Category: Blog

  • “Moment of Grace: Resiliency” Video by John Baldoni

    The Association of Corporate Executive Coaches (ACEC) have always remained focused on supporting their members and their endeavors. Especially if a member has an important message to pass on or teach, just as John Baldoni decides to share in this video.

    By promoting the inspirational work by their members all while providing a professionally exclusive platform for Corporate Coaches to grow a network for expanding clientele. Considering this, ACEC member John Baldoni applies his experience as a Coach to share a brief message about strength and overcoming adversity.

    Altogether, Baldoni quickly explains the meaning behind a well-respected Japanese Saying, “Fall down 7 times get up 8 times” in order to illustrate for his viewers how this thought dives deep into a concept called Resiliency. John is ultimately reminding everyone that it is the toughest of times that determine who we truly are.

    The most inspiring takeaway from John’s brief time actually speaking is the number of high level concepts being introduced. The most unforgettable expressions, timeless quotes or even ancient proverbs often reveal similar advice. For instance, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

    In addition, Teddy Roosevelt has a much lengthier explanation surrounding this concept where he concludes that “a man should not be judged by his victories, but people should ask themselves what can be learned from how he carried himself after suffering the worst defeat.” This is merely a summarized interpretation of the lesson to be learned.

    John Baldoni is a certified ACEC Member for his many skill-sets and career achievements, among many other reasons. Perhaps, some of the most actionable advice John can provide his clients consists of effectively communicating powerful messages that can energize others to recognize just how many more lessons can be learned from him speaking for less than a minute. It is often agreed upon that those who speak the most have the least to say. Baldoni calmly expresses his point, then allows for it to sink in on us and upon deeper reflection, we have all already learned more about ourselves and the world around us.

    This is exactly why the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches (ACEC) has become such a valuable group to partner with. The level of quality you have the potential to align with is extraordinary. Not only will the genuine support you receive from fellow Coaches inspire you to focus more than you already had before on the continued growth for your clients, but it will also leave you feeling satisfaction from all the amazing people you have become an extension of and vice versa.

    Thanks to John Baldoni for this inspirational reminder!

    John Baldoni
    john@johnbaldoni.com
    734.995.9992
    www.johnbaldoni.com

    • 2018 Trust Across America Lifetime Achievement Honoree
    • 2020 Global Gurus Top 30 
    • Member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches
    • Inc.com Top 50 Leadership Expert
    • Inc.com Top 100 Leadership Speaker
    • Author of 14 books published in 10 languages

  • How To Persuade People to Change Their Behavior

    Our innate anti-persuasion radar raises our defenses, so we avoid or ignore the message or, even worse, counter-argue, conjuring up all the reasons why what someone else suggested is a bad idea. Sure, the governor said to stay home but they’re overreacting.  Maybe the virus is bad in some part of the country, but I don’t know a single person whose gotten it.  And besides, many people who get it are fine anyway, so what’s the big deal?  Like an overzealous high school debater, they poke and prod and raise objections until the persuasive power of the message crumbles.

    So if telling people to do doesn’t work, what does? Rather than trying to persuade people, getting them to persuade themselves is often more effective.  Here are three ways to do that.

    1. Highlight a gap. 

    You can increase people’s sense of freedom and control by pointing out a disconnect between their thoughts and actions, or between what they might recommend for others versus do themselves.

    Take staying at home. For young people who might resist, ask what they would suggest an elderly grandparent or a younger brother or sister do. Would they want them out, interacting with possibly infected people?  If not, why do they think it’s safe for them to do so?

    People strive for internal consistency. They want their attitudes and actions to line up.  Highlighting misalignment encourages them to resolve the disconnect.

    Health officials in Thailand used this approach in anti-smoking campaign.  Rather than telling smokers their habit was bad, they had little kids come up to smokers on the street and ask them for a light.  Not surprisingly, the smokers told the kids no. Many even lectured the little boys and girls about the dangers of smoking. But before turning to walk away, the kids handed the smokers a note that said, “You worry about me … But why not about yourself?” At the bottom was a toll-free number smokers could call to get help.  Calls to that line jumped more than 60% during the campaign.

    2. Pose questions.

    Another way to allow for agency is to ask questions rather than make statements.  Public health messaging tries to be direct: “Junk food makes you fat.” “Drunk driving is murder.” “Keep sheltering in place.” But being so forceful can make people feel threatened. The same content can be phrased in terms of a question: “Do you think junk food is good for you?” If someone’s answer is no, they’re now in a tough spot. By encouraging them to articulate their opinion, they’ve had to put a stake in the ground — to admit that those things aren’t good for them. And once they’ve done that, it becomes harder to keep justify the bad behaviors.

    Questions shift the listener’s role. Rather than counter-arguing or thinking about all the reasons they disagree, they’re sorting through their answer to your query and their feelings or opinions on the matter.  And this shift increases buy-in. It encourages people to commit to the conclusion, because while people might not want to follow someone else’s lead, they’re more than happy to follow their own.  The answer to the question isn’t just any answer; it’s theiranswer, reflecting their own personal thoughts, beliefs, and preferences. That makes it more likely to drive action.

    In the case of this crisis, questions like “How bad would it be if your loved ones got sick?” could prove more effective than directives in driving commitment to long-term or intermittent social distancing and vigilant hygiene practices.

    3. Ask for less. 

    The third approach is to reduce the size of the ask.

    A doctor was dealing with an obese trucker who was drinking three liters of Mountain Dew a day.  She wanted to ask him to quit cold turkey, but knew that would probably fail, so she tried something else. She asked him to go from three liters a day to two.  He grumbled, but after a few weeks, was able to make the switch.  Then, on the next visit, she asked him to cut down to one liter a day. Finally, after he was able to do that, only then did she suggest cutting the soda out entirely. The trucker still drinks a can of Mountain Dew once in a while, but he’s lost more than 25 pounds.

    Especially in times of crisis, health organizations want big change right away. Everyone should continue to stay at home, by themselves, for two more months.  But asks this big often get rejected.  They’re so different from what people are doing currently that they fall into what scientists call “the region of rejection” and get ignored.

    A better approach is to dial down the initial request. Ask for less initially, and then ask for more. Take a big ask and break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Government officials responding to the pandemic are already doing this to some extent by setting initial end dates for social distancing measures, then extending them. But there might be more opportunities, for example when experts allow for some restrictions to be lifted — say, on small gatherings — but insist that others, such as concerts or sporting events, continue to be banned.

