Book Description
SHORT: Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything and Be Understood articulates and amplifies the opportunities for cross-industry learning between businesses and schools. Educational research-driven practices — including formative assessment, designing for understanding, personalized feedback, and differentiated instruction — can and do drive results in corporate environments. Engaging and accessible, this book is a must-have resource for anyone wishing to approach his or her workplace as a high-level, supportive learning environment. The business case for teaching has never been more clear.
LONG: Are you a seller, leader, service professional, or trainer? If so, it is essential for you to be heard and understood by your audience. In order for meaningful action to occur, you must explain yourself to your clients, customers, and colleagues in a way that fosters deep and lasting relationships. In today’s increasingly impersonal, information-intensive, and highly automated society, the connection between your audience and you is more important than ever. People seek authenticity, knowing that a real person, not a machine, is the steward of a transaction. They seek immediacy, hoping to receive information at the best time for their purposes. And they seek delight, the joy that comes from enhancing their business, expanding their knowledge, and finding a better way to fulfill their needs. But how can you become a more authentic partner, deliver the right kind of immediacy, and impart delight? Think like a teacher.
Modern learning is transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary. Whether we are sellers or buyers, managers or employees, we are all learners—and we can all be teachers. Teaching is an essential resource for companies of all sizes. As such, Make Yourself Clear connects business and teaching, exploring the benefits of encouraging and embracing a teaching mindset in corporate environments. This indispensable guide will provide you with transformative skills and strategies, enriching your life and the lives of your audience in the process. Offering real-world advice, practical techniques, and step-by-step instructions, Make Yourself Clear will help you:
Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything and Be Understood articulates and amplifies the opportunities for cross-industry learning between businesses and schools. Educational research-driven practices — including formative assessment, designing for understanding, personalized feedback, and differentiated instruction — can and do drive results in corporate environments. Engaging and accessible, this book is a must-have resource for anyone wishing to approach his or her workplace as a high-level, supportive learning environment. The business case for teaching has never been more clear.
SHORT: Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything and Be Understood articulates and amplifies the opportunities for cross-industry learning between businesses and schools. Educational research-driven practices — including formative assessment, designing for understanding, personalized feedback, and differentiated instruction — can and do drive results in corporate environments. Engaging and accessible, this book is a must-have resource for anyone wishing to approach his or her workplace as a high-level, supportive learning environment. The business case for teaching has never been more clear.
LONG: Are you a seller, leader, service professional, or trainer? If so, it is essential for you to be heard and understood by your audience. In order for meaningful action to occur, you must explain yourself to your clients, customers, and colleagues in a way that fosters deep and lasting relationships. In today’s increasingly impersonal, information-intensive, and highly automated society, the connection between your audience and you is more important than ever. People seek authenticity, knowing that a real person, not a machine, is the steward of a transaction. They seek immediacy, hoping to receive information at the best time for their purposes. And they seek delight, the joy that comes from enhancing their business, expanding their knowledge, and finding a better way to fulfill their needs. But how can you become a more authentic partner, deliver the right kind of immediacy, and impart delight? Think like a teacher.
Modern learning is transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary. Whether we are sellers or buyers, managers or employees, we are all learners—and we can all be teachers. Teaching is an essential resource for companies of all sizes. As such, Make Yourself Clear connects business and teaching, exploring the benefits of encouraging and embracing a teaching mindset in corporate environments. This indispensable guide will provide you with transformative skills and strategies, enriching your life and the lives of your audience in the process. Offering real-world advice, practical techniques, and step-by-step instructions, Make Yourself Clear will help you:
- Deepen your approaches to selling ideas, products, and services to new and ready-to-expand customers
- Incorporate research-driven practices and teaching methodology into your business strategy
- Organize people and manage your resources with a teaching mindset
- Implement clear and effective methods to enable colleagues to understand and apply their training
- Establish and service long-term relationships with your clients
Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything and Be Understood articulates and amplifies the opportunities for cross-industry learning between businesses and schools. Educational research-driven practices — including formative assessment, designing for understanding, personalized feedback, and differentiated instruction — can and do drive results in corporate environments. Engaging and accessible, this book is a must-have resource for anyone wishing to approach his or her workplace as a high-level, supportive learning environment. The business case for teaching has never been more clear.
