Jay Sullivan
As seen in:
Forbes,
The New York Times,
Meta Newsroom,
Flipboard,
Inc.,
The Hill,
Federation of American Scientists,
The Roar,
Devex,
Craig Daily Press
and
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Jay Sullivan
How to Answer ‘What Do You Do?’ Without Using Your Job Title
Your job title says a lot — just not anything people care about. People tend to be wrapped up in themselves, both personally and professionally. That’s not selfish or Machiavellian. It’s just human nature. While that’s ok, it’s not effective when it comes to communicating how you view your role or the value of the enterprise you’ve worked so hard to create.
Communication Tips For Enhancing Courtesy
While I am an eternal optimist and am prone to seeing the tremendous amount of good in the world, it’s easy to think civil society has become a bit less civil of late. While our daily news feed is filled with notable events, our daily lives are filled with minor interactions, most of which continue to involve gracious acts of aid, courtesy, and kindness. Here are a few suggestions regarding how to promote even more civility with our fellow human beings.
When Overwhelmed With News, Protect Your Sanity By Pacing Yourself
We're all inundated with news these days. We struggle to figure out what's real, what's important, what's urgent, and what to do about any of it. That's not just with regard to world events and politics. It may be equally true regarding your situation at work or school. It's understandable that we might feel overwhelmed and want to disconnect.
How To Use Humor Effectively In A Presentation
"Start with a joke," is one of the most poorly framed, and therefore widely misunderstood pieces of advice regarding giving presentations. In addition, the jokes themselves are usually badly executed. Nevertheless, using humor in a presentation is a powerful tool for engaging an audience, defusing a tense situation, and conveying a sense of authenticity as a leader - if done well. Using humor effectively requires a level of self-awareness about where your talents lie. Don't overdo it.
To Present Like A Pro, Talk Like A Teenager
Sometimes when communicating, we can be our own biggest obstacle to being effective. We try to look smart by making things seem more complicated than they really are. It’s hard to sound passionate and intense about something complicated. Instead, remember how you felt about an issue when you were younger, and how you articulated a simple statement of your belief.
Give ‘Em A Break To Keep ‘Em Awake
Think of each presentation you deliver as a commitment to your audience. You have certain content they want to know, or need to hear, or at the very least, are required to listen to. Your obligation is to make sure they can digest the information as effortlessly as possible. Your presentation is likely not the most important meeting of their day. Make it easy for them to grasp your ideas or suggestions. Everyone has a limited attention span.
Training Is Smart. Educating Is Wise. Both Are Important.
The US military is one of the most highly trained and educated organizations in the world. When officers achieve significant milestones in their careers, they often participate in significant additional education. My son, recently promoted to major in the Army, just earned his masters degree in Strategic Securities Studies from the National Defense University at Ft. Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Remaining Nimble In Times Of Upheaval
The ground keeps shifting beneath our feet. In the span of 48 hours last week, I had a government contract for a program on crisis communications cancelled, reinstated, and cancelled again. I don’t dare remove the program from my calendar in case it gets reinstated again. Fortunately, government contracts make up a small fraction of my work, so this isn’t a crisis for me.
It Takes Guts To Seek Glory. Tips for Talking From Pulpit or Podium
As someone who helps other people communicate more effectively, I have had the privilege over the years to guide leaders in a wide array of professions on how to connect best with their audiences. As a Catholic, I have been inspired over the years when many of the priests in my parish have asked for and been open to coaching regarding their sermons. That takes guts. Upon reflection, I realize that much of that guidance is applicable to a broad array of business audiences as well.
Managing And Rethinking Stress For Yourself And Your Team
Stress comes at us every day from many angles but can be categorized in two ways: malignant stress and motivational stress. One impedes our ability to communicate effectively. The other helps us grow and expand our skills, our capacity, and our impact. We are headed into uncertain economic times, compounded by an ever-shifting political landscape. As a business leader, how can you help your team manage both types of stress effectively?
Give Yourself Cues To Success
We’re all creatures of habit. We all also have repetitive actions in our day, moments that occur a few times or dozens of times, based on the nature of our work life. You can use those recurring moments to create new habits that can improve your overall effectiveness on the job. Then, pile those little habits on top of each other. Here are a few helpful habits you can adopt cued by the repetitive tasks in your day.
Don’t “Fake It ‘til You Make It.” Speak Boldly About What You Know.
You’re in your first year on the job as a new analyst, accountant, lawyer, consultant, engineer, or salesperson. You’ve been drinking from a fire hose for months, trying to understand the parameters of the job, the politics of the organization, the preferences of the various leaders to whom you report, and the ever-changing passcode to access Wi-Fi. You suffer from Imposter Syndrome, thinking that any moment, someone will realize you don’t know what you are doing. Relax.