    Whether we’re encouraging people to socially distance, shop only once a week, thoroughly wash hands and wear face masks, or change behavior more broadly, too often we default to a particular approach: Pushing.  We assume that if we just remind people again or give them more facts, figures, or reasons, they’ll come around.  But, as recent backlash against the Covid-19 -related restrictions suggests, this doesn’t always work over the long term, especially when your demands have no fixed end date.

    If we instead understand the key barriers preventing change, such as reactance, and employ tactics designed to overcome them, we can change anything.


    Author:

    Jonah Berger is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author, most recently, of The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind (Simon & Schuster, 2020).

  • Global Spirited Leadership

    I’ve been thinking a lot about all the changes we have been making during this time, as I am sure we all are, and most often I find myself asking if any of these changes are here to stay?

    The only thing that we know for certain with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, is that we can’t be certain of anything! I am, however, sure that as with all things: this, too, shall pass. But what will our world look like when it is over? If it is ever over. What will be the new “normal”?

    Until a short few months ago, it would be considered rude to refuse a handshake upon meeting. In many European cultures, that handshake was accompanied with one or more kisses as standard practice. In addition to all those polite and intentional “contacts”, think for a second about how many accidental contacts you encountered in a day through either not thinking before touching someone else while chatting or through a lack of spatial awareness, accidentally invading another person’s space. And I am certain that very few people washed their hands every 20 minutes for 20 seconds at a time.

    It didn’t take very long at all, just a couple of weeks, for “social distancing”, self-isolation, obsessive and thorough hand-washing, and maintaining a 6 foot gap between anyone else in public became the new standard; and, by all accounts, this behaviour change has been effective at doing what it was supposed to do and we are starting to see the flattening of the curve. With the rate of infection slowing, I find myself starting to wonder how many of these new habits will remain the social norm. What habits will stick and which will be forgotten?

    I predict we will see that many businesses and schools will permanently adopt some of those temporary measures that have been implemented during this time without seeming to have had a negative effect on productivity. Most notably, I think we will continue the practice of fewer face-to-face meetings, likely fewer meetings in general, less travel, more distance learning opportunities, and a greater acceptance of working from home. We are finally using the technology that has been improving over the last few decades in a way that makes sense for business and learning institutions.

    Moving away from businesses and schools, I expect we will also see lasting changes in our personal lifestyles. Which direction will it go? Many people set a weight loss goal at the beginning of the year, but now we are joking about the “Covid 19 [lbs gained during our social isolation]”. The trend has shifted towards comfort foods 

    and increased alcohol consumption. When life returns to “normal” will we continue to prioritize our comfort habits picked up during a crisis, or will we resume striving for a healthier lifestyle? What habits have you adopted during this time, and do you feel they were taken up as a temporary coping mechanism, or have your priorities changed long term? Will those habits be hard to break?

    We are starting to hear that social distancing may be the way of the future, at least in the near future. I personally dislike the term “social distancing” as it suggests a social disconnect that I am not feeling during this time. I prefer to think of it as “spatial or physical distancing”. It is my hope that, out of all the behaviour changes we have adopted during this pandemic, that “social distancing” fades quickly. We can maintain a healthy physical distance, yet strengthen and nurture those close social connections. As a self-proclaimed introvert, I must admit I have, somewhat, welcomed the peace and quiet of this period, but I have also realized how much I miss and crave the joy and fun of really connecting with people for longer than a 30 minute Zoom meeting. 

    Here is what I hope we have learned and continue to practice long after the world “reopens”:

    o Increased empathy: tough decisions have had to be made across a wide variety of industries over the last month, and I am happy to observe that the majority of these decisions have been executed with greater understanding, transparency and kindness than I was used to seeing in the past.

    o Renewed appreciation of family: and I include this in the wider sense of a shift from “Me” to “We”. Our blinkers have been removed, and we are now more aware of the health of the community as a whole – we want them to be safe and well.

    o Respect of people’s space and time: we are “seeing” each other with greater clarity than before. Currently we are being more intentionally aware just in case the other person has the “virus”, but I hope this will stick in a more meaningful way of “ I see you and I am aware of you and I want to give you as much space as you want”. Maybe we will even see fewer car accidents from our heightened awareness and decreased need to rush everywhere.

    o Showing appreciation: I am filled with hope when I hear the outburst of community applause each evening in appreciation of all our healthcare and essential workers, buildings lit up with hearts or messages of community and love, neighbours coming together to play music together from their balconies or doorsteps. I sincerely hope that this appreciation of others continues long-term.

    So, what are your thoughts on all this? Will the “Covid-bump” permanently replace hugs, handshakes, and kisses? Will we continue to be more respectful of people’s space? Throughout this crisis, what is the ONE habit, realization, or behaviour change that has meant the most to you and will you commit to nurturing that in our post-Covid world? 

    I’d love to hear your thoughts.

    Author:

    Schedule Call
    Cellene Hoogenkamp – Global Spirited Leadership 601 Union Street, Suite 2600 Seattle, Washington 98101 United States +12068298217

  • Selling via social media + newsletters

    How to sell online without an online store?

    Selling via social media + newsletters 

    Contents:

    1. 3 ways of selling on Facebook – as an individual +  when you have a business page (Facebook Shop) 
    2. Selling on Instagram

    [SPOILER WARNING: This is a monster-long emails. For more readable Blog versions of this post with screenshots see below:

    Selling via Social Media
    Selling via Newsletters 

    Due to the corona crisis – a lot of business owners who used to sell through a physical store suddenly had to switch to selling online.

    This has proved daunting to a lot of us

    😨

    Setting up an online store is expensive, time-consuming and – unless you’re really tech-savvy – pretty much impossible.

    But worry not –  you don’t have to do it!

    😁

    HOW TO SELL ON FACEBOOK VIA THE FACEBOOK STORE? 

    If you have a Facebook profile (which basically means you’re alive

    😉

    ) and Facebook business page— you can set up a FREE Facebook store to sell your products!

