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In 2022, I watched a YouTube video called The Still Face Experiment by developmental psychologist Dr. Ed Tronick. In this experiment, a mother is playing with a baby in a high chair, and the smiling mother and happy baby are quite sweet. The mother then shifts to being still, emotionless, and unengaged while facing her child. It only takes seconds for the baby to sense the change, reach out for the mothers attention, and have a meltdown. Whether were a one-year-old baby or a 56-year-old adult, we all hold the powers of observation, perception, and intuition. Whether we realize it or not, we instinctively react to each others energy all day long. Our inner child knows when we feel safe, protected, and supported. Just like we know when were at risk, uncomfortable, and potentially close to harm. Our insanely intelligent bodies hold this feedback. When we see someone we admire, trust, and enjoy, our hearts beat faster, and we feel uplifted by the opportunity to connect. But when were near someone who holds power over us, our bodies instinctively pause. It creates the space to assess if its safe to be open and vulnerable, or if we need to brace for impact or shield ourselves from potential pain or an unpleasant surprise. A personal case study: How micro-moments wind us up and down Ill never forget the first presentation I made to one companys management team. I couldnt have been more prepared. Half of the top executives at the table had already seen my presentation and provided feedback. My team was counting on me to hit a home run and secure the funding we needed to expand our team and launch a new initiative. I was most excited to present to the CEO, who was an inspiring change agent and charismatic giant in our industry. I was only minutes into my presentation when the CEO began interrupting and expressing confusion and discomfort. He wouldnt let me finish the presentation Id spent six weeks preparing. Instead, we played a strange game of intellectual ping-pong with a healthy dose of gaslighting. The other 12 C-level executives sat in silence and watched. I tried to tough it out, but eventually, my body and spirit reached their limit. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I kept on talking. Eventually, I looked around the massive boardroom table at the faces staring back and said, I didnt come to this company to be treated like this! The meeting screeched to a halt, and I stepped out to visit the bathroom to take a few deep breaths to recover. When I emerged, a person from the company escorted my boss and me to the CEOs office. We talked for a long time, and I found the courage to be honest. The CEO started choking up. He was deeply embarrassed. He wasnt prepared for the meeting and didnt know what I was presenting or recommending ahead of time. Together, the three of us explored better ways to conduct business. My boss and I asked for a do-over in three weeks. When micro-moments turn positive In the weeks between presentation 1 and presentation 1.1, my boss and I met with each person around that boardroom table to discuss the disaster (my words) and ways to improve executive team meetings. When I stepped in front of the same group with the same presentation less than a month later, everyone participated. In the end, we received the funding we needed, and I gained the respect of the CEO. But more importantly, I heard that in every review that followed, there was a difference in how attendees treated each other and the productivity of the conversations. That meeting taught me several lessons that I continue to apply in my life today: 1. Be aware Even the smallest shifts in tone, body language, or word choice can change the dynamic in a room. Awareness is the first stepsimply noticing when energy shifts gives us insight into whats happening beneath the surface. 2. Choose connection With awareness and intention, we can choose connection, curiosity, and care over challenge, criticism, and correction. These micro-actions, over time, affect the climate within departments, teams, and companies as a whole. Its the key to solidifying, rather than destroying, trust and psychological safety. 3. Make a promise I have a practice I bring into every team Ive worked with over the past 20 years. I make a promise: To the best of my ability, things will happen with you and not to you. I set expectations for collaboration, prioritization, target setting, and teamwork that reinforce what with you looks like on any given day. I also invite them to call me out if they ever feel left out of the decision-making process. 4. Set daily intentions I set a daily intention to find win-wins wherever I can. I want to show up in ways that leave others feeling like thats the best meeting theyve had today. That goes for reviewing a project, supporting a customer complaint, shaping a performance improvement plan, or interviewing a candidate. I want to be fully present, understand their needs, ideas, and motivations, and find mutual solutions. 5. Tune in We know when the people around us are open, trustworthy, and reliable. We also know when we experience distrust, fear, and anxiety. Even tiny, often imperceptible movements send negative energy into our bodies, triggering cortisol floods and fight-or-flight responses. Today, I ask each of us to tune in. How are you affecting others in the spaces you share? How are the people in your space affecting you? What actions can you take to communicate curiosity, care, and openness to others? Do you appreciate, see, and support the people around you? Lead with love, act with intention All of us shape culture in the smallest choices and fleeting moments. When we listen, when we pause, when we choose connection over control. Ultimately, its not about perfection, but presence. When you lead with love and act with intention, youll build teams that people that wont want to leave.
