Communication

Some believe living is all about being right/winning OR being wrong/losing. This either/or perspective is exciting and fun in sports. We can root for our team or favorite athlete with passion. However, this way of thinking is destructive in conversations and when we are trying to get stuff done with others. What does it mean to “win” in conversations? Convincing others your solution is the right one? Silencing others? Dominating the conversation? Looking good in front of yo

A good friend and colleague told me recently how reading my book, Talk Matters!, inspired him to reflect on his inner workings and how he interacts with others in his various roles as an experienced manager and member of several boards. I, of course, appreciated his taking my words to heart. It also got me to thinking that the essence of good conversation might primarily be an inside job. Despite years of teaching communication and facilitation skills, I notice that the peo

In this time of “alternative facts” and “fake news,” the children’s rhyme, “Liar, liar, pants on fire”, doesn’t seem as amusing now as it might have when we were children. Lying or communicating falsehoods is a serious matter. It is serious enough to be addressed by one of the Ten Commandments that are foundational in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (“Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”) and one of the elements of Wise or Virtuous Speech In the Eight-fol

It’s getting harder to practice what I preach these days. It seems that several times a day I want to fight or flee from what I am hearing and seeing. In a recent Op Ed piece in our local paper, the headline “My skin color is my curse in today’s America” over the face of a mustachio-sporting white man pulled my chain. I immediately turned to the next page with unkind epithets spewing in my brain. After calming myself by reading about the predictably comfortable win of the Go

Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? You’ve been conversing your whole life. There’s no mystery involved, right? Maybe. As a leader how do you use conversations to lead, to get stuff done? (I am distinguishing between a task-oriented meeting with four or more participants and conversations among two to three.) People often start conversations with present-day events or concerns. For example, imagine that as you walk back to your office after a meeting, you exclaim to a colle

It’s a tough time for conversations. The toxic national political environment is infecting interactions among friends, colleagues and neighbors. We are having a harder time listening to one another and an easier time vilifying those who think differently than we do. Social media feeds the flames. Curiosity and compassion have gone AWOL. Conversations are fraught with fears about the future, anger about the past, and disbelief at how we got here. The challenge for each of us

After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used Senate rule # 19 to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Marco Rubio*  made an important speech that seems to have gone unnoticed. In it he said, “What’s at stake here tonight…is…the ability of the most important nation on earth to debate in a productive and respectful way the pressing issues before us.” He also stated, “We are reaching a point…where we are not going to be able to solve the simplest of issues because ev

In a November 9th blog about her reflections after the elections, Ann Weiser Cornell  wrote , “We need to cherish the sparks of potential and possibility in everyone and in every situation, while at the same time seeing what is in front of us.” What is in front of me is the challenge of:   1) Feeling compassion  for the pain, fear, and anger that divide our communities, country and world into warring camps; 2) Remembering that all forms of violence—physical and verbal—are tri