Finally: A Guide To Having The Most Difficult Conversation In America

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Race conversations are the worst. I haven’t seen any polling confirming this, but there’s a chance that they have a lower approval rating than Congress. Check out one approach that will definitely make you laugh and might just make the whole thing a lot easier. 

Race conversations are the worst. I haven’t seen any polling confirming this, but there’s a chance that they have a lower approval rating than Congress. Check out one approach that will definitely make you laugh and might just make the whole thing a lot easier. 

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Why Your Choice Of Snack Food Is An Important Part Of International Relations

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According to Israeli artist Noam Edry, Israelis and Arabs never disagree about their mutual love for sunflower seeds. Edry decided to bring people from Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan together to chew through 10 tons of seeds. Check out the pictures from some of the “chews,” and watch the video at the bottom to see how she started the “Seeds of Bliss” project and what some of the chewing sessions were like. Don’t miss the adorable speed-chewer at 3:34! 

According to Israeli artist Noam Edry, Israelis and Arabs never disagree about their mutual love for sunflower seeds. Edry decided to bring people from Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan together to chew through 10 tons of seeds. Check out the pictures from some of the “chews,” and watch the video at the bottom to see how she started the “Seeds of Bliss” project and what some of the chewing sessions were like. Don’t miss the adorable speed-chewer at 3:34! 

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10-year prison term imposed in cold case murder of Westfield woman

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The Star-LedgerCarlton Franklin, left, now 52 years old, is charged with the 1976 killing of Lena Triano, right. Both are pictured in their high school yearbooks — Franklin from 1979 and Triano from 1937. Franklin was sentenced to 10 years for the murder today.

ELIZABETH — Saying he wanted to impose a stiffer jail term but was unable to because of changes in the law, a Superior Court judge today sentenced a 52-year-old man to serve 10 years for the 1976 murder of a Westfield woman who was killed when the defendant was 15.

“If I were permitted, I would have imposed a longer sentence,” Judge Robert Kirsch said at the end of Carlton Franklin’s lengthy hearing.

Franklin was arrested last April after investigators used DNA evidence to crack the decades-old murder of Lena Triano, 57, a secretary who was found raped, tied up stabbed and beaten in her home in March 1976.

Because of his age at the time of the murder, Franklin was tried under juvenile laws that existed in 1976. After a five-day non-jury trial last December, Kirsch found Franklin guilty of felony murder.

Prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence, the maximum allowed for a juvenile in the 1970s. But Kirsch said laws were changed in 1983, establishing a 10-year maximum penalty for juveniles.

He cited subsequent rulings in both state and federal cases stating that the more recent penalties should be applied.

During today’s hearing in Elizabeth, Kirsch “invited review” of his decision by a higher court. Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said he would appeal.

Defense attorney Edward Busichio asked that Franklin be sentenced to the 304 days he has already served, a motion the judge flatly rejected.

Busichio said after the hearing that state juvenile laws carry no mandatory minimum sentence, but juveniles receiving 10-year penalties commonly serve just three or four years. He noted that Franklin will also be given credit for time served and length of his sentence will be decided by the parole board.

“For him to serve the 10 years would be highly unlikely,” Busichio said.

Earlier this week, Union County Assistant Prosecutor Bruce Holmes filed a motion calling for an extended penalty that would add five years to the sentence based on crimes Franklin committed as an adult, but Kirsch rejected the motion, said the crimes failed to meet the criteria for the additional time.

Before the sentence was announced, Franklin admitted he had made mistakes in his life apologized for them. He did not make any reference to the murder.

Kirsch said Franklin had never taken responsibility for the murder and that he denied “any vestige of compassion or mercy for Ms. Triano.”

Romankow said the Franklin case had been “complicated.”

“We feel Mr. Franklin should be sentenced to an indeterminate term of not exceeding life, in accordance with the terms that applied when the crime occurred. We will appeal the ruling,” he said.

Triano, who lived alone on Ripley Place in Westfield, was found facedown on her bed. She had been raped, stabbed and strangled with a cord from her bedroom blinds. She was tied with cables cut from appliances in her kitchen. The back door to her house, which investigators say was usually left unlocked, was locked and the key was missing.

At the time of Triano’s death, Franklin was living with his family on Stirling Place and his backyard abutted hers. Franklin has denied knowing Triano but his semen was found on her clothing and body, according to testimony taken during the trial.

Franklin, who was working as an oil truck driver at the time of his arrest, had had served 17 years in prison for kidnapping and robbery.

But Busichio said his client was living a productive life since being released from prison in 1999.

