyer One of the strangest ironies of modern life is the fact that, in a world of instant access to information, the place where one moves the fastest is also consistently the one place where it is impossible to get online; that is, in the air. Flying along at 500 miles an hour, [...]
HAPPINESS: YET ANOTHER REASON TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
Sean Kavanagh A friend of mine recently turned me on to a great story in The Atlantic entitled “What Makes Us Happy?” It is based on the Grant Study, a 72-year longitudinal study at Harvard University of 286 men who started college in 1937. The study follows these men from birth to old age, through [...]
360 DEGREES OF POTENTIAL: WHAT LEADERSHIP CAN LEARN FROM MOVEMENT
Gabriella Salvatore Last week, Richard Richards, Ariel’s VP of Learning Design, asked us in this very same blog to consider the point of Leadership Presence and challenged us to consider why we should bother caring about it. The arguments put forth as to why we should care had to do with what Presence gives us [...]
LEADERSHIP PRESENCE: WHAT’S THE POINT?
Richard Richards A recurring theme throughout our recent strategy meetings has been a quest to explore why Leadership Presence is important in business and why our clients and participants should care. This is a valid question— -What IS the point of Leadership Presence? -And why SHOULD you care? A Tiny Sampling of the Nearly Infinite [...]
SHAKING THINGS UP: BEHAVIOR CHANGE, EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AND A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD
Chris Webb I was at the Chief Learning Officer Breakfast Session in Boston last week and one of the speakers, Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti from the University of Phoenix said something very interesting. She told us the brain has seventy thousand thoughts a day. I heard a similar fact on NPR but they added that 90% [...]
DIALOGUE WITH A DRAGON: MANAGING PRESENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Chris von Baeyer I have spent the last fifteen years coaching executives, managers, leaders and administrators to “show up and choose to be present” (to quote anthropologist Angeles Arrien) in their personal and professional communication with others in the workplace. For fifteen years before that, as a professional actor, I myself practiced the art of [...]
THE LEADERSHIP PRESENCE ASSESSMENT: BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
Sean Kavanagh If you’ve attended one of our workshops, read this blog or checked out our InterMission newsletter, you’ll be familiar with the concept of Leadership Presence. But how do you know you have it? Are you able to communicate on an intellectual and emotional level? How present are you with your team, your boss [...]
BACK TO OUR ROOTS PART II: THE ARIEL GROUP AND CO-CREATION
Richard Richards “We are participants in the unfolding and becoming of those with whom we work; it is through them that we unfold and emerge.” Allan Kaplan in Development Practitioners and Social Process: Artists of the Invisible I am constantly reminded that so much of what we do, whether as artists, designers, innovators or leaders, [...]
ARIEL INTERMISSION: MANAGING CLIENT RELATIONS: JUST BE WITH THEM
Gabriella Salvatore Expressiveness, one of the four components of “Presence” seems, at first, like the most needed skill for salespeople. People expect salespeople to be personable, persuasive and energetic, all worthy skills but not enough by themselves. It is the more subtle elements of Presence; simply being Present and Reaching Out by showing empathy that [...]
AUTHENTICITY, SIMULATION AND LEARNING: BRINGING BUSINESS CASE STUDIES ALIVE THROUGH THEATRE
Chris von Baeyer Last week we were invited to a global conference in Paris for 100 high potential young executives at an international strategic consulting firm. Our assignment: design and deliver a learning program to increase the firm’s skills associated with building authentic relationship and trust with senior clients. The catch? Deliver the entire program [...]
TO COACH OR NOT TO COACH?
Margie Zohn Over the years I have delivered an Ariel Group program which teaches coaching skills to managers. Somewhere in the middle of the program, like clockwork, I hear this: “You know, this is great stuff…and I’d personally love to report to someone who uses these skills….but honestly, I just don’t have time to coach.” [...]
“PROFIT IS OXYGEN”: CASH VS. VISION IN SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONS
Gabriella Salvatore Cash or Vision? Cash AND Vision? I am sitting in my boss’ living room, at a total loss. I’ve just finished graduate school and I am completely certain that the degree I invested in will lead me to a career I can’t commit to. “What next?” I keep asking myself, “If I take [...]
