Focus group feedback is useful to the peace builder. Here’s how you run one: The peace builder, working with another party (typically the focus group moderator), puts together some questions in regards to a future product, a current problem, and the solution to both that is offered by the peace Read more…
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…
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…
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…
[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #2 – John “Jack” Amoratis, iOS Swift and Linux Developer, AWS fan, Theologian, Cutting Edge Deep Thinker and Educator [powerpress] I’ve known a lot of people in my life but none have lead such a life filled with twists and turns–and considerations about both the Read more…
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…
The mental model for trust is broken in workplaces. The old model looked like this: I (an employee) work for you (the employer) loyally for a period of time (X) and, with enough reciprocation, I stay with you for the remainder of my career. That mental model is one that Read more…
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…
“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…
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…