Category:
E-Commerce
I once coached a VP leading a digital transformation across three continents. She had no formal authority over the teams she needed to engage, just a high-stakes mandate and a tight timeline. Her initial meetings landed with silence. No one pushed back, but no one leaned in, either. It wasnt until she shifted how she communicatednot what she said, but howthat momentum started to build. In environments defined by complexity and change, influence matters more than hierarchy. Yet many leaders still lean on outdated methods: top-down messaging, overreliance on data, or blanket statements designed to cascade through an organization. These tactics often create distance rather than buy-in. Persuasive communication isnt about being charismatic or loud; its about being clear, empathetic, and purpose-driven. Its how todays most effective leaders gain trust, align teams, and turn strategies into reality. Ive worked with hundreds of executives across industries and fully recognize it as a defining skill for modern leadership. Here are the core communication moves that leaders can use to influence without authority and create real traction in the process. CUT THROUGH RESISTANCE BY SPEAKING WITH SURGICAL CLARITY Ambiguity slows everything down. When leaders speak in broad terms or use fuzzy language, teams are left to interpret intentand that interpretation is rarely aligned. Leaders should drop the jargon and focus on making their desired outcomes crystal clear. One of my clients, a senior director in a global logistics company, struggled to mobilize cross-functional teams around a new initiative. The turning point came when she swapped dense PowerPoints for simple statements: Heres what were doing, heres why it matters, and heres how success will look. She gave examples that people understood, guidance that was actionable and illustrations of what great looked like. Once her message was clear, resistance dropped. People finally knew how to contribute. The lesson: Get specific. Lead with the desired outcome. Use language thats easy to repeat and hard to misinterpret. Clarity always connects better than complexity. LISTEN FIRST, THEN INFLUENCE THROUGH EMPATHY Most persuasion starts with a question, not a statement. Leaders who take time to understand what their teams care aboutwhat worries them, and what motivates themcommunicate more effectively because theyre speaking into real concerns. I worked with a COO frustrated by employee reluctance to adopt a new tool. Through guided interviews, the executive discovered a key blocker: The tool wasnt the issue. Fear of being replaced was. After acknowledging this fear directly and repositioning the tool as a support system rather than a threat, adoption rates soared. Influence doesnt mean glossing over concerns. It means addressing them directly and showing that youve listened deeply enough to know what really matters. CONNECT TO PURPOSE TO ACTIVATE ENGAGEMENT Facts may inform, but purpose moves people. When communication is tethered to values, it shifts from transactional to transformational. Effective leaders anchor change initiatives in a clear sense of mission, turning lifeless strategy into purpose-driven momentum. People dont want another strategy deck. They want to know how the work connects to something meaningful. How does this initiative matter to those doing the work, the end-user customers or even society? One executive I coached started sharing short stories at all-hands meetings about how their product impacted real customers. He led his conversation with how many women would live a better life instead of how many implants or how much revenue they were going to drive. It changed the room. People stopped nodding politely and started volunteering ideas. To influence at scale, anchor messages in something bigger than tasks. Link them to identity, mission, and shared goals. Listen to your own airtime and analyze the words you use and give value to. Are you asking how many deals did we close? or did you ask how many new customers are we helping? As a leader your words will echo what is considered most critical. REINFORCE THROUGH RITUALS AND REPETITION One messageeven when delivered perfectlyrarely sticks. Leaders who drive change build rhythms that reinforce key ideas over time. Repetition isnt redundancy; its strategy. I recently helped a leadership team rolling out a cultural reset develop a ritual where every meeting began with a one-minute reflection tied to company values. Over time, the repetition turned abstract values into lived behaviors. It wasnt about big speeches. It was about building cues into the system. It is not only about sharing a message broadly, but consistently weaving in what matters and why into unilateral communications, during a conversation, email, or messagerelevant to the context of that exchange of course. Ask yourself: Whats your team hearing consistently during one-on-ones, company meetings, performance report, updates, etc.? How can you use existing forumsstand-ups, all-hands, Slack messagesto echo the most important themes? ADAPT YOUR MESSAGE TO MATCH YOUR AUDIENCE Even strong communicators fall into the trap of broadcasting the same message to every stakeholder. But influence depends on relevance. What matters to a front-line manager may not resonate with the executive suite. My advice: Tailor your tone, format, and focus. One client, preparing to announce a restructuring, created two distinct narratives: one for employees concerned about role clarity, and another for partners needing strategic context. The shift didnt just ease the transition; it boosted trust across the board. Effective communication doesnt come from communicating louder or repeating yourself. It comes from reframing your message so others can truly hear it.