    Yay! There are some conditions you need to meet though:

    • You are allowed to sell physical goods from your Facebook store only — so no digital goods, no downloadables (e.g. ebooks, PDFs – but a physical book is ok ) no courses, and no services
    • You need to have a payment method: a PayPal account, Stripe Account or a bank account you can link to your store
    • If you’re in the US, you need to have a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) / Tax ID Number
    • You need to agree to Facebook’s Merchant Terms

    If you’re meeting those conditions, here’s how to set up your Facebook store in steps:

    1. Go to your Facebook business page
    2. Find ‘Shop’ on the tab on the left.
    3. Click on it and then click on ‘Add Product’.
    4. This takes you to a pop-up where you can fill in your product info.
    5. Fill in the popup with relevant information about your product. In the ‘Checkout URL’ field you can put e.g. your PayPal.me link (the link to a personal payment ‘landing page’ that’s connected to your account, takes two clicks to create, and is FREE! How good is that?)
    6. Now simply click “Add Product.”
    7. You can only sell your merchandize locally (and need to ship within 3 working days, and make sure it reaches your customer within 10 working days – via a registered mail or a shipping service that offers tracking – like DPD or TNT.)
    8. If you’re a US seller – you will need to provide which state you’re based in and provide your EIN number.

    And that’s it! You’re all set to start selling on Facebook via your own store!

    Now – in order to make it successful, you still need to do some marketing to drive customers to your Facebook shop.

    This is taken away by the ‘Marketplace‘ feature – where people in your area are actively looking for things to buy from local sellers!

    HOW TO SELL ON FACEBOOK VIA THE FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE

    Facebook Marketplace is the online equivalent of a street market/ local flea market – think London Portobello Road market taken online

    Here’s how to sell on FB marketplace:

    1. Go to the ‘marketplace’ tab on Facebook.
    2. Click on the ‘sell something’ button.
    3. Now, list your product on the marketplace.
    4. You can list the same product in several marketplaces/ share it in relevant groups at the same time!

    HOW TO SELL ON FACEBOOK SIMPLY USING…FACEBOOK POSTS.

    OK, what if you offer services or digital goods which can’t be sold in a Facebook shop or on marketplaces? You can simply offer them in Facebook groups!

    Search for local groups offering corona-related help or simply local buy-and-sell groups, and offer your services there.

    You can arrange to deliver your services online and collect payments via PayPal.me

    HOW TO SELL ON INSTAGRAM VIA INSTAGRAM SHOP
    *(DISCLAIMER: YOU NEED TO HAVE INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT TO DO IT!)

    Here are a few simple steps you need to take:

    1. link your Instagram business profile to your Facebook business page. To do it, go to Instagram >> settings >>“Linked Accounts.” and follow IG’s instructions.
    2. Wait for Instagram’s approval of your store. It may take a few days.
    3. Select the Facebook shop you want to link your Instagram profile to. Go to Instagram >> business settings >> click “Shopping” and select the Facebook shop you want to link.
    4. All your products from FB should sync with your IG shop automatically!
    5. Activate the “Shop” tab on your Instagram profile. You’ll need to post one Instagram shop post at least.

    And that’s it! Your Instagram shop is open for customers now as well! And that’s all for now

    )

    👉 Don’t forget our corona support package with FREE tools and resources for affected businesses!
    …and our Facebook support group!

    Best wishes,

    Emilia
    Postfity Community Manager

    Original Article Appears Here: https://postfity.com/sell-social-media/

  • LinkedIn Becomes A Serious Open Learning Experience Platform

    LinkedIn has become quite a juggernaut in the corporate learning market. Last time I checked the company had more than 17 million users, 14,000 corporate customers, more than 13,000 courses and was growing at high double-digit rates. And all this in only about two years.

    And the company just threw down the gauntlet; it’s now announcing it has completely opened up its learning platform to external content partners. This is the company’s formal announcement that LinkedIn Learning is not just an amazing array of content, it is a corporate learning platform. The company wants to become a single place for all organizational learning content.

    Let me summarize briefly. Just a few months ago, LinkedIn launched Learning Pro, a set of features that let companies publish their own content and create custom learning paths. Last month, the company announced Skills Insights, a set of tools that let you examine your company’s skills and promote courses based on known skills gaps.

    Now, the company is going forward. LinkedIn now offers skills-based learning recommendations to any user through its machine learning algorithms. It is opening the platform so customers who have purchased multiple content sources can offer their employees a single place to discover and access all of their organization’s learning content. This content will not be sold by Li

    nkedIn, as these are integration partnerships, not licensing partnerships. This allows LinkedIn to apply its insights to the broad range of content that enterprises are already using today.

    This includes partnerships with some of the significant learning content providers in the market.

    • Harvard ManageMentor: Leadership development content fueled by the latest thinking and proven practices from Harvard Business School faculty and business leaders.
    • getAbstract: 18,000-plus book summaries and TED talks.
    • Big Think: 500 short-form, actionable video lessons to stay ahead of business changes and stimulate agility in the workforce.
    • Treehouse: An online school that’s taught more than 850,000 adults how to be software engineers and product designers.
    • CreativeLive For Business: Expert-led classes on creativity, innovation, design thinking, emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship (and more).

    All of this means LinkedIn is now in the learning experience platform business and to some degree the LMS business as well. Of course, the platform is not necessarily a compliance-management program for many industry applications. But for just about everyone else, it’s now an enterprise-class learning platform that can deliver training in almost every domain.

    Coming in the newest release, LinkedIn is also adding collaboration and Q&A features to LinkedIn Learning courses that let learners communicate with each other and interact with the author or publisher, making it a collaborative learning platform as well.

    These are significant moves. As I described in the article “LinkedIn Announces… A Lot!”, the company is now a serious end-to-end talent solutions provider. In the L&D domain, the platform can complement and even replace many existing systems. Given that the content market is now so big and so important, LinkedIn now realizes that in order to really drive value, the company has to embrace best-of-breed content experts as well.

    There are many learning platforms in the market, and most have similar content relationships (Cornerstone just announced the acquisition of Grovo, moving further into the content business). But LinkedIn has one leg up: a massive amount of data.

    When your employees use LinkedIn Learning, the platform knows a lot about them that your typical LMS does not understand. It has their job history, their connections and their social profile and inferred skills. This means the recommendations and learning paths they see in LinkedIn will be fairly well targeted, useful and directly relevant to their jobs and future career paths. Most LMSs barely do this at all, so this alone is a reason to take a look.

    It’s time for learning professionals to think about LinkedIn differently. Yes, the company is the largest professional network. Yes, it’s a fantastic platform to find jobs and people. But now it’s a serious learning solution, and one with some pretty interesting competitive advantages.

