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Articles by David Nour

Browse published articles attributed to David Nour, with full-archive search.

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By David NourRecently published1 topic

The LinkedIn Effect in the Venture Capital Community

In our experience, the following key factors profoundly influence the results of many venture capital investments: - Selection and on-boarding of high quality, high-performance-minded entrepreneurs - Attracting and retaining the right professional managers at the right time in the emerging growth company’s life cycle - Quality, speed, and convenience of high value interactions If you agree, then LinkedIn may be a solid approach to each of these attributes. Here’s how:

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,230 views3.7/5 (18)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

The Benefits of Candor in the Workplace

Overall, there seems to be a shift in the corporate mind-set-from status-oriented, hard-driven, personality-cult, top-down leadership to more relationship-oriented, collaborative, communication-based types.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

3,889 views3/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How Nurturing Relationships Extends Business with Your Existing Customers

Something that is often undervalued, undermined, and certainly underdeveloped in any organization is the post-sale part of the revenue generation engine. Many struggle to automatically throw a customer, which they have worked so hard to acquire, over the wall to a customer service department.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,653 views5/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

100-Day Action Plan for Large-Scale Change or Mergers and Acquisitions

Why do you think most New Year resolutions don’t stick? In one of my keynotes, someone suggested that it is because you are drunk when you make them. Beyond that theory, would you agree that they often include no responsibility, practical expectations, or organized plan? It has been said, “Teach and everyone will learn. Manage and no one will learn.” One hundred days is simply too short a timeframe to correct any mistakes. As such, it is critical to start with three to five realistic goals with high impact potentials rather than try to hit an immediate home run.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

3,410 views2.5/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How to Lead a Team Through Change

A component that is critical to driving everything from process optimization to altering the mindset of the people whom the change will surely affect is the team of employees chartered to help the organization navigate through this often challenging journey. These change agents are leaders in their organizations, free of hierarchical bondage, and are often able to move across a multitude of departments, business units, and divisions in search of simpler processes.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

2,966 views1.7/5 (3)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How Are You Smart About People?

As Dr. Richard Boyatzis, psychology professor at Case Western Reserve University, and his colleagues have pointed out, leadership in the workplace is ultimately a matter of personal skills that have to do with self-awareness-realizing the difference between your ideal self and your real self, and then bridging the gap through step-by-step learning.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,323 views3/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

A System For Prioritizing Your Relationships

There is only so much time in the day. That is why it is critical that you take the time to prioritize which relationships you will invest in. The following is one method you can use to prioritize your relationships. Twice a year, print out your entire contact database (from your Outlook, Act, Palm, Blackberry, and so forth). Go through each individual contact and ask yourself the following questions: - When did I last speak to or see him? - Is she still at the same company, location, and function?

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,530 views1.5/5 (4)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Myopia in Leadership Development

Typically, our view of leadership development encompasses the escalation of current high performers into an environment where they can develop a broader set of competencies and capabilities. In many organizations, the senior leaders aim to manage the perception of the issues, form coalitions, and use relationships to influence change in the organization. Without “relationships and influence,” they are without arrows in their managerial quiver.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,527 views1.7/5 (3)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Calculating Your Return on Impact

As highlighted by Larry Bossidy in his book Execution, when people, processes, and tools converge with a mindset to execute, you realize Return on Impact. Those who can without fail deliver performance, implementation, and results – despite macro- or microeconomic conditions, setbacks, roadblocks, and challenges – develop a reputation and quantifiable return on any investment made for their ability to perform.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,261 views1.8/5 (4)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Large-Scale Change and Mergers and Acquisitions

At some point, three percent organic growth, although perhaps respectable in your industry, will become less than attractive for the organization. As such, the senior leaders or the board may recommend a more aggressive, inorganic growth strategy that encompasses a strong spring of deal flow, pre-acquisition, due diligence, and post-acquisition integration, typically driven by the project management office.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,188 views1.8/5 (4)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Do you Relationship Choke or Panic?

