Articles by Sherri Petro

Get ‘Em Onboard: Engage Employees by Being Real

Creating a Communication Strategy that Engages Employees

Much is being bandied about on how to best engage employees. We have employers who want engaged employees and employees who want to be engaged. From the employer side, research shows us engaged employees lead to better results. Kenexa reports that engaged companies have five times higher shareholder returns over five years. From the employee side, one of the many insights in a Towers Perrin 2009 report is that employees want to give more.     Okay, then. We have both sides wanting the same...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on September 4, 2013

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What Are We Not Saying?

Actionable Opportunities to Engage Employees with Feedback

A provocative question. This is not about interpreting nonverbal behavior or playing Hollywood Game Night at the company picnic. It’s about being tight-lipped with our employees when we could choose not to. It’s about the messages we could be saying that would go a long way in engaging them, something we keep saying we want but can’t seem to get out of our own way to create.   What do employees want? We have scores of studies that show us. Whether you review Ross DePinto’s...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on July 29, 2014

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4 Communication Tips to Open Your Mind & Strengthen Your Vocabulary

Do your communication skills run deeper than the dictionary?

By Sherri Petro, President of VPI Strategies & California Miramar University (CMU) Professor Blah, blah, blah.  We speak the same language and yet so many times it’s like we are talking in tongues!  How come?  Admittedly, according to any dictionary, we have multiple meanings for the same words.  But what I am alluding to goes deeper than the dictionary -- we assign meaning based upon many different influences.  Why is communication so hard?  Most of the time,...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on May 20, 2013

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Hey, Hot Head, Don't Say It!

5 Steps to Better Emotional Intelligence

You know you want to.  In fact you're dying to pop off some expletives that would make Mom turn ten shades of red.  Whether you receive news about a coming reorganization, unrealistic client deadline or one of your peers being absent AGAIN, you've been triggered. Whatever you're thinking at this exact moment, don't say it.  And, please, please, please don't e-mail it or text it either. Easy up on that trigger finger, pard’ner.      The news you received is out of your...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on January 19, 2014

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Lost in Translation, Again!

3 Things You Can Do to Get Your Message Understood

Lost in Translation?  A great phrase. It means that words, once translated, can lose the original intent of their meaning.  Or for those who loved the movie, it is the name of the insightful and curiosity-piquing film by Sofia Coppola released over a decade ago.  Either way, people, we have something to talk about.  We’re missing something in our communication.    In the movie, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson play mismatched souls who keep running into each other...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on June 12, 2014

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Mentor Me?

Asking, Answering and Amplifying When The Question is Popped

Not to be confused with the great Bruno Mars’ song Marry Me, we do have an engagement of sorts when we ask for someone’s hand in helping to develop our career. Whether it be an informal or formal relationship, there are great ways of asking for -- and making the most of -- a mentor’s assistance.     For the mentee, how do you approach a potential mentor? How do you maximize the value of this burgeoning relationship? How do you best communicate your challenges without sounding...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Professional Development on October 20, 2013

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From Mentors’ and Mentees’ Mouths

Five Lessons Worth Sharing

Do you ever wish you had the Dalai Lama, Warren Buffet or your own personal Gandalf as a mentor or trusted advisor?  Me, too.     I could have used a conversation with one of them recently. Ironically it was because I was asked to participate in a mentoring event for young professionals a few months back.  Mentoring continues to be a hot topic -- and for good reason. Mentees seek ideas, tips and secrets to success. Mentors seek to share words of wisdom and add value.    As...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Professional Development on March 27, 2014

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React or Respond? For Goodness Sake, Choose Respond!

Four Components of "Whole Communication"

Instructions to create messages that destroy value: Open mouth, insert foot.  Instructions to create positive messages that create value: Open mind, open mouth.   I know the former sounds familiar to you.  Have you ever thought about the latter?  That’s the difference between REACTING and RESPONDING.  Responding takes a little time to plan and process, reacting takes no time at all.  Just feel free to pop off!   I’d be realistic and reduce my...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on September 22, 2013

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Sherri Petro

President, VPI Strategies & CMU Professor

Sherri Petro President VPI Strategies California Miramar University  (CMU) Professor     Biography   Engaging. Encouraging. Experienced.  Solutions are clearer from unusual and creative places. Sometimes you need a guide to get there.  Meet Sherri Petro, positive provocateur, who has a distinctively different way of looking at the world.  Years of experience has taught her that we are missing some fundamental and critical communication elements as we seek...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Communication Skills on July 21, 2013

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Promises, Promises: The Power of Keeping Our Word

5 Things You & Your Team Can Do To Create An Accountable Culture

While Halloween is long gone, we still are graced with a scary word that is permeating corporate consciousness.  It’s four-----teen letters.  It has executives, middle management and front line  supervisors stumbling and bumbling around looking for answers.  The lack of it is often talked about as the reason for our business woes.     Lack of passion?  Nope, that’s only 7 letters. Lack of engagement?  Still too short, but a great guess!  Need more...Continue reading

By Sherri PetroPosted in Management on November 16, 2013

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