It’s tough to have a conversation WITH POSITIVE WORDS when the WORDS in your mind ARE NEGATIVE. Imagine the voice in your head shouting: “He’s so arrogant!” or“She’s so indecisive!”, or other not-so-nice words even as you’re saying to a colleague “I’d love to collaborate with you”. In fact, one of the biggest challenges in communication is when…
The question is how do you communicate that you care to your clients, co-workers and even your kids?!! Communicating with compassion is especially important in situations that require working together in a problem-solving or conflict resolution situation. In the words of leadership guru John Maxwell: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”…
How to Respond When Someone Asks Your Opinion and You Have Nothing Nice to Say Have you ever been cornered by a colleague and asked a potentially incriminating question: “What do you think about the new boss?” or, “What do you think about the co-workers new hair cut?” or “What do you think about the CEO’s new (controversial) policy?” The…
“I told you so” along with “That’s a dumb idea,” “I knew you couldn’t do it” and “What were you thinking?!!” are just some of the nasty comments that may catch us off guard when they come our way. Even worse is when those well-intentioned, but hurtful comments come from people close to us such as co-workers or family. I…
Back to S.C.H.O.O.L. My daughter is grown and out of the nest! However, August still feels like back-to-school time for me because it’s a month that I’m usually speaking to education groups to kick off the academic year. Three of my five paid speaking engagements this month have been on university campuses. I facilitated two staff retreats and served as…
Say What You Mean “Say what you mean and mean what you say, but don’t say it mean!” I recently heard this expression and thought it succinctly summed up my philosophy. Better yet, I ran across some share-worthy suggestions supporting this thought. Below are some concrete examples that I found in an article on how teachers can soften the harshness…