Images
Isometric, Transparent Background
Stephen J. Valentine; Photo Credit: Reshan Richards
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Isometric, White Background
Reshan Richards; Photo Credit: Reshan Richards
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Front Cover
Reshan Richards (left) and Stephen J. Valentine; Photo Credit: Reshan Richards
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Bios
Stephen J. Valentine is an educator, school leader, writer, and serial collaborator. He serves as the Assistant Head, Upper School, and Director of Academic Leadership at Montclair Kimberley Academy. He is Coordinating Editor of Klingbrief and author of Everything but Teaching.
Dr. Reshan Richards is Chief Learning Officer and Co-Founder of Explain Everything Inc. and teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University and the Columbia University School of Professional Studies.
Together, Steve and Reshan have co-authored numerous print and online publications including 2016's Blending Leadership: Six Simple Beliefs for Leading Online and Off and 2019's Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything, and Be Understood.
Stephen J. Valentine is an educator, school leader, writer, and serial collaborator. He serves as the Assistant Head, Upper School, and Director of Academic Leadership at Montclair Kimberley Academy. He is Coordinating Editor of Klingbrief and author of Everything but Teaching.
Dr. Reshan Richards is Chief Learning Officer and Co-Founder of Explain Everything Inc. and teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University and the Columbia University School of Professional Studies.
Together, Steve and Reshan have co-authored numerous print and online publications including 2016's Blending Leadership: Six Simple Beliefs for Leading Online and Off and 2019's Make Yourself Clear: How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, Explain Everything, and Be Understood.
Testimonials
"Valentine and Richards have developed an innovative, fresh approach to selling that involves time-honored ideas from the world of teaching. Authenticity, immediacy, and delight are the keys to establishing strong sales relationships in the business world today. Valentine and Richards show you exactly that. This book is a win-win-win!”
—Nick Morgan, President, Public Words Inc and author of Can You Hear Me? How to Connect with People in a Virtual World.
“Anyone serious about selling knows it’s a profession—requiring continual self-evaluation, learning, and practice. The ability to transfer your knowledge and passion to another, while being authentic and intellectually curious, is a must. In their book Make Yourself Clear, Reshan & Steve have captured the essence of a critical, must-have component for success in selling.”
—Matthew J. Guido, VP Strategic Accounts, Corporate Visions
"Leveraging their decades of experience as teachers, leaders, researchers, and entrepreneurs, Reshan and Steve bring a brand-new perspective to how leaders can succeed in today's technology-rich, fast-paced economy. Make Yourself Clear offers strategies, stories, and questions for reflection that readers will return to over time as they seek to create more meaningful relationships within their organizations."
—Dr. Beth Holland, Equity Project Director, CoSN
“This is a book of practical magic. Reshan and Steve know that education is a transformative force. In Make Yourself Clear, they give us a case study in the power of great teaching, applied to an unexpected field: business. The result is revelatory. This is alchemy we can use.”
—Jim Best, Head of School, The Dalton School
“With their clear and concise style, Richards and Valentine relate successful teaching and learning practices from the classroom to their less obvious counterparts in business, especially sales. Everyone sells something, so anyone can apply their mantra of 'authenticity, immediacy, and delight' to their everyday life.
—Merrick Andlinger, Private equity investor, President, Andlinger & Company
“Be a clarifier – not a confuser. This book helps sales and service leaders cultivate teams of 'teachers' who can help prospects and customers make meaning out of all the information and choices they face. The sales and service humans who don’t get replaced by AI functionality will be those who can give people a way of processing their experiences into strategies and decisions.”
—Tim Reisterer, Coauthor of The Three Value Conversations and Chief Strategy Officer, Corporate Visions
“My audience (startup founders, technical decision makers, and software engineers) by definition have chosen careers where continually learning is their biggest competitive advantage. In addition, as they move from startups to big companies and back, they work in roles that didn’t exist 10 years ago (for example, data scientist and ecosystems developer). Selling in the traditional sense is an immediate fail to these professionals. Reshan and Steve have accurately described a business methodology of teaching and learning that adds value to this audience and operates in their modern currency: knowledge.”
