Communicate with Mastery

FOREWORD

Early in my career, I traveled to Claremont College, where I got advice from the father of modern management, the late Peter Drucker. That advice has since served me well: “Build on your strengths; and make your weaknesses irrelevant.” This was the opposite of what I was doing. I was working to address my limitations, and, in so doing, I was ignoring my natural abilities, sometimes laboring toward mediocrity.

Every year, Graham Weaver, founder of Alpine Investors, comes to a second-year MBA class that I teach at Stanford. One of the most powerful lessons he leaves with students is a simple metaphor: “Water your flowers and cut your weeds.” It's another version of the advice that Drucker gave to an aspiring young leader many years earlier. Powerful as it may be, it is counterintuitive advice to most of us working on a portfolio of problems and opportunities.

The same wisdom applies to our efforts to communicate effectively. Many books give high-level encouragement for powerful and effective communications; yet few instruct leaders on how to build on their strengths as a communicator and make their weaknesses irrelevant. The book you hold in your hands provides that path forward.

My friend and colleague JD Schramm has captured in one place the heart of what he's taught to our students at Stanford about writing and speaking as a leader. Not only has he opened up his classroom to all of us, but he has also included interviews with the legion of coaches and instructors he ...