Confrontation is the beginning of conflicts, but confrontation can only come about if we have the courage to have a conversation in the first place. Conversation is not confrontation, though conversation may make parties in conflict uncomfortable. Uncomfortable conversations must happen in fierce ways for those conversations to have value, meaning, Read more…
Sometimes a presentation doesn’t “work.” Sometimes there’s no connection with the audience. Sometimes the presenter talks more to themselves than they listen to the crowd. Sometimes questions aren’t asked (or answered) by the audience or the presenter. Sometimes there is no active listening on the part of the audience. Sometimes Read more…
The manipulation is simple, but the consequences are complex. We lament “Why can’t we all just, get along?” and then we proceed to irritate, obfuscate, or deceive the other party. Then we look at them with Alfred E. Nueman’s famous facial expression and metaphorically shrug our shoulders. The problem is Read more…
Remember how easy it was to say “thank you” when you were a child and you had nothing to lose? Yeah…neither do we… And the thing is, as we become fully autonomous adults, with our own minds, motivations, and needs, it becomes less easy than it ever was in childhood. Read more…
Organizations, founders, managers, and employees who are self-aware do better than those who aren’t. This should come as no surprise, but in an economic, social, and even political climate where “knowing thyself” is as mysterious as “knowing thy customers,” it becomes incumbent upon an organization–and the people employed by it–to Read more…
The power of stories is undeniable, particularly around the Thanksgiving holiday. Stories about the Pilgrims. Stories about the country today. Stories about the country yesterday. Stories about the neighborhood. Stories about the family. Thanksgiving is a curious holiday, because at its root, it is about thanking God (who the Pilgrims Read more…
When the emotional labor of addressing a dispute with a customer, a client, a co-worker, or a boss, is the work we don’t want to do, we revert to doing the work that makes us the most comfortable. This is usually the task that we were hired to do in Read more…
There is a lot of mental infrastructure from the Industrial Revolution still laying around. And most of that infrastructure can be seen on display in organizations: Employees who are at the bottom of an organizational chart, believing that they are the foundation on which the organization rests, yet feeling as Read more…
I don’t know. The three words that kill any consulting, coaching, or training gig. The three words that kill any sale (B2B or B2C). The three words that kill any career around a meeting table. We recognize the vulnerability, powerlessness, and transparency in the “I don’t know” statement. And in Read more…
Denouncing decisions made in the past without empathy is a sure way to be surprised when a bubble bursts. Bubbles are created when we think we have predictive powers about future events, that we don’t. And then, we proceed to tell stories and build narratives that back up the “reality” Read more…