—Tejpaul Bhatia, Startup Lead, Google Cloud, New York
“Richards and Valentine’s Make Yourself Clear is the first book that I know that capitalizes on what we’ve gleaned about teaching and learning as applied to business in an age of technology. Whether leading in a school or corporation, or navigating the challenging leadership role of a parent, the wisdom in this book promises to inform your actions. Buy it, but most importantly – read it.”
—Pearl Rock Kane, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
"Valentine and Richards have developed an innovative, fresh approach to selling that involves time-honored ideas from the world of teaching. Authenticity, immediacy, and delight are the keys to establishing strong sales relationships in the business world today. Valentine and Richards show you exactly that. This book is a win-win-win!”
—Nick Morgan, President, Public Words Inc and author of Can You Hear Me? How to Connect with People in a Virtual World.
“Anyone serious about selling knows it’s a profession—requiring continual self-evaluation, learning, and practice. The ability to transfer your knowledge and passion to another, while being authentic and intellectually curious, is a must. In their book Make Yourself Clear, Reshan & Steve have captured the essence of a critical, must-have component for success in selling.”
—Matthew J. Guido, VP Strategic Accounts, Corporate Visions
"Leveraging their decades of experience as teachers, leaders, researchers, and entrepreneurs, Reshan and Steve bring a brand-new perspective to how leaders can succeed in today's technology-rich, fast-paced economy. Make Yourself Clear offers strategies, stories, and questions for reflection that readers will return to over time as they seek to create more meaningful relationships within their organizations."
—Dr. Beth Holland, Equity Project Director, CoSN
“This is a book of practical magic. Reshan and Steve know that education is a transformative force. In Make Yourself Clear, they give us a case study in the power of great teaching, applied to an unexpected field: business. The result is revelatory. This is alchemy we can use.”
—Jim Best, Head of School, The Dalton School
“With their clear and concise style, Richards and Valentine relate successful teaching and learning practices from the classroom to their less obvious counterparts in business, especially sales. Everyone sells something, so anyone can apply their mantra of 'authenticity, immediacy, and delight' to their everyday life.
—Merrick Andlinger, Private equity investor, President, Andlinger & Company
“Be a clarifier – not a confuser. This book helps sales and service leaders cultivate teams of 'teachers' who can help prospects and customers make meaning out of all the information and choices they face. The sales and service humans who don’t get replaced by AI functionality will be those who can give people a way of processing their experiences into strategies and decisions.”
—Tim Reisterer, Coauthor of The Three Value Conversations and Chief Strategy Officer, Corporate Visions
“My audience (startup founders, technical decision makers, and software engineers) by definition have chosen careers where continually learning is their biggest competitive advantage. In addition, as they move from startups to big companies and back, they work in roles that didn’t exist 10 years ago (for example, data scientist and ecosystems developer). Selling in the traditional sense is an immediate fail to these professionals. Reshan and Steve have accurately described a business methodology of teaching and learning that adds value to this audience and operates in their modern currency: knowledge.”
—Tejpaul Bhatia, Startup Lead, Google Cloud, New York
“Richards and Valentine’s Make Yourself Clear is the first book that I know that capitalizes on what we’ve gleaned about teaching and learning as applied to business in an age of technology. Whether leading in a school or corporation, or navigating the challenging leadership role of a parent, the wisdom in this book promises to inform your actions. Buy it, but most importantly – read it.”
—Pearl Rock Kane, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Ideas for Interview Questions
- What led to the writing of Make Yourself Clear?
- What kinds of teachers should business-people (sellers, leaders, trainers, and service representatives) pay attention to in order to be more successful in their own industries?
- How can business-people be more authentic, immediate, and/or delightful in their work?
- What do you think has changed in business over the last year to 18 months (e.g., more remote teams and team members)? What remains the same but perhaps needs to change?
- What is the key to being a great teacher in a business setting?