June 13, 2012

Today Bloomberg BusinessWeek's The Management Blog featured a guest post by Helio Fred Garcia on recent leadership missteeps, "Déjà Vu, All Over Again."

Garcia writes: "Apologies to Yogi Berra, but the Sage of the Yankees could have been describing the current state of corporate communications. So far, this year’s crop of missteps is eerily familiar, with boards and chief executive officers apparently following the playbooks of some of the worst-handled crises of recent years."

To read the full post, click here.

June 14, 2012

"But technology improvements have created challenges as well. The proliferation of, and access to, communication tools like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, made even easier through mobile technology, means that the timeframe for getting information out to concerned publics is tighter than ever before. In addition, messages are likely to be shared more broadly and impacted more readily by third parties than was the case just five or ten short years ago.

Still, says Fred Garcia, “even in the old days people didn’t have as much time as they thought they did.” Garcia is the president of the crisis management firm, Logos, based in New York. He has worked with clients in dozens of countries on six continents and is the author of “The Power of Communication” which will be released by FT Press in May. Despite new technology, which represents both new opportunities and new challenges when communicating during crisis situations, Garcia stresses that the basic principles of effective communication remain the same. Others agree."

Read the full article here. 

June 13, 2012

WBEX AM Radio, Dan & Mike In The Morning show interviewed Helio Fred Garcia on The Power Of Communication.

You can listen to the podcast of the interview here. 

June 12, 2012

Matthew Morine, Pulpit Minister of the Castle Rock Church of Christ in Castle Rock, Colorado, posted a review of The Power of Communication today on his blog, Musings on Spiritual Matters. Highlights from the review include:

"I was not too excited about reading this book.  Sometimes books from a business culture do not translate well to the church culture.  But this book was excellent.  And it was deep."

"This book has a ton of awesome lessons for a leader in regards to communication.  As a minister, this is helpful stuff as you are often a mouthpiece for the church.  It provides more than some lessons on what to do in speaking, but more on how to use speaking to lead an organization...The book trains you well.  Awesome book on communication."

To read the full review, click here.

June 11, 2012

The Boston Egotist Blog quoted Helio Fred Garcia in the article "Speak to the Heart, then to the Mind." 

Read the full excerpt here. 

June 11, 2012

The Communicator Blog featured excerpt from Fast Company on Winning Hearts and Minds.

Read the full excerpt here. 

June 8, 2012

A recent blog posted on News for Social Entrepreneurs discusses The Power of Communication, specifically on the issue of strategic thinking and communication.

To read the full article, click here.

June 7, 2012

Donna Bear from the Canadian Management Centre quoted Helio Fred Garcia on the topic of succession in a time of crisis.

"Companies that are unprepared for a crisis can suffer a chain of events that have negative implications well beyond the initial event, suggests Helio Fred Garcia, executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership, in a recent interview. Ineffective responses to an emergency can have an impact on employees, management, customers, investors, regulators and even competitors. Employees productivity and loyalty tend to decline during times of trauma, and managers often become distracted and unfocused. Customers and investors may shy away, affecting the bottom line. And regulators may involve themselves more closely during a crisis, adding to the disruption of business. In addition, competitors may try to capitalize on a company's troubles by pursuing its most talented employees, its customers and its share of the market, warns Garcia (Garvey, 2006)"

To read the full article, click here.

For a .PDF copy of the article, click here.

June 3, 2012 

 Amazon Vine Hall-of-Fame Reviewer Harold McFarland called The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively “One of the best [books] on the subject of business communications” and awarded the book another five-star review.
Excerpts:
“This is one of the best books I have read on the subject of business communication. The principles can be used in a non-business setting but it is predominantly written for business and public relations.
The author has chosen to illustrate the principles of the book by examining many real-life cases of communication gaffes by businesses and governmental bodies. This makes the book more readable and helps the reader understand the points being made.
He examines communication in the context of war. This appeared at first to be an illogical pairing but actually worked brilliantly. Communication can be viewed as a war; not to win territory or natural resources, but to win the heart and mind by learning how to cast the correct spin on something bad to make it more palatable but takes the high road of accepting responsibility and moving the company forward…" You can read the whole review here.

June 1, 2012

Two years ago yesterday, BP CEO Tony Hayward inadvertently got his wish when, in thick of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, he told a press conference, “I want my life back.” He was sacked soon thereafter. In  the battle for public opinion—for trust, support, the benefit of the doubt—Hayward lost. It was a failure of leadership on a massive scale. And it began with a failure of communication. And that failure, in turn, was a failure of discipline.
Hayward’s blunder is not unique to him. It should be a wakeup call to CEOs and other leaders, to all who leadership responsibilities require inspiring trust and confidence verbally.
Today SmartBlog on Leadership published an excerpt from The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, starting with Mr. Hayward’s blunder, and moving from there.