Watching 26-year-old Dustin Johnson recently blow his three-round lead at the 110th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, Califo ia reminded me of others we’ve seen squander away amazing opportunities.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

2,249 views1/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Adding a Desired Outcome to Your Relationships

Relationships without a desired outcome can come across as meaningless and superficial. A relationship with no Desired Outcome is not a relationship at all. It is merely a momentary, superficial exchange between or among people. Add a Desired Outcome, such as a business agreement or even a mutual desire for friendship, and suddenly the expectations of and requirements for both parties reach a much higher level.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,212 views3/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

To Communicate With Awareness Requires Courage

The courage that JFK displayed in facing down the Cuban missile crisis, that Churchill showed in fostering Britons’ courage to show a stiff upper lip in the face of Nazi bombing, that any leader musters when he or she reaches out for the right decision and the rest of the organization subsequently breathes a sigh of relief – this action is brought about by the courage to recognize the prevailing sense of what truly is, beyond ego-bound attempts to confuse the issue.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,190 views3/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

The Concept of ConnectAbility

Given all the models for effective approaches to successful business communication to date, what in fact holds water? In other words, what's the foundation of the concepts that really work-over time and over the countless challenges of communicating effectively with associates, prospects, customers, and so forth? Clearly, many models do have substantial benefit. Otherwise, they wouldn't have lasted as long as they have. But, many have wondered, what is the common theme running through these successful approaches?

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,114 views2.5/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How to Successfully Connect with Others

Business is made up of interpersonal communication, whether in person, by phone, over the Internet, or via whatever new electronic instrument that outperforms yesterday’s darling device. The most revealing communication, because it reveals so much more in terms of nonverbal information, takes place in person.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,184 views3/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Women or Men-Who Are More Effective Leaders?

Is there a probable gender bias in relationship building? It’s often said that women are better listeners than men. Are men who are comfortable with the Awareness Factor also more comfortable with their “feminine” side, such as intuition and emotional sensitivity? Are women effective in business more in touch with their “masculine” side, such as logic and objectivity?

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,280 views2/5 (2)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

The Power of Influence In Business Relationships

When you establish business relationships, do you recognize the power of influence? An example of how we influence or persuade others and negotiate with one another can be found in financial transactions. At the Center for the Study of the Brain, Mind, and Behavior at Princeton University, Dr. Jonathan Cohen and his colleagues study game theory – more specifically, ultimate games. In one research case, two players are involved, one giving the other an ultimatum.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,090 views3/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Three Components of Improving Performance

ConnectAbility is an understanding of the relationship among desired outcomes, roles and expectations, and personal differences while communicating with awareness of the ultimate effect on the listener. It is much more than mere "people skills" and paying attention.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,078 views3/5 (1)

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Improving How You Sell Yourself as a Professional

Many technical professionals are often horrible at selling themselves. Many accountants, atto eys, consultants, and engineers don’t think of themselves as salespeople – and they don’t want to! Although their academic and educational foundation and their professional development includes valuable assets to their business, it seldom includes the notion of strategic relationships and business development best practices.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

2,462 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Competency and Trust are Critical Components of Reputation Capital

Reputation Capital is a measure of how effective you are in promoting and delivering value. As the delivery of that value is recognized, you start to accumulate Reputation Capital. The two fundamental pillars of Reputation Capital are competency and trust. The following provides some insight into how you can build upon both of these attributes. Competency

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,784 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Two Questions to Help Maintain Your Strategic Focus

What business are you in? What business should you be in? Although simple in their inquisitive nature, it is amazing just how complex these two questions can be. What business you are in should answer, from a historical perspective, where you have been most successful, where you have produced the most professional products and services, and where your team’s core competencies and expertise lie. Beyond those internal factors, the business you are in considers what the market has paid for and the value you have brought to the table.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,542 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Strategic Relationship Plan for a Professional Service Firm

Here is an outline for an annualized strategic relationship plan for partners of a professional services firm. Such a plan should be reviewed monthly for success of execution milestones and quarterly for strategic viability. You should also identify an accountable peer and proactively correspond with them about your progress. Develop a personal board of advisors to serve as a sort of air traffic control for some of the more challenging strategic relationship discussions. Part 1: Looking Back – A Historical Perspective

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,540 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

The "Technology" of Understanding Another's Point of View in the Workplace

Social intelligence, with its focus on the research of neuroscience and human interaction, is primarily focused on social awareness through listening and empathy, as well as success in social relationships, including influencing others through appropriate self-presentation. Social intelligence has proven a human characteristic that is distinct from general intelligence, though there is certainly a degree of overlap between the two.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,480 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How To Approach Business Relationships With Constructive Criticism