The Triano case lay dormant for nearly four decades until detectives with the Union County Homicide Task Force unearthed the forensic evidence on her clothing they say implicated Franklin.

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• Guilty verdict handed down in Westfield cold case murder trial

• Cold case arrest: N.J. man accused of involvement in 1976 rape, murder of Westfield woman

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How Can Leaders Successfully Communicate and Implement Change?

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A Q&A with CEO Mark Murphy

Q: You cite a Harvard Business School study that found 70% of change efforts fail. Were these big or small changes?

MM: The study wasn’t specific to big, mammoth change efforts like reinventing a business model. These were small change efforts. But big or small, most change efforts seem to run into the same brick walls over and over again, and leaders reacted predictably badly 70% of the time.

And it’s actually more serious than that, because not only did the majority of change efforts fail, the failures also threatened to take down the leaders that tried to lead them. A Leadership IQ study found that mismanaging change is actually the number one reason why CEOs get fired; it far outpaced financial performance. Every leader understands the risks are high. Change is hard and when it doesn’t work, there are dire consequences. All that said, we don’t have to let change fail. We can almost guarantee its success if we understand the basic phases and nature of change.

Q: What’s at the core of creating a successful change effort?

MM: There are three questions that have to be answered for a change effort to be successful. If these questions can’t be answered, the change effort is going to fail:

Why do we need to change?Where are we going?How are we going to get there?

The interesting thing is that most successful changes don’t answer just one of these questions; they answer all three. We can, with almost certainty, predict the success or failure of a change effort simply by asking, “Do you understand why we need to change?” and “Do you understand where we are trying to get to?” and “Do you think we can actually pull it off; do you know how we are going to make it happen?” If you can’t get answers to these three questions, the Why, Where and How of change, then your change effort is almost certainly doomed to failure.

And perhaps more importantly, the 30% of change efforts that succeed (according to the Harvard study) tend to pull all three levers simultaneously. They tend to work on the Why, the Where, and the How all at the same time. The problem is that most leaders have a favorite. They work on either the Why, or the Where, or the How. The overwhelming majority of folks do not work on all three simultaneously. Of course, depending on the environment of the organization, some of these are going to be easier or harder than others to pull off.

Q: What’s the most effective way to communicate change?

MM: Letting folks know about change is a pretty tough message to deliver. And the worst way to communicate that message is the yelling-and-screaming approach. Yes, you have to deliver a message that is sufficiently tough so that you can get people to leave a place they like. But the more emotional you make your message; the more likely people are to put their guard up. Emotional content will only make them feel attacked; they’ll box themselves in and they’ll tune out your message.

Instead you have to take a much more low-key approach. Focus on data – the less emotional the message the better. Make the message factual without hyperbole or exaggeration. Let the message be what the message is going to be. Communicate the message in as calm and rational a manner as possible. The more objective your data, the better. Language like “I think” or “My gut tells me” is not convincing.

You’re much better off getting some objective evidence in order to justify why it is we need to leave our present state. Get evidence from third parties: financial, operational, strategic, market, benchmarks. With the objective third-party facts delivered in a calm, rational way you will have the best chance of actually moving people off of the status quo. Get additional evidence from your audience (self-report surveys, focus groups, etc.) as well as from your customers. To the extent that you can get information from really credible sources, not just third party sources, but from people like your customers, patients, etc. you will be giving people a sense that your sources are believable. Doing so will deliver the message that it’s not about you, the CEO/manager, but it is about the customers, patients or shareholders.

And give people some time to process it all. Remember, it may be the first time your people are hearing this message (or at least the first time they’ve needed to pay attention to it). The more educated you can make your people, the more access to can grant them to a similar level of information that you have access to as a leader, the easier your change effort will be. The broader the horizon they can see, the more likely they are to come to the same conclusion that you’ve come to – that change is necessary.

Who is the best person to deliver the communication?

Employees are more likely to listen to their middle managers than their CEO. The employees will look at whatever the CEO puts out in a memo with skepticism until they ask the middle manager, “What do you think? Is that for real? Is this really going to work or is it just going to be like all of the other times?” Employees may turn to some of the more powerful employees to see what they think. CEOs can write memos until they are blue in the face, but at the end of the day it is how managers and key performing employees react to the change effort that is critical.

To learn more about communicating and implementing change in your organization, attend our webinar “Change Management That Lasts.“

A professional corporate writer with over 20-years’ experience crafting just the right words for executives to use in challenging situations, Lyn is a passionate and adept qualitative researcher. Her seasoned skills as an interviewer make her quick to identify the unique attitudes and behaviors that define an organization. Lyn’s extensive expertise in public relations and persuasive communications translates strongly in her contributions to Leadership IQ’s custom-training programs.

