Communicate, Lead, and Transform: Behaviors to Break Free from Your Mental Wheel Ruts

There are numerous books on how to improve your communication and leadership skills that are based solely on theory. This is not one of them. This how-to guide employs an empirical approach to meaningful improvement and aims to help you to leverage your own observations, assessments, experiences, and learning experiments, not just ours as the authors.

The first section deals with building better behavior-based communication skills, while working on fixing your mental wheel ruts (reinforcing negative behaviors that you find yourself performing over and over again). The communications section details how to listen better, build relationships, give and receive feedback, and mine disagreements for value, among other topics. The second section on leadership describes effective leadership in the virtual environment, building great work teams, and coaching for success. The final section combines your communication and leadership improvement areas into a focused transformation plan.

Transformative communication and leadership behaviors involve a commitment to improvement, patience, practice, change, hard work, and small victories in order to reinforce your efforts. However, you have to start somewhere. This is your jumping-off point.

About the Author

William J. Murray has over 45 years of industry experience including senior management at a large multinational chemical company; owner and Managing Director of WJ Murray & Associates, a strategic management consulting organization; and as a senior consulting manager at Expressworks International, LLC, a change management consulting organization. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Rice University and the University of Houston. Bill’s consulting focus is on assisting leaders in the development and, more importantly, the execution of strategic plans. His consulting clients have included IBM, Chevron, Shell Oil of North America, United Airlines, Exxon Mobil, Rolls Royce, BMC Software, Kellogg Brown and Root, Baylor College of Medicine, Baker Ripley House, Saudi Aramco, the University of Texas Health Science Center, and the European Academy for Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery Limited.

Eddie Merla, PMI-ACP, PMP is the owner and founder of Duende Project Management Services, a training and consulting company. Over his many decades of experience, Eddie has implemented project management programs, strategies, and best practices for multiple organizations and in multiple industries. His project management engagements have included North America, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. He has also implemented organizational structures to support large projects and improve the delivery of project and program results. Eddie has also coached corporate clients in the transition from traditional project management practices to agile methods.