When I was just starting out in my career some years ago, after an all-day training program for professional speakers, I approached the main presenter to give her some feedback and advice on her speaking style – constructive criticism that I thought would help her for her next presentation. I waited for a few others to end their after-talk chatting and then approached her. But instead of waiting for the perfect moment after a connection had been established, I started right in with my feedback.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,453 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How to Bring Cooperation back to the Workplace

Success and fulfillment arrive from finding the “flow” of your work, having a best friend in the office, and in developing strong partnerships with your colleagues and customers. Allow yourself to feel secure enough in your own power as an individual to share it with others who contribute in a meaningful fashion. As a result, you’ll significantly enhance your power through the respect others gain for you after witnessing such inner confidence.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,450 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Fueling Innovation with Collaborative Relationships

As a new divisional leader, how do you quickly uncover and leverage knowledge, experience, and specific expertise across the different parts of your organization in an effort to not only retain your best customers, but also to expand your mind share and wallet share within each of your most profitable client companies?

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,371 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Five Common Traits of Pivotal Contacts

Pivotal Contacts are thought leaders among their peers. They have developed deep subject matter expertise, have proven themselves in situations requiring a balanced approach between strategic vision and tactical execution, or simply have access to influential relationships. They are commonly referred to as movers and shakers in a given role, company, vertical industry, or city. They are all rising stars and key influencers, and often lead the most critical projects within any company.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,357 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Face to Face Communication at Work

You can learn a lot by trying to read someone’s face or body language. It is clear that women can do it better when they are motivated. Women seem to gaze at others more than men do, enabling them to read faces better. But they seem to do so only when motivated. When married men and women are both instructed to pay explicit attention to facial behavior, the difference between the sexes begins to vanish. Ultimately, motivation plays a key role in this skill, almost overriding the differences in males and females.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,291 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Lack Of Candor and Stand In Corporate America

A multitude of surveys done in the late 1960s showed that 70 percent of U.S. residents felt that corporations could generally be trusted to act responsibly. Even after the economic boom of the past two decades, this figure has fallen to around 45 percent. Particularly, because of times of crisis for the business community and the demise of candor and trust, improvement in accepted practices and relationships among auditors, analysts, executives, and a multitude of stakeholders becomes difficult to visualize.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,290 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How Confidence Can Improve Our Business Relationships

In dealing with our business relationships, how do we react when things don’t go as we expected? For example, if Paul had applied for a promotion and then found out that he didn’t get it, his negative reaction would probably be anger at his boss, sadness at the disappointment, and anxiety about his career arc.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,249 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

What’s the Strategic Value of Your Business Relationships?

What is your impression of networking? To many, it’s an insincere trade of favors or, at best, an elegant way of using people to get what you want. I actually asked this question of a group of PhD students at a Top 5 engineering school and one student near the front asked, “You mean, with other people?”

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,208 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Creating Success in the Workplace

Optimism in the workplace involves not only expecting positive outcomes but also explaining them in a manner logical with such outcomes. Leading others with optimism means dealing with the chaos of uncertainty by formulating a successful expectation regardless of the uncertainty. Life is full of uncertainty and that’s as true of the workplace as it is of any aspect of life. Optimistic leaders have a strong perceived sense of self-efficacy; they believe in their teams as well.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,206 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Are You The Luckiest Person At Work?

When you consider that many of us spend more time with our co-workers than with our own family members, there is certainly a need to recognize those relationships, what they mean to us, and how to find joy in them on a daily basis. They do their best (most of the time) to interact with us so that our job is made easier. It’s easy to take them for granted and to give in to workplace competition that can influence our filters and take away from the spontaneity that comes from the joy of the moment.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,204 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Are You Talking to the Wrong People?

Some of my favorite networking functions are early morning breakfast briefings. I am an early bird and most attendees have yet to face the minutia of the day, so they are likely to attend for the two critical factors: content and community.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,202 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Develop a Systematic Game Plan To Networking Properly

When people say that networking doesn’t work, they usually cite as confirmation the fact that they have invested in others in the past without any return from the other side. When I inquire specifically, How did you arm them with the appropriate context to introduce or recommend you? The answer is often a blank stare.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,191 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Do You Find Joy and Meaning in Your Work?