    Author: Josh Bersin provides consulting and advice to brands, including LinkedIn. Josh Bersin is the founder of Bersin by Deloitte, and an industry analyst and researcher covering all aspects of corporate HR, training, talent management, recruiting, leadership, and workplace technology.

  • “The Anatomy of Trust” by Brené Brown

    Background

    Brené Brown is a professor and social scientist. This speech was originally delivered at UCLA’s Royce Hall in 2015.

    Speech Transcript

    Oh, it just feels like an incredible understatement to say how grateful I am to be here with all of you. I feel like I have a relationship with many of you on social media, and you were like, “T-minus two days.” I’m like, “It’s coming! We’re going to be together.” So I’m so grateful to be here with you.

    I’m going to talk about trust and I’m going to start by saying this: One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to research topics that mean something to me. One of my least favorite parts of my job is I normally come up with findings that kicked me in the butt and make me change my entire life. That’s the hard part. But I get to dig into the stuff that I think matters in my life and the life of the people around me.

    And the topic of trust is something I think I probably would have eventually started to look at closely because I study shame and vulnerability. But there’s a very personal reason I jumped to trust early in my research career, and it was a personal experience.

    One day, my daughter, Ellen, came home from school. She was in third grade. And the minute we closed the front door, she literally just started sobbing and slid down the door until she was just kind of a heap of crying on the floor. And of course I was … It scared me, and I said, “What’s wrong Ellen? What happened? What happened?”

    And she pulled herself together enough to say, “Something really hard happened to me today at school, and I shared it with a couple of my friends during recess. And by the time we got back into the classroom, everyone in my class knew what had happened, and they were laughing and pointing at me and calling me names.” And it was so bad, and the kids were being so disruptive, that her teacher even had to take marbles out of this marble jar.

    And the marble jar in the classroom is a jar where if the kids are making great choices together, the teacher adds marbles. If they’re making not great choices, the teacher takes out marbles. And if the jar gets filled up, there’s a celebration for the class.

    And so, she said, “It was one of the worst moments in my life. They were laughing and pointing. And Miss Bacchum, my teacher, kept saying, ‘I’m going to take marbles out.’ And she didn’t know what was happening.”

    And she looked at me just with this face that is just seared my mind and said, “I will never trust anyone again.” And my first reaction, to be really honest with you, was, “Damn straight, you don’t tell anybody anything but your Mama.”

    Yeah, right? That’s it. I mean, that was my … “You just tell me. And when you grow up and you go off to school, Mama will go too. I’ll get a little apartment.” And the other thing I was thinking to be quite honest with you is, “I will find out who those kids were.” And while I’m not going to beat up a nine year old, I know their mamas.

    You know, that’s the place you go to. And I’m like, “How am I going to explain trust to this third grader in front of me?” So I took a deep breath and I said, “Ellen, trust is like a marble jar.” She said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “You share those hard stories and those hard things that are happening to you with friends, who, over time, you filled up their marble jar. They’ve done thing after thing after thing where you’re like, ‘I know I can share this with this person.’ Does that make sense?”

    Yes!

    And that’s what Ellen said, “Yes, that makes sense.” And I said, “Do you have any marble jar friends?” And she said, “Oh yeah. Totally. Hannah and Lorna are marble jar friends.” And I said … And then this is where things got interesting. I said, “Tell me what you mean. How do they earn marbles for you?”

    And she’s like, “Well, Lorna, if there’s not a seat for me at the lunch cafeteria, she’ll scoot over and give me half a heinie seat.” And I’m like, “She will?” She’s like, “Yeah. She’ll just sit like that, and so I can sit with her.” And I said, “That’s a big deal.” This is not what I was expecting to hear.

    And then she said, “And you know Hannah, on Sunday at my soccer game?” And I was waiting for this story where she said, “I got hit by a ball and I was laying on the field, and Hannah picked me up and ran me to first aid.” And I was like, “Yeah?” And she said, “Hannah looked over and she saw Oma and Opa,” my parents, her grandparents, “And she said, ‘Look, your Oma and Opa are here.’” And I was like …

    And I was like, “Boy, she got a marble for that?” And she goes, “Well, you know, not all my friends have eight grandparents.” Because my parents are divorced and remarried, my husband’s parents were divorced and remarried. And she said, “And it was so nice to me that she remembered their names.”

    And I was like, “Hmm.” And she said, “Do you have marble jar friends?” And I said, “Yeah, I do have a couple of marble jar friends.” And she said, “Well, what kind of things do they do to get marbles?” And this feeling came over me. And I thought … The first thing I could think of, because we were talking about the soccer game, was that same game. My good friend Eileen walked up to my parents and said, “Diane, David, good to see you.” And I remember what that felt like for me. And I was like, certainly, trust cannot be built by these small insignificant moments in our lives. It’s gotta be a grander gesture than that.

    So, as a researcher, I start looking into the data. I gather up the doctoral students who’ve worked with me. We start looking. And it is crystal clear. Trust is built in very small moments. And when we started looking at examples of when people talked about trust in the research, they said things like, “Yeah, I really trust my boss. She even asked me how my mom’s chemotherapy was going.” “I trust my neighbor because if something’s going on with my kid, it doesn’t matter what she’s doing, she’ll come over and help me figure it out.” You know, one of the number one things emerged around trust and small things? People who attend funerals. “This is someone who showed up at my sister’s funeral.”

    Another huge marble jar moment for people, “I trust him because he’ll ask for help when he needs it.” How many of you are better at giving help than asking for help? Right? So, asking for help is one of those moments.

    So, one of the ways I work as a grounded theory researcher, is I look at the data first, then I go in and see what other researchers are talking about and saying, because we believe the best theories are not built on other existing theories, but on our own lived experiences.

    So, after I had looked at this, I said, “Let me see what the research says.” And I went to John Gottman, who’s been studying relationship for 30 years. He has amazing work on trust and betrayal. And the first thing I read, “Trust is built in the smallest of moments.” And he calls them “Sliding door moments.”

    Sliding Doors is a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow from the 90s. Have you all seen this movie? So, it’s a really tough movie, because what happens is it follows her life to this seemingly unimportant moment where she’s trying to get on a train. And she makes the train, but the movie stops and splits into two parts where she makes a train and she doesn’t make the train, and it follows them to radically different endings. And he would argue that trust is a sliding door moment. And the example that he gives is so powerful.

