Introduction

From a little spark may burst a flame.

-Dante Alighieri

We all remember where we were when we first heard the news. And most of us recall the flood of emotions we felt: fear, confusion, anxiety. Suddenly, we all stopped what we were doing and asked the same collective question: what in the world is happening right now?

For me, the first sign that something was amiss came in January 2020 as I packed a bag for our annual company retreat. Once a year, the global communication skills training firm I cofounded, Pinnacle Performance Company, selects a location to bring together every member of our team for an event we call Summit. This gathering is an opportunity to connect, sharpen our skills, and explore new ways to enhance our products and offerings. It's a time for fun, team bonding, and personal development. That year, we chose Sedona, Arizona, as our destination, and those of us based at the Chicago headquarters couldn't wait to escape the cold and snow for some sand and sunshine.

As I packed my swimsuit and imagined lounging poolside with a piña colada, I received a call from a team member, one of our instructors based in China. He was having trouble leaving Shanghai due to what he described as a "flu" going around and a low-level advisory to "mask up" while traveling. No big deal, he said. After some delays, he eventually made it to Sedona, and we enjoyed a productive retreat.

A week later, back in Chicago and still energized from Summit, I received another call-this time from one of our London-based instructors. He shared news of a virus outbreak in Asia that was beginning to cause concern in the United Kingdom. He suggested we monitor the situation and, given Pinnacle's global footprint, prepare a contingency plan in case the virus spread. I presented this to Pinnacle's leadership team, most of whom were unaware of the virus, and we agreed to keep an eye on any developments.

As we now know, developments proceeded quickly.

On January 31, after the death toll had reached 200, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. Three days later, the United States followed suit, and a little over a month after that, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Global lockdowns and quarantines-the first in living memory for many-soon followed. For a company like Pinnacle, whose business model relied on international travel and in-person coaching and training, we suddenly found ourselves in a precarious situation. Our previously packed calendar of workshops and coaching sessions vanished overnight.

Amid the pandemic-induced chaos, we gathered the Pinnacle team (virtually, of course) to assess the situation and devise a plan. Our first priority was to check in with our clients. We asked them how they were coping, what their current needs were, which priorities required immediate attention, and how we could support them during this uncertain time. We then set to work-reimagining and redesigning our offerings to suit the needs of the current moment. We adopted new technologies, produced videos that could quickly reach remote teams, and piloted new products. Our team worked tirelessly-sometimes around the clock-to create a suite of more robust, flexible, and refined products than we had ever offered.

As the pandemic raged, business leaders around the world, many now managing fully remote teams, suddenly had to address technology gaps, adaptation fatigue, stress, and burnout, as employees were often asked to do more with less. Resource allocation and cash flow were severely affected in many organizations, compounded by the struggles of leaders learning to build trust and maintain productivity in a remote environment.

Many companies struggled to adapt during the pandemic, resisting change or failing to evolve in ways that met their customers' needs, which ultimately led to their closure. By contrast, those that emerged successfully from the pandemic did so largely because their leaders were agile, leaning into transparency and curiosity, and adapting quickly to address urgent client needs. Flexibility, collaborative skills, and open communication shifted almost overnight from desirable traits to essential qualities for leaders striving to retain talent and remain profitable.

Think about how different your work is today compared to before the pandemic. Before COVID, very few people worked remotely on a regular basis, and those who did often did so for personal or medical reasons. Prior to COVID, Zoom had about 10 million daily participants. By April 2020, as remote work surged, that number skyrocketed to 300 million.1

Today, in this post-COVID landscape, leaders face complex challenges in team collaboration and communication. New research from Gallup found that engagement levels for managers fell from 30 percent in 2023 to 27 percent in 2024.2 Hybrid work, widely adopted during the pandemic, created new obstacles, as virtual environments often left employees feeling disconnected. Only 34 percent of employees today feel effectively connected to their colleagues.3 One study found that 52 percent of employees reported feeling burned out in the past year, and 37 percent felt so overwhelmed it negatively affected their job performance.4 Leaders faced the challenge of balancing accessibility and intentionality to prevent burnout, all while adapting to rapidly evolving customer expectations. Additionally, maintaining a strong corporate culture remotely has continued to be a concern, with 80 percent of workers believing they will have some degree of remote work flexibility moving forward.5

As COVID slowly receded from the headlines and my international work resumed, I saw firsthand the numerous challenges organizations faced. Through these partnerships, I encountered some glaring shortcomings and concerns that were strikingly consistent across industries and sectors. Nearly every leader I spoke with shared a similar story: with the sweeping changes since the pandemic, coupled with new challenges in managing their teams, bosses and managers were feeling overwhelmed. The processes and strategies that had served them well in the past no longer seemed effective in a post-COVID world, making a new approach to leadership essential.

Many managers found themselves struggling due to gaps in essential leadership and management skills. Budget cuts and resource constraints during the pandemic often led to promotions without adequate training, leaving new leaders feeling overwhelmed and unprepared. These leadership deficiencies created significant challenges for their team members, who frequently felt frustrated and unsupported, as though they were being set up to fail. In fact, 63 percent of people considered quitting their present job solely because of poor workplace communication.6

Today, less than half of the world's managers (44 percent) receive any form of management training.7 Promoting employees to leadership roles without providing them with the necessary skills often leads to failure-failure to communicate a clear vision, drive profitability, and retain top talent. The consequences of this lack of training are significant: global employee engagement levels reached an 11-year low, fueling the "Great Resignation" of 2021, when employees left their jobs in record numbers.8 According to Gallup, 79 percent of employees worldwide are currently disengaged with their work, a 2 percentage point increase from the previous year. Gallup estimates that if the world's workplace was fully engaged, $9.6 trillion in productivity could be added to the global economy, the equivalent of 9 percent in global GDP.9

Additionally, as younger workers begin to enter the workforce, a generational clash is emerging, driven by distinct differences in how older and younger employees communicate and collaborate. A recent survey by General Assembly found that over 25 percent of executives hesitate to hire recent college graduates because of concerns over their limited interpersonal skills, including communication, adaptability, and collaboration. This lack of "soft" skills is also affecting managers, many of whom are already stretched thin following a wave of mid-level management layoffs.10 New research from Intelligent.com revealed that one in five managers have considered quitting due to the stress of overseeing Gen Z employees. The study also found that 75 percent of managers believe these younger workers require more time and resources than employees from other generations.11

While businesses can't afford to dismiss Gen Z graduates solely for lacking critical interpersonal skills-especially as many haven't yet had the chance to develop them-it's clear that leaders in this new era of work will have their hands full. Bridging this generational gap will require a concerted effort to support and nurture the development of these essential skills. And leaders, take note: 71 percent of younger workers will leave a job within two to three years if they feel their skills aren't being developed.12

These challenges inspired me to write Synergy and Sparks to share the tools and lessons I've developed over 20 years of helping leaders achieve exceptional results. A foundational precept of my previous books, and the work we do at Pinnacle, is this: the burden of engagement always lies with the speaker. This idea is even more important today than it was when we started this work over...