Category Archives: Organizational communication

A book for resolve: Change or Die

Change or Die by Alan Deutschman was referred to me by a physician who is using its ideas to help her patients make life changes (thanks, Deb). It was an ideal read to usher in a new year, a new decade and a new phase in my career. Many of the change ideas were familiar to [...]
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Book review: Must-read for job seekers

In her new book Tell Me About Yourself, Katharine Hansen provides actionable advice for incorporating storytelling in cover letters, resumes, job interviews, and conversations with the boss. As someone who is on the hiring end of the equation, I can vouch for the effectiveness of strategic storytelling (see my posts, What I look for in [...]
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Great ideas for improving meetings

Lencioni, P. (2004). Death by Meeting. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. When you stop to think of the resources an organization invests in meetings, you realize what a tremendous return is needed to justify them. Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the conduct of a meeting and this valuable tool is largely wasted. Lencioni’s fictional leadership [...]
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Is storytelling the “sixth discipline?”

Denning, S. (2005). The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. As a knowledge management leader at the World Bank, Denning gained influence by gathering and using the organization’s success stories. He went on to study the historical and anthropological roots of storytelling and he joined a storyteller group. The result is a scholarly analysis [...]
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Quantum physics meets dialogue

Bohm, D. & Nichol, L. (Ed). (1996). On Dialogue. New York: Routledge. During his career as a theoretical physicist, David Bohm’s writings and lectures took side trips into dialogue and collective thought. In this book, editor Lee Nichol compiles Bohm’s ideas to suggest a coherent theory of co-creation of meaning. There is a flavor of [...]
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My favorite org comm book

Clampitt, P.G. (2004). Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Clampitt suggests that effective communication is like dance, with partners passing messages back and forth, learning about each other and co-creating meaning. It is an ongoing process, rather than definitive episodes of message transmission and receiving. If a leader understands communication in this way, [...]
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