    He said he was lying in bed one night, he had 10 pages left of his murder mystery, and he had us feeling he knew who the killer was, but he was dying to finish this book. So he said, “I don’t even want … I want to get up, brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, and get back in and not have to get up.” You know that feeling when you just want to get all situated and read the end of your book?

    So, he gets up and he walks past his wife in the bathroom, who’s brushing her hair and who looks really sad. And he said, “My first thought was just keep walking. Just keep walking.”

    And how many of you have had that moment you walk past someone and you’re like, “Oh, God. They look … Avert your eyes.” Or you look at caller ID or your cell phone, and you’re like, “Oh yeah, I know she’s in a big mess right now. I don’t have time to pick up the phone.” Right? Yes or no? This looks like guilty laughter to me.

    So, he said, “That’s a sliding door moment.” And here’s what struck me about his story, because he said, “There is the opportunity to build trust and there is the opportunity to betray.” Because as small as the moments of trust can be, those are the moments of betrayal as well. To choose to not connect when the opportunity is there is a betrayal. So he took the brush out of her hand and started brushing her hair and said, “What’s going on with you right now, babe?” That’s a moment of trust, right?

    So fast-forward five years, and I’m clear about trust, and I talk about trust as the marble jar. We’ve got to really share our stories and our hard stuff with people whose jars are full, people who’ve, over time, really done those small things that have helped us believe that they’re worth our story.

    But the new question for me was this: What are those marbles? What is trust? What do we talk about when we talk about trust? Trust is a big word, right? To hear, “I trust you,” or “I don’t trust you.” I don’t even know what that means. So, I wanted to know, what is the anatomy of trust? What does that mean?

    So, I started looking in the research and I found a definition from Charles Feldman that I think is the most beautiful definition I’ve ever heard. And it’s simply this: “Trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.” “Choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.” Feldman says that distrust is what I have shared with you that is important to me is not safe with you.

    So, I thought, “That’s true.” And Feldman really calls for this, let’s understand what trust is. So, we went back into all the data to find out, can I figure out what trust is? Do I know what trust is from the data? And I think I do know what trust is.

    And I put together an acronym, BRAVING, B-R-A-V-I-N-G. BRAVING. Because when we trust, we are braving connection with someone. So what are the parts of trust? B, boundaries. I trust you. If you are about your boundaries and you hold them, and you’re clear about my boundaries and you respect them. There is no trust without boundaries.

    R, reliability. I can only trust you if you do what you say you’re going to do. And not once. Reliability … Let me tell you what reliability is in research terms. We’re always looking for things that are valid and reliable. Any researchers here or research kind of geeks? There’s 10 of us.

    Okay. So we would say a scale that you weigh yourself on is valid if you get on it and it’s an accurate weight. 120. Okay. So that would be a very valid scale. I would pay a lot of money for that scale. So, that’s actually not a valid scale, but we’ll pretend for the sake of this. That’s a valid scale.

    A reliable scale is a scale that if I got on it a hundred times, it’s gonna say the same thing every time. So, what reliability is, is you do what you say you’re going to do over and over and over again. You cannot gain and earn my trust if you’re reliable once, because that’s not the definition of reliability.

    In our working lives, reliability means that we have to be very clear on our limitations so we don’t take on so much that we come up short and don’t deliver on our commitments. In our personal life, it means the same thing. So, when we say to someone, “Oh God, it was so great seeing you. I’m going to give you a call and we can have lunch. Yes or no?” “No. It was really great seeing you.” Moment of discomfort. Goodbye. Right? But honest.

    So B, Boundaries. R, Reliability. A … Huge. Accountability. I can only trust you if, when you make a mistake, you are willing to own it, apologize for it, and make amends. I can only trust you if when I make a mistake, I am allowed to own it, apologize, and make amends. No accountability? No trust.

    V, and this one shook me to the core. Vault. The Vault. What I share with you, you will hold in confidence. What you share with me, I will hold in confidence. But you know what we don’t understand? And this came up over and over again in the research. We don’t understand the other side of the vault. That’s only one door on the vault. Here’s where we lose trust with people.

    If a good friend comes up to me and says, “Oh my God, did you hear about Caroline? They’re getting a divorce and it is ugly. I’m pretty sure her partner’s cheating.” You have just shared something with me that was not yours to share, and now, my trust for you, even though you’re gossiping and giving me the juice, now my trust for you is completely diminished.

    Does that make sense? So the Vault is not just about the fact that you hold my confidences, it’s that, in our relationship, I see that you acknowledge confidentiality. Here’s the tricky thing about the Vault. A lot of times, we share things that are not ours to share as a way to hot wire connection with a friend, right? If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me. You know? Yes or no? Our closeness is built on talking bad about other people. You know what I call that? Common enemy intimacy.

    What we have is not real. The intimacy we have is built on hating the same people, and that’s counterfeit. That’s counterfeit trust. That’s not real. So, the Vault means you respect my story, but you respect other people’s story.

    I, Integrity. I cannot trust you and be in a trusting relationship with you if you do not act from a place of integrity and encourage me to do the same. So, what is integrity?

    I came up with this definition because I didn’t like any of the ones out there, and that’s what I do when I don’t like them. I do. I look in the data, and I say, “What’s integrity?” Here’s what I think integrity is. Three pieces. It’s choosing courage over comfort, choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, or easy, and practicing your values, not just professing your values, right? I mean, that’s integrity.

    N, Non-judgment. I can fall apart, ask for help, and be in struggle without being judged by you. And you can fall apart, and be in struggle, and ask for help without being judged by me, which is really hard because we’re better at helping than we are asking for help.

    And we think that we’ve set up trusting relationships with people who really trust us because we’re always there to help them. But let me tell you this, if you can’t ask for help and they cannot reciprocate that, that is not a trusting relationship. Period. And when we assign value to needing help, when I think less of myself for needing help, whether you’re conscious of it or not, when you offer help to someone, you think less of them too.

    You cannot judge yourself for needing help but not judge others for needing your help. And somewhere in there, if you’re like me, you’re getting value from being the helper in relationship. You think that’s your worth. But real trust doesn’t exist unless help is reciprocal and non-judgment.

    The last one is G, Generosity. Our relationship is only a trusting relationship if you can assume the most generous thing about my words, intentions, and behaviors, and then check in with me. So, if I screw up, say something, forget something, you will make a generous assumption and say, “Yesterday was my mom’s one year anniversary of her death, and it was really tough for me, and I talked to you about it last month. And I really was hoping that you would’ve called, but I know you care about me. I know you think it’s a big deal. So I wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about that.” As opposed to not returning calls, not returning emails, and waiting for the moment where you can spring, “Well, you forgot to call on this important …” You know? You’ll make a generous assumption about me and check it out.