What’s so special about the privilege of staying at home and telecommuting? Truth is there may be a problem there. There is a deep, pervasive need to connect with others on a daily basis. Working at home may be convenient in terms of comfort and flexibility, but it doesn’t do much for feeling connected with others in the flesh. There’s something about the structure of traveling to a place where there are others to share a workspace, and interact on a social basis, that is highly meaningful. That awareness in itself gives you a leg up on making your work more meaningful and enjoyable.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,173 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Beyond Influencers to the Influenced

One of the best approaches to spreading a viral change campaign is to court key influencers. But recent research also conforms that the influenced may be as critical as the influencers. A recent study found that trying to track down key influencers – people who have extremely large social networks – can in some ways limit a campaign and its viral potential. Change agents instead need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,165 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How to Make the Most out of Your Core Group

Within each organization is a core group that is primarily responsible for the success of that organization. That core group might be a working team, an executive committee, or a board of directors. Or it could be an unofficial grouping of people from all three categories, usually consisting of no more than a dozen individuals. In this case, the application of ConnectAbility can be modified to take into account the dynamics of this core group.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,165 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Network of Influencers As a Strategic Asset in Change Management

Several years ago, one of our professional service clients decided that it needed an organizational overhaul. Management of best practices and competent and successful cooperation across service lines were dreary at best. Critical team members who needed to be at the edge of the business engaging current and prospective customers were anything but engaged.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,163 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Unfolding Your Agile Self

Do you ever wonder what you really have to offer the workplace? What knowledge, talents, and skills do you possess that may possibly benefit others? You see, others will recognize whatever is placed before them in an inviting proposition. It’s usually not that others fail to recognize what you have to offer, it’s-you guessed it-yourself! Awareness starts at home, with the best measure of what special contribution you make essentially because of your unique person.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,156 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

How do You Keep Your Strategic Relationships Strong?

There are a number of components we must keep in mind when it comes building and nurturing our strategic relationships. The following seven areas will help you build these key relationships: • Relationships are assets. In any business setting, relationships are assets. As such, they can be created, managed, nurtured, measured, and even discontinued, intentionally and consciously.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,136 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Wielding Power with Generosity and Support

Laughter and smiles are often signs of relaxed comfort, quite the opposite of hierarchal power imposed on the organizational structure, where scowls are more common than smiles. In such status-based organizations, power is assigned according to rank, and there is little wiggle room for the free expression of inner resources on the part of “lower-ranking” subordinates. Here status reigns supreme, not open awareness.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,136 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Does Text Messaging Define Your Relationships?

Over the years, I’ve been blessed with a great lifestyle from and around the technology field. From ComputerLand in the 1980s to Silicon Graphics in the 1990s and SaaS (Software as a Service) applications since 2000, I’ve seen the remarkable development of a whole host of information technology advances. They were all introduced with the intent and idea of helping us share not just information, but insights, and as a way to collaborate around global best practices and optimize the manner in which we get things done.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,126 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Return on Impact from Social Networking Technologies

Each time you turn around there is yet another technology that grabs everyone’s attention. It is simply too soon to measure the quantifiable impact of many Web 2.0 technologies in the market today. But sifting through all of it there are some very real treasures that can improve business. Client executives are documenting, however, enhanced customer service response rates, frequency, and quality of information and knowledge flow between internal teams, and a more positive supervision of the company’s reputation by the product marketing and brand management teams.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,111 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Finding Success and Fulfillment in Your Relationships

Success and fulfillment come from finding the “flow” of your work, having a best friend in the office, and connecting with others. If you’re the boss, being in touch with your staff members’ conce s, authentically felt, will make your team more successful. Otherwise, success means finding the resources available for support. Ultimately, it means basic understanding of and conce for others. In other words, show me the people, not the money.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,076 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Does Your Organization Have a Social Media Policy?

In talking with several companies lately, the conversation has centered on the need for a social media policy. Whether you work for a progressive organization or a conservative, risk-adverse one, it seems that everyone has an opinion on the best approach. Here are some prevailing camps:

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

1,006 views

By David NourRecently published1 topic

Is There a Shift toward Performance Oriented Leadership and Away from Ego-Centric CEOs?

In addition to such victims of “industry dissonance” as the late Enron founder Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling, there seems to be a movement, possibly due to the dramatic economic shifts occurring at the start of the century, in which the status-loving, jet-setting, deal-making celebrities of the 1990s are being replaced by awareness-sensitive leaders who are more performance oriented and less egocentric.

Primary topic: Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning

971 views

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