• Peter Jeff - The Leadership Mints Guy

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Stirring Your Leadership With Half & Half

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy
Here’s an idea to inspire more collaboration. Reading time: 4:14

This was a tough nut to crack,” the leader declared in launching her staff meeting to celebrate the successful product launch on time and under budget.

walnut nut cracker “In fact, this was such a tough nut, I thought we should have some fun this afternoon cracking a few nuts to celebrate your achievement.”

Her staff seemed perplexed if not confused.

The team leader then passed out a bowl of unshelled nuts to each of her seven team members. Then she distributed a nutcracker –the metal vice-like hand tool—to each staff member.

The staff looked quizzically to each other. They wondered if their team leader had cracked under all the pressure.

But then the leader led by example. She began cracking the whole nuts. There were almonds, brazil nuts, hazlenuts, pecans and walnuts. And with all that nut-cracking, the staff meeting room erupted into a cacophony of snaps, crackles and pops. Continue reading

Leading ’em With Your Lede

By Peter Jeff
The LeaderMints Guy
Here are 18 ideas to gain and retain audience attention from the beginning of your communication. Reading time: 4:56

The Lede. That’s what the first paragraph of a news story is called.

Leaders leverage their writing with Ledes that command attention and retention.

WritingPen Leaders sharpen their Lede writing so that the first paragraph in their memos, speeches, or books establishes relevance and portends significance.

Leaders sharpen their Lede writing to give voice to a wide range of human emotions impacting the human condition -from horror to awe and from joy to desperation that may delight or fright, thrill or chill .

As the leader, you assume the role of Anchor News Man or Woman. Your task is to lead your audience into your story, to help them connect to it and even anchor to it.

That’s why leaders lead with Ledes that engage readers to process their written messages more critically, understand their written messages more strategically and act on their written messages more convincingly.

Here are 18 different ways you can structure an opening to lead your audience into your written communications. Think of these 18 thought-starters as so many templates or patterns. to craft your written communications with a Lede that is tailored and toned to fit the mood and expectations of your audience. Continue reading

Plying & Playing in Your Sandbox

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to gain greater buy in for a leader’s vision. Reading time: 3:14.

Think of the Sandbox on the playground the next time you’re rolling out your company vision for all employees to buy into.

sandbox1 Encourage your employees to parlay the creative process in the Sandbox as long as it remains situated on the same playground (a.k.a. your company’s founding principles) you built years ago.

The playground is your company’s playing field -where you compete in the marketplace, where your company’s principles and policies are deeply embedded and where your Sandbox is a fixture in your corporate culture.

Your Sandbox is a DESIGNated area for creative endeavor where employees can exercise their creativity and unleash their imaginations with the Sandbox.

In time, employers build their proverbial sand castles in a celebration of diversity in thought and action and an eruption of the collaboration of so many hands, hearts and heads working together.

Continue reading

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