Assumptions That Might Help In Turbulent Times
I teach business professionals how to listen more effectively, so I spend a great deal of time encouraging people to ask more questions and avoid making assumptions. Avoiding assumptions helps us all learn more and avoid misunderstandings. That said, here are some assumptions that might actually help us remain more open to the ideas and comments of other people. At the very least, they will make your day easier and less stressful. Assume positive intent.
To Communicate Effectively, Marry The “What” To The “Why”
As leaders, when we share an initiative with our teams, we’re usually very good at communicating what we want done. We’re always good at telling people when it needs to be done. (Usually, yesterday.) What we often forget to share is the why of the initiative. And yet it’s the why behind the what that motivates the team to get the job done. If you’ve ever gotten frustrated that your message as a leader doesn’t seem to be filtering down through the organization, you’re not alone.
In A Democracy, We’re All Accountable
Leadership takes on different attributes in different settings. If you teach second grade, leadership means setting clear boundaries and direction. You make sure your “followers” feel comfortable that someone is in charge and directing both the way and the day. If you run a company or a business unit, leadership means setting a clear course, outlining expectations. You then hold yourself and others accountable.
Avoid having assumptions become convictions
By Jay Sullivan As lawyers, we are taught to be discerning, to be thoughtful and to apply critical thinking as we process complex and sometimes conflicting information. As humans, we are prone to react reflexively, to give in to our biases, and to jump to conclusions. Our snap judgments harden quickly into certitudes. If our conclusions are wrong, our ego keeps us from correcting course.
Presence Matters - 5 Ways To Inspire Colleagues To Trek To The Office
Demanding a certain level of presence in the office for your employees is like insisting on loyalty from your followers. The only leaders who insist on loyalty are those who can’t inspire it. Companies that require presence are those that haven’t figured out how to make being in the office valuable for their team members. I don’t want my colleagues to be in the office. I want them to want to be in the office.
Holiday Time With Family: Unconditional Love Meets Stockholm Syndrome
We’re heading into the holidays, when we set aside time to enjoy loved ones…and our families. I deeply love my family, both immediate and extended. Navigating the many conversations, however, sometimes takes finesse. Sometimes we think we need to tackle a situation head-on. Other times, we realize we can tiptoe through an evening’s worth of challenging topics. Whether your family gatherings are a battle or a ballet, here are some suggestions to make the holidays the joyous occasion they should be.
Tips on giving feedback to associates
By Jay Sullivan As the year draws to a close, many associates will be receiving their annual performance reviews. How they receive that information will depend in large part on whether the review takes them by surprise or confirms the feedback they have been receiving all year. Giving feedback to junior attorneys is an essential part of being a more seasoned lawyer.
Improve Your Impact When Presenting By Adopting The Right Attitude
When we need to deliver a formal presentation at work, we usually have an unstated emotional reaction toward the moment. We might be fatalistic. “I just need to get through this.” Or excited. “I’m going to leverage my theatre background and make this fun for everyone!” Or petrified. “I’m going to bomb, lose my job, and starve to death.” Our attitude drives how we prepare for the event. If we’re eager to strut our stuff, we focus on being creative in our presentation design and delivery.
How to manage key stakeholders
By Jay Sullivan On a good day, running a law firm is a juggling act. On a rough day, it’s a goat rodeo, with tons of activity, tremendous energy, and just a bit too much chaos. How do you pay attention to the important relationships that allow your business to thrive? How do you manage the expectations and needs of stakeholders with varied interests and different expectations of responsiveness? First, it’s important to understand the stakeholders who impact your business.
Networking Reframed
The U.S. Naval War College and The Pell Center at Salve Regina University, both in Newport, Rhode Island, recently hosted The Forum at Newport, a conference on the Geostrategic and National Security Challenges and Opportunities Posed by Climate Change. It was a great conference with tremendous speakers, including Former Secretary of State John Kerry. One of the first speakers was Rear Admiral Darryl L. Walker, the newly appointed President of the War College.
When You’re a Panelist, Be the Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats
Congratulations. You’ve been asked to speak on a panel. You’re thinking either, “Yeah!” or “Yikes!” If it’s at an external event such as an industry conference, it’s a chance to highlight your expertise, broaden your personal brand, and further your business development opportunities. If it’s an internal event, such as speaking to new hires about “What I wish I knew when I was in your shoes,” it’s an acknowledgement of your achievements and your stature within your organization.
Commentary: How to prepare for your partnership interview
By Jay Sullivan Every firm operates on its own annual timetable regarding when and how it promotes attorneys into the partner ranks. All, however, have a “partner candidate process” that involves candidates sitting down for interviews with the firm’s management committee. Some firms also require a written statement by the candidate about why she or he would be a valuable addition to the firm’s ownership team.