    Does that make sense? So we’ve got boundaries, reliability, accountability, the vault, integrity, non-judgment, and generosity. These, this is the anatomy of trust, and it’s complex.

    Why do we need to break it down? For a very simple reason. How many of you in here have ever struggled with trust in a relationship, professional or personal? It should be everybody, statistically, right? And so, what you end up saying to someone is, “I don’t trust you.” “What do you mean you don’t trust me? I love you. I’m so dependable. What do you mean you don’t trust me?”

    How do we talk about trust if we can’t break it down? What understanding trust gives us is words to say, “Here’s my struggle. You’re not reliable with me. You say you’re going to do something, I count on it, you don’t do it.” Or maybe the issue is non-judgment. But we can break it down and talk about it and ask for what we need, very specifically. Instead of using this huge word that has tons of weight and value around it, we can say, “Here’s specifically what’s not working. What’s not working is we’ve got a boundaries issue.”

    So, one of the things that’s interesting, I think, is one of the biggest casualties with heartbreak and disappointment and failure and our struggle, is not just the loss of trust with other people, but the loss of self trust. When something hard happens in our lives, the first thing we say is “I can’t trust myself. I was so stupid. I was so naive.”

    So, this BRAVING acronym works with self-trust too. So, when something happens … I just recently went through a really tough failure, and I had to ask myself, “Did I honor my own boundaries? Was I reliable? Can I count on myself? Did I hold myself accountable? Was I really protective of my stories? Did I stay in my integrity? Was I judgmental toward myself? And I give myself the benefit of the doubt? Was I generous toward myself?”

    Because if braving relationships with other people is braving connection, self-trust is braving self-love. Self-respect, the wildest adventure we’ll ever take in our whole lives. And so, what I would invite you to think about when you think about trust is if your own marble jar is not full, if you can’t count on yourself, you can’t ask other people to give you what you don’t have. So we have to start with self-trust.

    There’s a great quote from Maya Angelou that says, “I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves, but say I love you.” Right?

    She quotes an African proverb when she said that, and she said, “Be wary of the naked man offering you a shirt.” And so, a lot of times if you find yourself in struggle with trust, the thing to examine first is your own marble jar, how you treat yourself. Because we can’t ask people to give to us something that we do not believe we’re worthy of receiving. And you will know you’re worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else. So, thank y’all so much. I’m so honored to be here. Thank you. Thank y’all.

  • Should non-disclosure agreements be confidential or not?

    With new rules reducing the scope of confidentiality provisions in NDAs, Tessa Fry weighs up the arguments for and against their use

    Nobody can be forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) – or, more accurately in the employment context, nobody can be forced to sign the confidentiality and non-disparaging provisions of a settlement agreement. The key requirement for a valid settlement agreement is for the employee to have independent legal advice before they sign. The employer usually contributes towards legal fees for this purpose.

    Settlement agreements provide certainty and finality for both businesses and employees. They can be used to settle existing or potential tribunal claims, but are commonly used on termination where there is no particular dispute. Under the standard terms, employers do not admit liability and employees receive compensation in exchange for giving up their employment rights, and are then unable to bring any claims against the company. 

    Over the years, settlement agreements have become more complex, with detailed provisions on confidentiality and non-disparagement (the NDAs). Standard provisions include both parties agreeing to keep the settlement figure and background details confidential, together with an agreed reference and mutual ‘no bad-mouthing’. This protects both parties. 

    Until recently, these NDAs were generally accepted. However, since the #MeToo movement, the various disclosures made regarding NDAs in sexual harassment cases have led to consideration by the Women and Equalities Committee and the Court of Appeal. The committee was concerned in particular with a settlement agreement with Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein’s (pictured) former PA who worked for him 20 years ago. The agreement prohibited disclosure to the police and medical practitioners, and even prevented the employee having a copy of the agreement (it had to be viewed in the presence of a solicitor). 

    Although most NDAs do not contain these prohibitions, the committee concluded that cases of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination were being covered up by the use of these agreements, and in particular their confidentiality clauses. It proposed that employees signing such agreements should get specific advice on the limitations of confidentiality clauses. 

    By contrast, in the Philip Green/Arcadia injunction application, the Court of Appeal considered settlement agreements with five former employees and noted their legal fees were paid in full, they were not pressurised to sign the agreements and there was no restriction on reporting to the police or whistleblowing. So the disclosure of the allegations by two former employees to the Daily Telegraph was in breach of the NDAs. Accordingly, the injunction was granted to protect the employer’s confidentiality – confidentiality that the employees had agreed to in exchange for very high compensation. It was noted that the allegations were denied and two other ex-employees supported the injunction application.

    In responding to the committee’s report, the government has stated it will introduce new legislation to ensure confidentiality clauses in settlement agreements cannot prevent individuals from making disclosures to the police, regulated health and care professionals or regulators. There will be new requirements for the mandatory independent legal advice on a settlement agreement to include the limitations of any confidentiality clause. Confidentiality clauses that do not comply with the new legal requirements will be void. 

    It is not known when the legislation will be introduced. However, some aspects have already taken effect because of regulatory pressures on solicitors. Under new SRA guidance, if a solicitor is drafting clauses that are unenforceable, such as clauses preventing reports to the police, this may lead to disciplinary action.

    The standard precedent now takes this guidance and government proposals into account and there are long lists of categories to whom disclosure may be made – in particular, the police, regulated health and care professionals and any professional regulator.

    If employers are no longer able to rely on confidentiality provisions in settlement agreements then they may be less inclined to settle disputes. This may leave the employee with applying to a tribunal as the only other remedy available to them – with the risks and costs involved. 

    Author: Tessa Fry

  • Managerial Competencies and Organizational Levels

    I was talking recently with a very smart psychologist about IBM; I noted that IBM’s stock has gone down steadily for the past six years, and he said: “IBM is well managed but poorly led.” This perceptive observation assumes that managers’ jobs change as they move from supervisor to manager to executive. I have always thought that leadership is the same at any level, but many people believe that the roles of managers, and the competencies needed to perform in those roles, change as they advance in organizations. I know little about this, so I asked Rob Kaiser and, as usual, he was helpful—in part because he organized an entire issue of The Psychologist-Manager Journal (2011, Volume 14) on this subject.