THE (INTERNAL) “GLOBAL MINDSET”
Chris Webb Every month as part of my management strategy, I have my direct reports read an industry article and report out what they learned. I also read the article so we can engage in a meaningful conversation. Recently one of them read an article in the June 2010 Chief Learning Officer Magazine called “The [...]
BACK TO OUR ROOTS: THE ARIEL GROUP, ACTING & AUTHENTICITY
Richard Richards Richard Richards on acting, authenticity and reconnecting with the Ariel Group mission. When I joined The Ariel Group, I inherited much of what we deliver today in the classroom – and I was lucky to inherit such great designs and thoughtful workmanship. Since then I’ve been caught up with all the important organizational [...]
THE ACCIDENTAL HAIRY EYEBALL & OTHER PERSONAL PRESENCE DANGERS
Many leaders and managers are conscious of their personal presence when they are presenting or speaking 1 to 1 but may be unaware of how their personal presence impacts co-workers and direct reports when they are “off-stage.” We all know about non-verbal communication and how important it is. There have been studies. Blogs. Trainings. Maybe [...]
ARIEL INTERMISSION: LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM GREAT ACTORS
Kate Nugent When I ask participants in our Leading with Presence program, “Who is the actor or actress who most moves you or engages you?” three names inevitably come up: Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep and Al Pacino. DeNiro is famous for his preparation (remember Raging Bull?), and so are Streep and Pacino. They all come [...]
FROM THE BEACH TO THE OFFICE: THREE LEADERSHIP LESSONS
Chris von Baeyer As we return from summer holidays to leadership and management roles within our organizations, we may have new insights and discoveries about ourselves, our relationships and, indeed, our presence that will have real value to the people we serve. For myself, spending “quality time” with my wife and son, as well as [...]
ON EMPATHY, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND LEADERSHIP
At the very core of The Ariel Group’s mission is our determination to help leaders establish “enduring improvements in their ability to connect with others.” We know that it is impossible to succeed in this goal unless we can heighten our empathic qualities. But what do we mean when we speak of “empathy”? How is [...]
ARIEL INTERMISSION: NEVER MIND THE ECONOMY. HOW ARE YOU RECOVERING?
Carol Lempert In our workshops we ask participants to help us generate a list of the skills of the actor. The list often includes the following: -Letting go of mistakes/ Dealing with nerves -Recovering gracefully and moving on -Improvising / Thinking on one’s feet -Self-confidence -Empathy / Understanding another person’s point of view -Being expressive [...]
LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP
Gabriella Salvatore As some of you may know, I am the newest member of the Ariel Group Executive Team. I have spent the last 15 years focused on how to leverage relationship management skills (negotiation, communication, coaching, managing change, influence) for better business results. As I turn my attention to building on this base of [...]
INNOVATION & THE NON-CONFORMING MIND
Richard Richards “All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom.” –H. G. Rickover* And therein lies a challenge for many of today’s business organizations: 1. How to develop non-conforming minds (i.e. minds that think outside the box) and then 2. How can a leader create the space [...]
ARIEL INTERMISSION: THE GOOD BOSS MODEL: PCIR
Sean Kavanagh From a distance Peg could seem a little severe and stern. She managed five production editors who produced a total of 150 professional journals. It was a high-pressure, deadline-driven environment and emotions could often run high. Debra, a reliable and high-output editor was about to get married, and the pressure of looming publication [...]
ARIEL INTERMISSION: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON EMPATHY AND LEADERSHIP PRESENCE
Gabriella Salvatore I want to take an opportunity to introduce you to the newest member of the Ariel ensemble, Gabriella Salvatore. Gabriella is joining us as VP of Client Solutions. In that capacity she will be partnering with our clients to map their business needs to our learning solutions. I had the opportunity to sit [...]
THREE PERSPECTIVES: THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Sean Kavanagh Within the past 24 hours I stumbled across three interesting perspectives on Leadership in today’s world; each with a common thread but a slightly different idea about what to do about it. The common thread may not be surprising. The world we live in is a complex, volatile and fragile interconnected system. The [...]
BEHAVIOR CHANGE THROUGH DAY-TO-DAY LEARNING
Sean Kavanagh “Learning is a Day-to-Day Activity.” I’m quoting Gabriella Salvatore here from her article of the same name in the July issue of Chief Learning Officer Magazine. I’m quoting her not only because she has interesting things to say but because on July 21, 2010 Gabriella will join the Executive Team of The Ariel [...]