From “Ugh Factor” To “Aha Moment”
When you put together materials for a presentation slide deck, you should keep one overarching principle in mind. Avoid the “Ugh Factor.” When any given slide appears in front of an audience, to what degree is their reaction likely to be, “Ugh. This is going to be painful.” A number of elements contribute to the Ugh Factor. It’s actually pretty easy to avoid all of them.
How to prepare for your partnership interview
AT A GLANCE In a partnership interview, discussing recent industry trends and insights shows an understanding of the firm’s future potential and direction. Highlight your key work achievements as learning experiences that contribute to the firm’s overall effectiveness and strategic development. Craft stories that emphasize strategic thinking, leadership and business acumen, not just technical legal successes.
Choose Your Words Carefully. You’ll Be Grateful.
Our word choice matters. It determines the tone of our messages and whether those messages have impact. Years ago, I was sitting with a group of colleagues toward the end of a long day of work. We were discussing how we each made decisions and approached our daily challenges.
A More Civil Discourse Results In A More Productive Debate
Last week I had the honor of participating in a panel discussion about how we can all promote more civil discourse. The discussion was hosted by my alma mater, Fordham University School of Law, as part of orientation for new law students. The event happened to fall on the final evening of the Democratic National Convention.
Cross-selling for lawyers made easy
AT A GLANCE Cross-selling within a firm is crucial for deepening existing client relationships and generating faster business growth. Compensation structures and firm culture often hinder effective cross-selling, limiting revenue potential from existing clients. Attorneys don’t need extensive knowledge of their colleagues’ work to cross-sell; they only need to listen for client needs.
Thinking Critically - Through The Election And Throughout Every Day
As the election approaches, we’ll be inundated with ads and messages about a wide array of important topics. Effective democracy requires engagement by all of us. But we’re all busy enough with our day jobs. We have lots of demands on our time and our thinking. Very few of us have the time or inclination to suddenly become experts on immigration, health care, global conflicts, or the economy.
How Your Passion Drives Your Executive Presence
When experienced professionals share complex ideas in meetings or in formal presentations, their delivery can, on occasion, be flat and matter-of-fact. Sometimes it’s because they have heard their own message a thousand times, and they forget that their message and content are new to this audience. Often, it’s because they seem shy about expressing their enthusiasm for their topic, as if too much energy might be off-putting to the audience.
How to prepare for your partnership interview – South Carolina Lawyers Weekly
AT A GLANCE Demonstrate strategic thinking and business acumen during the partner promotion process, emphasizing insights and long-term growth over legal accomplishments. Share trends and insights from your experience to highlight your understanding of the firm’s future needs and industry changes. Use specific examples from your work to illustrate lessons learned and their applicability to future situations, showcasing your growth and adaptability.
Artificial Intelligence Vs. Genuine Insight
The market now offers a slew of new AI tools that draft minutes of meetings. You hold your meeting on Zoom or Teams, and you not only receive a transcript of the discussion, but an AI-generated summary of what was said, and what the group approved, tabled, and rejected. While most of us who have drafted meeting minutes will appreciate the bulk of that work being managed by someone (something) else, that’s not the set of minutes that would be most helpful.
Artificial Intelligence Vs. Genuine Insight
The market now offers a slew of new AI tools that draft minutes of meetings. You hold your meeting on Zoom or Teams, and you not only receive a transcript of the discussion, but an AI-generated summary of what was said, and what the group approved, tabled, and rejected. While most of us who have …
Mindfulness Made Easy
We are all better communicators when we focus less on ourselves and more on other people, always asking ourselves, “Why is this person reading my email?” “Why are they attending my meeting?” “Why are they listening to my presentation?” If we think about what the other person is trying to get out of the exchange, we’ll be more efficient with our language and tone and therefore have more impact. But how to do we remain mindful of focusing outside ourselves?
How To Make Your Presentation Sound More Like A Conversation
The main difference between strong, confident speakers and speakers who seem nervous in front of the room is in how relaxed and conversational they appear. Here are some basic pointers that will help you create a conversational tone when speaking, regardless of the size of your audience. 1.
Help new associates launch careers with confidence
By Jay Sullivan Law firms are organic entities. They grow, they evolve, they expand their capabilities, and they incorporate and absorb new people. All firms experience growing pains when someone new joins the practice. For many firms, every September sees not just one new face, but an entire class of new associates. Your struggle welcoming new attorneys into your organization is compounded by the individual struggles of each of those new associates.
Communications: Tips on giving feedback to associates
When associates receive their annual performance reviews, how they receive that information will depend in large part on whether the review takes them by surprise or confirms the feedback they have been receiving all year. Giving feedback to junior attorneys is an essential part of being a more seasoned lawyer.