    The particular strength of the articles in Kaiser’s issue of the journal is that they present real data, based on good measures and a comprehensive set of competencies, data that show clearly how the requirements of management jobs change with changes in organizational status. The published literature on this topic is quite large and somewhat complex. I believe I can summarize the major lessons of the literature in terms of four points.

    The first point is that management levels can be usefully conceptualized in terms of three categories:  (1) Supervisors, who are responsible for organizing employees’ work, assigning tasks, and holding people accountable for their performance; (2) Managers, who coordinate the efforts of work teams with the requests of top management; (3) Executives, who set the direction for the organization. Even with these simple definitions it is apparent that people do different things at different levels of management.

    The second point is that De Meuse, et al. (2011) show that certain prominent competencies (e.g., Humor, Personal Disclosure, and Compassion), are irrelevant. Specifically, ratings for sense of humor, willingness to disclose, and showing compassion are uncorrelated with managerial performance at any level. Consider Personal Disclosure. It is defined as “…willing to share thoughts about personal strengths, weaknesses, and limitations; admits mistakes and shortcomings; is open about personal beliefs and feelings; is easy to get to know for those who interact with him/her regularly.” Personal Disclosure is the core of Authentic Leadership theory and these data indicate that it is irrelevant for managerial performance.

    The third point is that certain competencies are in fact important at any level. These include Customer Focus, Functional/Technical Skills, Decision Quality, and Ethics and Values. I can’t resist noting that these competencies are at the core of the “Hogan Leadership Model.” The data provided by Kaiser, et al. (2011) contain two interesting findings. The first concerns the importance of being decisive versus being participative when making decisions. Effective Managers are rated as high decisive, low participative, whereas effective Executives are rated as low decisive, high participative. Second, Kaiser’s data indicate that “learning agility” is needed at every managerial level, and that “abrasiveness” is undesirable at any level. These data are consistent with Kaiser’s claim that adaptability (i.e., learning agility) is the “g” factor in managerial performance.

    The last point is that certain competencies are important for Supervisors, even more important for Managers, and crucial for Executives. These competencies are Managerial Courage, Command Skills, Business Acumen, and Perspective. This is also consistent with our leadership model.

    These four points summarize what we know in a data-based way about how managers’ jobs change as they move up organizational hierarchies. I would like to close with two observations, the first concerns the practical consequences of these data, the second concerns a shortcoming in these analyses. Regarding the practical consequences, executive coaches all know that many managers fail after being promoted. A common cause of failure concerns being unable to adapt to the promotion. We distinguish between working in the business and working on the business. Working in the business involves assigning tasks, giving clear instructions, and holding people accountable. Working on the business means putting problems in perspective, evaluating past decisions based on present evidence, and anticipating problems based on potential changes in customer demands. This involves the distinction between tactical and strategic thinking. Tactical thinking concerns implementation issues, budget allocation, and short-term deadlines; strategic thinking concerns innovation, profit generation, and longer-term opportunities. Smart, hardworking, honest executives often fail because they focus on tactical issues at the expense of strategic opportunities.

    The second problem with discussions of leadership based on competency models concerns the problem of derailment. The data show that 65% to 75% of existing managers struggle to perform well at any level. Competency models focus on strengths, but as Rob Kaiser tells us, strengths become problems when they are overused; thus, more of any competency is not always better. Conversely, more versatility (or learning agility) is always better. In addition, Kaiser’s data also show that unpleasant tendencies (e.g., abrasiveness) can co-exist with important strengths, and the unpleasant tendencies can cancel the benefits of important strengths. All of this suggests that competency-based analyses of leadership need to be qualified by considerations of versatility and the dark side of personality.

    Author: Robert Hogan

  • How Being Bullied Affects Your Adulthood

    One researcher who has interviewed hundreds of adults who were bullied as teens posits an interesting theory.

    In American schools, bullying is like the dark cousin to prom, student elections, or football practice: Maybe you weren’t involved, but you knew that someone, somewhere was. Five years ago, President Obama spoke against this inevitability at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention. “With big ears and the name that I have, I wasn’t immune. I didn’t emerge unscathed,” he said. “But because it’s something that happens a lot, and it’s something that’s always been around, sometimes we’ve turned a blind eye to the problem.”

    We know that we shouldn’t turn a blind eye: Research shows that bullying is corrosive to children’s mental health and well-being, with consequences ranging from trouble sleeping and skipping school to psychiatric problems, such as depression or psychosis, self-harm, and suicide.

    But the damage doesn’t stop there. You can’t just close the door on these experiences, says Ellen Walser deLara, a family therapist and professor of social work at Syracuse University, who has interviewed more than 800 people age 18 to 65 about the lasting effects of bullying. Over the years, deLara has seen a distinctive pattern emerge in adults who were intensely bullied. In her new book, Bullying Scars, she introduces a name for the set of symptoms she often encounters: adult post-bullying syndrome, or APBS.

    DeLara estimates that more than a third of the adults she’s spoken to who were bullied have this syndrome. She stresses that APBS is a description, not a diagnosis—she isn’t seeking to have APBS classified as a psychiatric disorder. “It needs considerably more research and other researchers to look at it to make sure that this is what we’re seeing,” deLara says.

    Roughly 1 in 3 students in the United States are bullied at school (figures on cyberbullying are less certain, because it is newer than other forms of bullying and the technology kids use to carry it out is constantly in flux). This abuse can span exclusion, rumors, name-calling, or physical harm. Some victims are isolated loners while others are bedeviled by their own friends or social rivals.

    Years after being mistreated, people with adult post-bullying syndrome commonly struggle with trust and self-esteem, and develop psychiatric problems, deLara’s research found. Some become people-pleasers, or rely on food, alcohol, or drugs to cope.

    In some respects, APBS is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in which people who have had terrifying experiences develop an impaired fight-or-flight response. Both APBS and PTSD can lead to lasting anger or anxiety, substance abuse, battered self-esteem, and relationship problems. One difference, though, is that people with APBS seem less prone to sudden flares of rage.

    “Those with PTSD have internalized their trauma such that it has affected their nervous system,” deLara says. “People with PTSD react immediately because their triggers are basically telling them they need to protect themselves against harm.” Those with APBS seem to have a longer fuse; the damage comes not in an outsized reaction but instead because they ruminate on what happened.

