[Opinion] The Heart of Innovation

Leading other people through conflicts, disagreements, tantrums, fights, confrontations, difficulties, and disappointments is the most important leadership labor that many of us will ever do. But there are a few things working against us: We are told that anyone can lead, anytime anywhere. This is a unique tick of an Read more…

[Contributor] Connecting the Internet of Things

It’s no surprise as time marches forward and technology does the same, that the infrastructure which supports that technology reaches its carrying capacity. This became apparent, on an Internet level, in the 1990s, with the creation of IPv6. It was discovered that any future Internet-based growth would need support from Read more…

[Advice] Why Don’t We Value Compromise?

Ian Bannen’s words from the 1995 film Braveheart, echo through the collective unconsciousness of many organizations—schools, businesses, churches–when people in them consider compromise: “It is precisely our ability to compromise that makes a man noble.” Many in the workplace associate compromise, not with negotiation strength, but with weakness around positions Read more…

HIT Piece 1.26.2016

The noise of the world seeks to crowd out the silence of being alone. The modern world eschews being alone as a sign of some sort of pathology, but this is merely more crowding out. A leader, thinker, or developer of any kind needs to be alone to be effective. Read more…

[Advice] An Easy Dismissal…

To dismiss positions, parties, and interests that we’d rather not acknowledge exist in the first place, is a sign of the inability to negotiate deeply. The terms that are used to dismiss those positions, parties, and interests that we’d rather not acknowledge exist in the first place, include (but aren’t Read more…

[Opinion] “It’s Too Hard”

“It’s too hard.” Yep. It’s supposed to be. At work, it’s difficult to start becoming competent at a new way of approaching conflict (say switching from avoiding to engaging) and to have success at it immediately. When employees, managers, and supervisors are challenged to switch approaches (either through feedback, evaluation, or Read more…

[Advice] The Dysfunction in Your Workplace

In any discussion of conflict competence in the workplace, damaging communication patterns come up as an issue. Damaging communication is preceded by its forefather, dysfunctional communication. Dysfunction leads to damage as surely as water makes things wet. And at work, dysfunctional communications typically begin through “the grapevine” and come about in five Read more…