Category:
E-Commerce
My day job is a design educator, so for me, this time of year is filled with writing syllabi, planning new classes, and thinking about what the next generation of designers might need to know as they enter an ever-changing field. To do this, I look for the designers, the writers, and the thinkers who challenge my understanding of design and force me to think about what we do in new ways. Thankfully, there’s been a handful of new books to come out over the last few months that do just that. As we head back to school, the books included here look back and look forward, asking big questions about how we use design today and how we might approach this moment in more thoughtful, considered ways. [Cover Image: Macmillan] Could Should Might Don’t by Nick Foster When you imagine the future, what does it look like? Chances are, when you picture the future, you picture radical architecture, flying cars, walking robotsa world aglow in blues and purples. When we imagine the future, we often imagine images made by other people and those images have become strangely homogenized. Nick Foster, a self-described “reluctant futurist” and the former design director of Google X, the tech giant’s “moonshot ideas factory,” thinks this is a problem. In his fascinating new book, he probes how we imagine the future and who has a stake in that future, making the case for a more rigorous, thoughtful, and provocative way to think about the future and how we get there. Both a guidebook for thinking about the future and a framework for interrogating the futures presented to us, Foster’s easy prose makes it simple for anyone to be a part of the conversation about the futures we want. [Cover Image: Inventory Press] A *Co-*Program for Graphic Design by David Reinfurt Built around three courses graphic designer David Reinfurt taught and developed at Princeton University over the last decade, this book blends theoretical ideas and practical knowledge about what it means to be a graphic designer today. Jumping back and forth through design history, moving across formats and mediums, and inviting a range of voices to participate in the conversation, Reinfurt shows that graphic design continues to be an expansive, ever-shifting space in which to think about ideas and how they move through the world. [Cover Image: MIT Press] Not Here, Not Now by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby In 2013, designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby released Speculative Everything, a now-canonical text on using design not to create things but ideas. The book has had an enduring impact on the fields of speculative design, design fiction, and critical design and continues to be a foundational text for design students. Dunne & Raby are back with a new book, Not Here, Not Now, that builds upon the ideas they introduced a decade ago. This new book proposes that we approach design not as a “solution” but as a “proposal” for new ways of thinking. Structured as a travelogue of ideas that journeys across science, philosophy, and literature, Dunne and Raby once again explore design’s role in a world where reality itself is called into question. [Cover Image: Hachette] The Invention of Design by Maggie Gram Reading Maggie Gram’s excellent new book, The Invention of Design, I couldn’t help but wonder how a book like this didn’t exist before. Over the last century design has moved from aesthetics to function, from the art department to the corporate boardroom. How did we get here? Gram, a designer and historian, charts this history, showing how our understanding of design has evolved over the last century, from design as decoration to the rise of design as problem solving, centering the figures who helped make design central to every area of our lives. But this is not a hagiography: as Gram chronicles design’s rise, she also interrogates its limits, noting where i’s fallen short of its goals and highlights the unintended consequences of design gone too far. [Cover Image: Verso] Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat by Hito Steyerl Over the last decade, I’m not sure anyone has written more provocatively and insightfully on how images (and how they circulate) shape our understanding of the world than German video artist and theorist Hito Steyerl. This new book is a collection of essays that explore the intersection and influence of artificial intelligence and climate change on the creation of images. From data-driven art to blockchain aesthetics, Steyerl mines our current moment to trace the overlap of politics, economics, and technology and how they structure what we see when we look out at the world.
Category:
E-Commerce
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