    DeLara observed another distinction between sufferers of PTSD and those with APBS: Sometimes, having been bullied seems to have positive outcomes.

    About 47 percent of deLara’s interviewees said they had mined something beneficial, like a sense of inner strength or self-reliance, from the experience. Others cultivated empathy or consciously decided to treat others well or make something of their lives. Everyone with APBS had at least one or more of these boons, deLara says.

    It’s unclear how much of this silver lining can be traced to genetics, and how much to a supportive family or community. “We don’t know the answer as to why some people who are bullied as children have what they consider to be a beneficial outcome as adults,” deLara says.

    She is planning to compare the recovery rates for people with PTSD and with APBS. One difference she saw in people with APBS is that they don’t see the world as a menacing place, as people with PTSD often do.

    Some people have an inborn sense of optimism, or ability to focus on how lucky they are to have left bullying behind them. These people might have a head start in bouncing back, but resilience can also be learned. For people with APBS, deLara recommends family and cognitive behavioral therapies, particularly those focused on trauma.

    Of course, the damage wrought by bullying handily outweighs any benefits. “Because people can make lemonade out of lemons, it doesn’t mean that bullying is a good thing,” deLara says. Even those who are able to see the positive side of having been bullied often had other negative ramifications.

    DeLara hopes that giving a name to these experiences will make it easier for people to find effective treatment. “In order to help someone you have to be able to clearly name what’s going on,” she says. Moreover, people who live with the symptoms of adult post-bullying syndrome don’t realize that they’re not the only ones to respond this way. One man told deLara that the idea of APBS helped him realize his reaction was normal and not another personality flaw.

    DeLara plans to continue studying the long-term consequences of bullying and which therapies can help people overcome them.

    Dieter Wolke, who has studied the psychiatric impacts of bullying in adults at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, agrees that bullying can leave devastating, long-lasting psychological damage. He’s hesitant, however, about using a new term for these symptoms based on their cause. “I see not much value in inventing a new name,” he says. It’s more important, he says, for doctors to be trained to broach the subject of bullying with their patients.

    What is clear is that while some adults have overcome the bullying they endured as kids, others continue to suffer. The research on what forms this suffering takes is still preliminary. Whether or not the label of APBS sticks around, people who live with its symptoms will benefit from any research into how to resolve them.

    Author: Kate Baggaley

  • The Best Alternatives to Zoom for Remote Meetings

    Zoom is getting a lot more use these days now that people need to hold meetings remotely and carry on other events that require face-to-face interaction without the current risks posed by physical proximity. Zoom lets you create and host meetings, but it isn’t the only online video conferencing solution out there. With anecdotal reports of slow connections and dropped calls, some might be looking for a secondary option. Thankfully, there are plenty of paid and free options to pick from, depending on your needs.

    Paid alternatives

    Google Hangouts (Enterprise)

    This is probably the most obvious pick, especially since you can use Hangouts on a vast array of devices and web browsers. However, Google’s enterprise-level G-Suite service includes a version of Hangouts that is perfect for companies that need to find a new video conferencing app. It can be used for text, voice, and video chats, it lets you connect with up to 250 other users per call, and it has robust moderation and presentation features. You can even record meetings.

    The free version of Hangouts is a viable choice, too, supporting up to 150 users, but it requires users to connect using their personal Google accounts, which may exclude those who don’t have one. The free version also lacks the presentation options, nor can you record calls, but that 150-user limit is hard to beat compared to other freebies out there. (Android, iOS, web)

    Zoho Meetings

    If you don’t want to go with Google’s G-Suite service, the open-source alternative Zoho One includes online conferencing software that should appeal to anyone familiar with Zoom or Hangouts.

    Zoho Meetings lets you host end-to-end encrypted video meetings, conference calls, and webinars, all of which can be accessed through dial-ins and email links—you don’t need to force anyone to sign up or download an app in order to join in. There are also desktop, web, and mobile versions of the app.

    You can record your meetings, and the hosting options include moderation and organization tools. The software also integrates with Zoho’s Office app suite, so you can pull in spreadsheets, text documents, and other files easily during your presentation. Zoho even has a handy comparison sheet showing how it compares to Zoom.

    Zencastr

    Zencastr is technically a web-based podcasting service and doesn’t do video calls, but it’s excellent for conference calls. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Zencastr is lifting its restrictions on group size and recording limits. Free users can now host calls with unlimited users and unlimited recording time (normally only three users per call and 8 hours of recording time per month, though unrecorded calls don’t count).

    Paid users ($20/month) get a special live editing dashboard and post-production tools. Only the host needs to have a Zencastr account, as they can invite users through simple shareable links (like you can with Zoom). There’s also a “hand raise” button that can help keep things running smoothly when you’re hosting a large conference call and want to make sure everyone can chime in.

    Free alternatives

    Discord

    Discord is a gaming-focused app, but it has a broader appeal than just gaming thanks to its encrypted chats and flexible organization features. Discord chats take place on dedicated “servers” that users can set up and organize themselves, each chat rooms—think Slack, but with video and voice calls in addition to text chat.

    Video calls only support nine users in total, but the app includes simple screen-sharing tools and other handy features if you’re using it to hold meetings. Considering it’s a free app, there’s a lot of flexibility here and it’s a great option if you want a permanent conferencing solution, but the other free options on this list will be easier to get up and running. Discord is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and most web browsers.

    WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger

    While Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are separate apps (for now), Facebook owns both and each one runs on the same backend technology—and will eventually fuse into the same cross-platform service along with Instagram DMs—just in case you were wondering why we grouped them here.

    Both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger support group voice/video calls, but since these are tailored more for basic calls over mobile or the web, you won’t find enterprise-level conferencing features here. If all you need to do is hold a quick check-in with a few colleagues, both apps will work well.

    FaceTime

    Facetime is iOS-only, which limits its use as a universal solution, but since it’s included on just about every Apple device many folks will likely have access to it. The app supports up to 32 people in a single call, so as long as everyone’s got an iPhone, iPad, or Mac handy, it can be a solid way to hold remote meetings.

    Skype

    Skype is another video chat service most people are likely familiar with. It supports up to 50 users on a single video call and is available on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and as a web app, but like most of the other free apps here, all participants will need to have an account—in this case, you’ll need a Microsoft account. That said, if everyone in your group is already signed up and using the service, it’ll do the job just fine.

    Author: Brendan Hesse