Evidence and Its Presentation
More evidence is frequently worse. Volume signals anxiety, invites methodological argument, and buries the two figures that would have decided the matter.
Read →Idaho leadership
Leadership Lessons
Practical leadership lessons from experienced Idahoans across the state's industries, institutions, and communities — guidance you can apply in your own work.
Making a Case
Persuasion is structured argument addressed to somebody else's criteria. Enthusiasm persuades nobody who is not already inclined, and the case that works is usually built around…
Read →When the Institution Should Say Nothing
There are four legitimate reasons for an organization to stay silent. There are considerably more common illegitimate ones, and they are easy to mistake for the…
Read →Public Meetings and Open Records
Serving on a public body changes what communication is. Deliberation belongs in the room, the record is the institution's memory, and the traps catch conscientious people…
Read →The Statement
A statement that closes a subject and one that extends it are built differently. The difference is whether it contains anything a reader can argue with,…
Read →Message Consistency Across People and Time
An organization that contradicts itself is assumed to be concealing something, and the assumption is usually wrong. Most inconsistency is drift, and drift is a design…
Read →Speaking for an Organization
The shift from your view to the institution's position is a real change in what you are permitted to say. Leaders who never make it stay…
Read →The Skip-Level Conversation
Thirty minutes with someone two levels down, run on a fixed rotation, with rules that keep it from undermining the manager in between. Format, questions, and…
Read →Hearing Bad News Well
The person telling you has already decided it was worth the risk. What you do in the following minute sets the price for everyone who hears…
Read →What Silence Means
A quiet room is reporting something, and the four things it might be reporting call for opposite responses. Reading it as agreement is the default and…
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