THE STORYTELLING EQUATION
Sean Kavanagh I heard an engineer talk about storytelling once. This man was the classic “engineer type,” somewhat reserved, wore glasses and sensible shoes. If slide rules still existed, he’d have one on his belt. For his entire professional life he focused on getting things right by making sure his data was correct. “If I [...]
PREEMPTIVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Sean Kavanagh An improving economy calls for better Leadership Presence…that is, if you want your employees to stay. The good news: The economy is slowly coming back. The bad news: “I quit” are two words that are increasingly heard these days. A recent Wall Street Journal story stated that as the economy improves, the number [...]
DELEGATING WITH PRESENCE
Carol Lempert Blackberries buzzing. E-mails arriving. Colleagues and staff asking for your input on their projects. Leaders in our workshops often tell us that they wish they could manage their time more effectively. But how? Why not delegate…with presence? Good leaders don’t “dump” their work on people. They delegate in a way that makes the [...]
INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS: CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
Sean Kavanagh I had occasion to hear Jim Kouzes speak recently, author (with Barry Posner), of The Leadership Challenge. If you’ve never read their work, their research reinforces many truths about leadership that we all feel in our gut and also presents some surprising conclusions that we should pay closer attention to. One conclusion that [...]
TIPS FOR CREATING A SAFE AND INVITING WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT
Victor Barbella Actor/facilitator Victor Barbella shares his top tips for creating a safer, more inviting work environment. Business leaders often speak about the enhanced expressiveness, connectedness and leadership style gained during Ariel training. The creation of a clear and present safe space allows this to happen. By safe I mean an environment that encourages new [...]
A QUESTION OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Margie Zohn Performer/Coach Margie Zohn describes how a question isn’t always just a question… Once I was asked to observe the leadership team of a small advertising firm in order to help them improve their meeting process. Their meetings had been lackluster and frustrating and they were not sure exactly why. I asked the CEO [...]
PRESENTING WITH PRESENCE: ESCAPE FROM KEYBOARD JAIL
Jeffrey Korn Presenting with Presence: Actor/Facilitator Jeff Korn describes how to get out from behind your laptop and own the entire room. “I need to connect with my audience – but I can’t seem to get unstuck from my computer!” This recent coaching client was a seasoned presenter – with a real passion for his [...]
GROUP SPEAKING SKILLS 101: SPEAK UP!
Carol Lempert Have you been encouraged to “speak up” more often in group situations? Actress/Executive Coach Carol Lempert shares some best practices on how to do just that… An area that people often confess to needing help with is ‘speaking up’ in groups. Participants and Coachees tell me that they are comfortable one on one, [...]
COMMUNICATION SKILLS 101: SPEAK UP!
Carol Lempert Have you been encouraged to “speak up” more often in group situations? Actress/Executive Coach Carol Lempert shares some best practices on how to do just that… An area that people often confess to needing help with is ‘speaking up’ in groups. Participants and Coachees tell me that they are comfortable one on one, [...]
STORYTELLING TIPS & THE IRISH TRADITION
Sean Kavanagh Nevermind the green beer– tell a story this St. Patrick’s Day! Saint Patrick’s Day is coming. Wear a shamrock and quaff a green beer if you must, but if you really want to honor the Irish, tell a good story. My father, a second generation Irish immigrant, was a gifted and often hilarious [...]
LISTENING SKILLS FOR RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Sean Kavanagh My New Year’s PRESolution from earlier this month was to listen more effectively and to focus on the subtext behind the words. I think I’m doing OK so far (ask my colleagues!) but I still need to remind myself before every interaction. Listening is not easy…it is a discipline that must be practiced. [...]
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
All of us at The Ariel Group would like to wish our friends and clients a prosperous, safe and happy 2010! Special thanks to Anna Kane and Nick Freiburghouse from Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts for shooting and editing!
THE HOLIDAY PARTY
Sean Kavanagh “What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson The Holidays, with office parties, neighborhood get-togethers and various seasonal soirees, is a great time to both observe and practice your Personal Presence (how you project your presence through vocal and physical expressiveness). We aren’t talking about just [...]
