During the recent National Football Association Hall of Fame ceremonies, I had an opportunity to listen to many heart-felt, insightful, and funny speeches from football greats of today and yesterday. Nearly all were poignant, powerful, and passionate. However, one speech stood out because of the tedious introduction that preceded it. This introduction turned attention away from honoring the inductee and instead focused more on the speaker giving the introduction. Things grew even more uncomfortable, as the introduction speech turned out to be twice as long as the award winner’s speech. I could see the audience members grow weary of this long winded introduction, as it sapped all the energy from the ceremony. Before the hall of fame inductee even said the first word of his speech, the audience was drained and had to be won all over again. Do not let this happen to you the next time you need to introduce a fellow colleague, honored guest, or key note speaker.

-Enhancing Cross-Cultural Communication and Understanding

The concept of high/low context culture originated primarily from anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s 1976 book: Beyond Culture. He defined and compared many cultures, finally determining there was a striking difference in the “context” of each culture’s communication. A culture is considered high context when people communicate with hierarchical messages rather than generalized statements. Another difference he detected was that the language used within a high context culture is catered to an “in-group”. Communication within an “in-group” is far less explicit, when compared to communication in a low context culture, which is not exclusive in its construction. When only one or two words can infer a wealth of certain meanings and expectations we are operating at the height of high context cultural communication.

My baby girl Summer is now rapidly approaching her first birthday. She is beginning to say her first words, pull herself up on furniture and loves to be read to. I have never really spent much time with children before and I never really wanted to either. That all changes, of course, when you become a parent and suddenly you feel those first sounds, gestures and smiles to be tugging at your heart strings. It has been quite an adventure bringing her up so far and although it is wonderful to be a father, it is not always the smoothest ride. There are times when she cries and cries and one just does not know what to do. Sometimes she gets sick and is in pain, no matter how many trips to the doctor we take. And sometimes it seems almost impossible to get her to sleep. It is with this in mind that I have been thinking about the lessons I am learning as a Dad and how these can be applied in both my training and work life.

- Change Management Strategies for Success

Change Management is something we have all been hearing a lot about lately. Why the sudden interest? Companies have been buying out other companies for decades. M&A activities are a given in the global economy. Companies ramp-up or ramp-down their workforces according to the business environment and their own successes or failures. New management teams replace old teams. Why then is Change Management such an important business topic today?