Ever since its early beginnings, TED has been a great platform for knowledge sharing and inspiration. Besides talking about technology advancements, human rights, and visionary design, TED speakers tend to get pretty informative when it comes to project management, communication, and other business-related topics.
Some of them might even be hailing from our very own playground - corporate communication management. Whether they hit the point bluntly, or are hiding the meaning behind well-constructed metaphors, these talks will surely make you think more about the ways one approaches coworkers and give you many ideas on how to establish healthy inter-company communication.
This is our choice of the best TED talks on corporate communication in no particular order.
1. Italy Talgam: Lead like great conductors
This is one of the most beloved and popular TED talks on company structure ever, and you can easily find various iterations of the same theme on YouTube. The basic premise was to present good leadership practices through the field that seems far more familiar and down-to-earth to us regular folks. Relying on music and motion as universal languages, Talgam succeeds in landing one of the most inspiring talks every project manager should learn about.
2. Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe
These days, Simon Sinek counts for one of the busiest motivational speakers out there and it’s easy to see why. In one of his popular talks on leadership, he underlines the importance of creating the right environment in the office. Although being a professional marketing consultant, Sinek believes that the only way to build a successful business is to base it on empathy. His thoughts on leadership versus authority in the corporate environment are unconventional, yet uplifting, and most definitely inspiring.
3. Drew Dudley: Everyday leadership
This short and cheerful speech will make you think twice about the ways your behavior affects people around you, especially for the better. Highly charismatic Dudley is known for being one of the most inspirational TED speakers of all time, so be sure not to forget his name.
4. Daniel H. Pink: The puzzle of motivation
Pink specializes in management and behavioral science, so it is no wonder that in his speech he criticizes the motivational systems present in most companies. In other words, he believes that traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think - which is something many managers should think twice about.
5. Kerry Goyette: Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees
This TEDx talk might be easy to miss, but we urge you to listen to it since it is quite educational. Kerry Goyette is an entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Motivational Research Institute focused on identifying the key human factor contributors to success. In her talk, she’s dividing ambition from accountability, telling us to pay attention to the way we are engineering our teams. Goyette doesn’t believe anybody can really motivate employees because they are already motivated. "The key is to unleash their motivation”, she says.
6. Jacqueline Oliveira: The behavior of trust in the workplace
The ideas shared in this TEDx talk are relatable to global remote teams we, at BlogIn, recently talked about. Simply put, Oliveira explains what one can do to increase trust in the multicultural workplace. So believe us when we say that this great lesson in internal communication deserves much more views.
7. Ricardo Fernandez: Managing Cross-Cultural Remote Teams
A closer look at working in a remote team (including the constructive internal communication necessary in such an environment) can be found in this obscure TEDx talk. The beauty of it lies in the everyday language and situations Fernandez uses to better explain his point on managing one remote team. He asks how can something so simple as common expressions lead to huge misunderstandings, and then brings up a great conclusion.
8. David Grady: How to save the world (or at least yourself) from bad meetings
David Grady believes that bad, inefficient, and time-consuming meetings are a disease every company should get rid of. Almost like endless chain-mails, we are all trying to avoid! Luckily, Grady has a cure for such corporate behavior and he believes this technique will make every meeting more productive and valuable. In other words, this fun talk will show you how to communicate things that really matter.
9. Celeste Headlee: 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation
This talk will teach you a very important lesson in internal communications called “How to Talk and How to Listen”. As a person who pretty much talks to people for a living, Headlee points out honesty, brevity, clarity, and a healthy amount of listening as crucial ingredients for a constructive conversation. And we all know that, in the corporate environment, those qualities are very much in need when it comes to better team communication.
10. Mariano Sigman and Dan Ariely: How Can Groups Make Good Decisions?
Last year during a TED event, the renowned neuroscientist Mariano Sigman and his colleague Dan Ariely conducted an experiment on how to get various people to make better decisions and to agree. This video bears the results of their research - which are astounding!
To collect further interesting ideas regarding corporate culture and communication, we advise you to explore TED topics like Behavioral economics, Business, Cooperation, Motivation, Leadership, Productivity, and, of course, Communication. Have fun and enjoy the lessons!