Get the key ideas from
Moments of Impact
How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change
Moments of Impact gives leaders the tools to turn their boring meetings into environments that generate fresh, new, innovative solutions. It tackles every aspect of these conversations, from the environment to the attendees, and offers practical advice on how to make them as insightful as possible.
- Anyone who facilitates meetings or conferences
- Anyone who has ever fallen asleep during a meeting
- Anyone who needs creative solutions to complex problems
Chris Ertel advises senior executives at Fortune 500 companies as well as NGOs and government agencies, and has been designing strategic conversations for over 15 years.
Lisa Kay Solomon teaches innovation at the MBA in Design Strategy program at San Francisco’s California College of the Arts.
Go Premium and get the best of Blinkist
Upgrade to Premium now and get unlimited access to the Blinkist library. Read or listen to key insights from the world’s best nonfiction.
Upgrade to PremiumWhat is Blinkist?
The Blinkist app gives you the key ideas from a bestselling nonfiction book in just 15 minutes. Available in bitesize text and audio, the app makes it easier than ever to find time to read.
Start free trialDiscover
3,500+ top
nonfiction titles
Get unlimited access to the most important ideas in business, investing, marketing, psychology, politics, and more. Stay ahead of the curve with recommended reading lists curated by experts.
Start free trialJoin Blinkist to get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Moments of Impact
How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change
- Read in 15 minutes
- Contains 9 key ideas
Synopsis
Moments of Impact gives leaders the tools to turn their boring meetings into environments that generate fresh, new, innovative solutions. It tackles every aspect of these conversations, from the environment to the attendees, and offers practical advice on how to make them as insightful as possible.
Key idea 1 of 9
Being able to lead great conversations is the most important leadership skill.
What is the most important quality in a leader? Is it her determination? Her creativity? Or maybe it’s her ability to rally her people together behind a common cause.
Actually, it’s none of the above. A good leader is defined by her ability to design strategic conversations; that is, helping others channel their creativity and finding great solutions to her company’s obstacles.
Among her most useful skills are the ability to plan a meeting and steer conversations.
Have you ever sat in a meeting or a two-day conference that promised to improve your skills, only to find yourself brought down by tedium and boredom?
While those meetings may have been meticulously planned, they missed one crucial thing: they didn’t pay attention to their audiences and didn’t help them work effectively.
As a leader, you want to organize and lead strategic conversations that make everyone’s work as satisfying as possible. It will allow you to guide your employees towards enlightening moments, great problem-solving strategies and newfound creativity.
Unfortunately, many leaders – even well established ones – never learned to properly lead a strategic conversation. Despite its usefulness, you won’t find courses that teach strategic conversations in most universities or other educational institutions.
For example, the authors recall a time when they received a desperate phone call from a senior executive who was planning a two-day conference. He had noticed about eight days before the actual event that, while he had planned the location and the topic, he had no idea how to successfully steer those meetings to generate potent discussions and the effective solutions.
Despite his top-notch education, he felt totally lost, and ended up having the authors fly out to help him prepare. After reading these blinks, you’ll have all the tools you need to design effective strategic conversations – and you won’t have to pay for anyone’s plane tickets.
Key ideas in this title
- Being able to lead great conversations is the most important leadership skill.
- Designing strategic conversations requires you to go above and beyond the basics.
- Be clear about what you want to achieve.
- Engage different parties and perspectives in your debate.
- Frame your conversations so that they focus on the big picture.
- Set the scene properly and use your venue to be productive.
- Your primary goal is to create an experience.
- Make your impact.
- Final summary