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Asking “Why?” Often Implies Judgment

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One of the most harmful things you as a leader can do to compromise good listening is to impose judgment on the person you are communicating with.  And when you ask “why” somebody did something, one thing to bear in mind is that the word “why” often implies a judgment. Even if you don’t intend to do this, the word “why” is often used as a “Why did you do that?” and it has a snarky “Boy that was stupid” implication.  Even if your intentions are innocent and you really just want to know why someone made a decision a certain way, the recipient of your question is likely to react defensively if you use the word “why” as a question.

Instead, try taking a slightly circuitous route and instead of saying “Well, why (did you do that)?” which implies “What are you dumb? That was a bad thing,” say something like “Tell me more about what made you choose that action.” This is a much less judgmental way of asking “Why?” and it encourages the recipient to open up and share their reasoning. Then, listen to what they have to say. Collect the facts.

Knowing how to identify the facts and separate them from interpretations and reactions is key to effective listening. Attend our webinar Lead by Listening and uncover the psychological secrets of great listening.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

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Big Presentation Coming Up? Make it Your Best One Yet

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A Q&A with CEO Mark Murphy

There isn’t a presenter alive that doesn’t want their audience absolutely riveted; sitting on the edge of their seats with rapt attention. Yet, the reality in most presentations is that the audience is sitting back, kind of relaxed and spacing in and out.

Here Leadership IQ CEO and best-selling author, Mark Murphy, shares some ways anyone can deliver a killer presentation.

Q: You say storytelling is a critical element in delivering killer presentations that really catch and keep an audience’s attention. How does that work?

MM: It’s all about dopaminergic response. Basically, when something really interesting, like a good story, happens, the brain starts to light up. And if the story is really exciting, the amygdala gets involved (that’s what you want) and says, “Wow! This is fascinating stuff! I’ve got to start activating some of the other chemicals in the brain—we’ve got to pay close attention to this!” So it goes and starts activating dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter for highly pleasurable things, highly attentive things.

And whoa! Once dopamine gets involved people really start to pay attention. Plus dopamine helps sear whatever it is folks are experiencing (in this case, your killer presentation) into their memory so they don’t forget it. So a great story is a way of getting the brain to say, “I am really engaged with this. I don’t want to miss a word that’s being said here. I am going to remember every word I hear.”

Next time you’re listening to someone else’s presentation, pay attention and see if you experience any moments that leap out at you and just get seared into your brain. Where you walk out of there quoting something you just heard to everyone you run into that day. If you don’t have that kind of experience then it is likely that the person speaking didn’t get anywhere near activating anything beyond your prefrontal cortex. They didn’t get into your limbic system, and they certainly didn’t excite your amygdala.

Q: So what’s the secret to telling a great story that excites the amygdala?

MM: There are a number of different ways to tell stories that really get people’s attention. Here’s one that uses an unexpected twist. Imagine you began a presentation by saying, “Six months ago, we upgraded our servers. Our website visitor capacity doubled. Our website loading speed tripled. And our profits dropped by 80%.” You can do something like that. Take your audience in one direction and then all of a sudden take them in a totally different direction. That’s one of those things that will make people’s heads spin a bit and get them to think, “Wait a minute, did I just hear what I thought I heard? I better start listening more closely.” You can also tell stories that build an emotional connection or introduce a startling fact.

Q: What’s one big thing to avoid when giving a presentation?

MM: Narcissism. When you talk about others more than you talk about yourself, that’s good. But when you talk about yourself more than you talk about others, that’s bad. But that can be challenging in some presentation situations. Leadership IQ teaches presenters to apply the Narcissism Ratio which is a little check that signals when it’s time to tell a story or to talk about somebody or something other than yourself. That way you don’t spend 20 minutes talking about all of the awards your company has won – something about which your audience probably doesn’t care. And it directs you to talk about something about which they do care, something that’s really going to activate them and get them on the edge of their seats.

To apply the Narcissism Ratio to your next presentation, keep track of how many times you say “I” or “me” versus the number of times you say “customers” or “employees” or “you” or “they” or anybody other than you. It takes some practice, but it’s really quite an effective way to keep your finger on the pulse of where your presentation is going as it happens. That way you are always on track and making sure your  audience stays fully engaged.

For more tips on delivering memorable presentations, join us for our upcoming webinar The Secrets of Killer Presentations.