Communications: Tips on giving feedback to associates
By Jay Sullivan When associates receive their annual performance reviews, how they receive that information will depend in large part on whether the review takes them by surprise or confirms the feedback they have been receiving all year. Giving feedback to junior attorneys is an essential part of being a more seasoned lawyer.
Becoming A More Nimble Leader
When Bob Dylan wrote The Times They Are A-Changin’ in 1963, he chose a tempo that seems quaint and measured today, but is in keeping with his folk genre. If he wrote the same song today, he’d likely choose a pace closer to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. The last decade has taught us all to brace ourselves for more – and more sudden – change. To adapt to that change, we have all had to learn to be more nimble in our analysis and our decision making.
To Increase Your Impact, Think From Your Audience’s Perspective
The next time you have to share an update at a meeting, give an important presentation, or deliver a speech in front of large audience, you’ll have more impact if you frame the conversation from the proper perspective. When we have to speak in a professional setting at work, we can only talk about one of three things. We can talk about ourselves. We can talk about our content. We can talk to the audience about the audience. Those are our only three options – ourselves, our content, our audience.
Improve Your Critical Thinking By Avoiding Assumptions
In a post earlier this month, I shared three questions we can ask ourselves in the moment to avoid allowing our snap decision about someone’s idea hardening into a firm conviction without more critical thinking. Let’s deepen that skill set by reframing our approach to individuals, contexts, and perspectives. All effective changes to behavior happen on an immediate, tangible level, not on a broad philosophical plane. Saying to yourself, I’m going to be a nicer person doesn’t impact your actions.
Complete communicator: The art of the client-focused conversation
By Jay Sullivan When communicating in a professional setting, a person can only talk about one of three things. They can talk about themselves, about their content, or about their audience. Those are the only options. Most audiences don’t care about the speaker; they didn’t come to the conversation for the benefit of the speaker. Audiences also rarely care about the subject matter of the conversation. They aren’t interested in an academic lecture about how an obscure provision in a statute works.
Replace “No” With “Whoa”: 3 Questions To Help Avoid Making Assumptions
Being human, we are prone to two behaviors that impact our ability to both think critically and communicate effectively. First, we tend to make assumptions about other people’s comments and behaviors. Second, because of those assumptions, we tend to judge others based on our own filters and perspectives. Both of these actions create barriers to thinking more broadly about whatever exchange we just had with a colleague or client.
Complete Communicator: Framing the conversation
Leaders in burgeoning practices have multiple stakeholders to satisfy on a daily basis. Leaders shift their focus constantly from incoming client emails, to the discussion with their partners about allocating resources, to reviewing the work of mid-level associates, to speaking to the new class of incoming associates. When communicating in these settings, usually with little time to prepare, how can you feel comfortable with both your content and delivery and convey your message with confidence?
The Complete Communicator: Broaching ‘business’ with a personal contact
In the Apple TV+ series Severance, the characters’ memories are surgically divided between their work and personal lives. In case that sounds attractive to you, please note that Severance is classified as a horror show. Many people in the real world complain about how their work and home lives are so enmeshed they never get a break from work. However, if you are trying to build or expand a law practice, you may want to think about how those two worlds might help each other.
Complete Communicator: The art of the client-focused conversation
When communicating in a professional setting, a person can only talk about one of three things. They can talk about themselves, about their content, or about their audience. Those are the only options. Most audiences don’t care about the speaker; they didn’t come to the conversation for the benefit of the speaker. Audiences also rarely care about the subject matter of the conversation. They aren’t interested in an academic lecture about how an obscure provision in a statute works.
Complete Communicator: The right answer to: “So, what do you do?”
While many professionals believe the art of communication is to know what to say, the true essence of effective communicating is to know how to be heard. That means putting yourself in the place of your listener. Easy to say and nothing new in terms of a concept, but what does that mean from a daily communication perspective?
Complete Communicator: Artificial Intelligence vs. genuine wisdom: Why lawyers remain necessary and continue to add value
AI looms over every conversation these days, equal parts promise and threat. While there is much talk about how chatbots and generative AI will start writing briefs and crafting arguments, those discussions miss the point. The real value lawyers bring to the conversation goes well beyond raw intelligence and the ability to craft a cogent argument. Our value goes deeper than knowing what words to put on the page. Our value lies in understanding the subtleties inherent in every situation.
Complete Communicator: #1 Goal for 2024: Pay attention
We’re all now six weeks into our New Year’s resolutions. We’ve already figured out which ones we’re likely to stick with and which ones we’ve already abandoned. Hopefully, one of your personal or professional goals requires improving your skills and aptitude on the job.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Jay
Contact Jay, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack