"Communicating with IMPACT" - Patrick Donadio, MBA

Jim Canterucci, an executive advisor, author and professional speaker has written an great book called " Personal Brilliance : Mastering the Everyday Habits That Create a Lifetime of Success" Jim has an enlightening blog http://blog.mypersonalbrilliance.com that focused on helping you maximize your Awareness, Curiosity, Focus, and Initiative. These four traits are the catalysts for achieving your best. Personal Brilliance is a book that shows how anyone can create and enjoy spectacular success! Go to Jim's website to find out more about his book and/or to take the " Personal Brilliance Quotient ".

One of my CEO coaching clients recently had to let go one of his executive team members. This can be a difficult task. Sometimes it is so difficult that we wait too long to do it. I coached a CEO a few years ago who waited too long to make that decision. When he finally did let the person go, he commented to me that he should have let her go months ago. I too had the same challenge years ago when, as an Executive Director, I had to fire my secretary. We all can learn from other's mistakes. You know the old saying…. Hire slow, fire fast . Well, as the result of my new CEO client letting go of his team member, he realized that each member of his executive team had a "job description" but there were no operating procedures to help people make decisions. In his book “The E-Myth”, Michael Gerber proposes that we organize our business like a franchise (McDonald’s®, Wendy’s ®…). He suggests we act as if we were going to franchise our business in the future. Gerber recommends we...

This week in a coaching session with one of my CEO clients we talked about how to take more control over our time. In our meeting, my client said that he wished he could say "NO" more often. I think many people struggle with telling others “No”. The reason they struggle is because they think they only have two choices. They can either say “yes” or “no”. I try to avoid "all or nothing" thinking. I believe that there are many alternative between the extremes. So here are several different ways I shared with my CEO client that he could say no: 7 Ways to Say No: 1) Say NO… with a straightforward explanation - "No, I'm uncomfortable doing that!" 2) Say NO… and give an alternative - "No. I can’t do that today, how about first thing in the morning?" 3) Say NO… and clarify your reason - Help them understand your position. Explain the why. “No. I can’t help you because I made commitment to my family to not work on weekends this month.” 4) Give Pref...