A professional corporate writer with over 20-years’ experience crafting just the right words for executives to use in challenging situations, Lyn is a passionate and adept qualitative researcher. Her seasoned skills as an interviewer make her quick to identify the unique attitudes and behaviors that define an organization. Lyn’s extensive expertise in public relations and persuasive communications translates strongly in her contributions to Leadership IQ’s custom-training programs.

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Old School TV Style: Fashion Inspired by Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years

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Written by Chelsea - University of Oklahoma

Photo Credit

You knew this one was coming. One of my all-time favorite old school TV shows is The Wonder Years, the hit ’80s and ’90s series starring Fred Savage and Danica McKellar.

By the way, the dates above? They’re not typos. This show ran from 1988 to 1993, although the series itself was set exactly 20 years earlier. The Wonder Years did such an amazing job at recreating the feel of the ’60s and ’70s that many of us who saw it years later mistook it for a show filmed in the era!

Although this show featured many stylish characters sixties and seventies characters — hippies, housewives, preppy students, and more — this post will focus on Winnie Cooper, the sweetheart of The Wonder Years. Interested in stealing some of her innocent, mod style for yourself? Read on!

Photo Credit

The Wonder Years tells the story of a typical suburban boy from the ages 11 through 17 growing up in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Kevin Arnold, the protagonist of the series, faces hurdles in school, his dating life, and his life at home, and also encounters larger issues of the time, like the Vietnam war, counter-culture, and more. The series is narrated by an adult Kevin, who lends additional insight and humor to the events that unfold.

Kevin lives with his parents and older siblings, and mainly socializes with his best friend Paul and his neighbor Winnie Cooper. Winnie, the show’s heroine, is kind, thoughtful, wholesome, independent, and intelligent. She embodies the perfect “girl next door” archetype and serves as Kevin’s enduring on-again, off-again love interest throughout the series.

Despite its popularity, The Wonder Years was never released on DVD due to issues with licensing all of the amazing ’60s and ’70s music that the show featured. The Wonder Years is now available on Netflix Instant Watch – although it should be noted that the opening credits’ song “With A Little Help From My Friends” is not the Joe Cocker version featured in the show’s original airing and even syndication.

Winnie Cooper’s style is a unique mix of preppy, varsity schoolgirl looks and hints of ’60s mod. Even though she is very young, Winnie dresses almost like a “little woman,” in child-size versions of popular adult fashions. Winnie’s outfits somehow manage to look fresh and youthful, while at the same time mature. Crazy, I know.

For example, Winnie is often seen wearing mod-style dresses with tights while rocking blunt-cut bangs and a headband. She usually balances this “grown up” sort of look with youthful flat mary-jane slippers and a clean face.

Winnie’s style is also a great example of the preppy, wholesome, old school suburban teen looks seen on Happy Days, Grease, and The Brady Bunch. Varsity jackets and cardigans, rolled-up jeans, collared shirts, thin turtlenecks, pleated skirts, canvas sneakers, and more are her staples, and are a perfect match for her “girl next door” image.

Dress, Shoes, Headband, Bag, Tights

This first look has a colorful, fun, almost Boogie Nights-esque vibe to it! A colorblocked dress like the one above has a striking mod vibe to it, but is still sweet and wholesome enough to work for a girl like Winnie. Spice it up a bit with a pair of colorful mary-jane platforms and some polka dot tights. Finish the ensemble with a thin headband and a cross-body purse.

Shirt, Jeans, Shoes, Belt | Hair Photo Courtesy of Elle

This outfit is a great example of a casual, after-school look that Winnie might have worn while exploring the neighborhood or taking walks with Kevin. Plaid shirts were very popular during the ’60s and ’70s (as they are today!), and Winnie would have paired one with a relaxed-fit pair of jeans. Add classic white sneakers and a belt, and finish with foxy ’70s center-part hair.

Jacket, Turtleneck, Skirt, Shoes, Headband, Necklace

When Winnie wasn’t dating Kevin, she was usually on the arm of the school’s most popular athlete. Start with girly, studious staples like a turtleneck shirt and a pleated skirt, then add a varsity jacket and Converse sneakers for a fun and stylish outfit remix. Finish the look with a headband and a vintage camera necklace.

What do you think about The Wonder Years? What is your favorite episode? Favorite character? What other retro TV shows do you love? How do you feel about Winnie’s style? Leave a comment and tell us what you think!

Posted on on January 31, 2013 / Filed Under: Inspiration / Tags: 1960s, 1970s, Inspiration, mod, Old School TV Style, Preppy, TV, varsity jacket

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