Professionalism

Killing Flies with Honey- How to Turn a Frustrating Colleague into an Asset

May 1, 2012

 A guest post by Chris Wallace It’s a tough lesson to grasp when you’re 8-years-old, but sometime during the road to adulthood I finally understood my grandmother’s favorite maxim — “You kill more flies with honey than with vinegar.” This wise saying couldn’t be more true than in an office environment. Even if you’re a generally rosy [...]

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10 Signs That It’s Time to Move On

April 24, 2012

This past weekend, my daughter and I spent some time in her room sorting through books she no longer reads. We had three piles: Keep, Donate and Memories. The “Memories” books would be put into storage—they no longer were age-appropriate, but they held sentimental value. As we sorted books, our conversation went like this: Me: [...]

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Do Your Words Encourage or Deflate?

April 10, 2012

I love “people equations”—any formula (scientific or otherwise) that can provide a framework that helps us interact more effectively with clients, peers, suppliers, leaders, and team members. I recently encountered an article that quoted positive-psychology expert Martin Seligman as saying that he uses something called the “Losada Ratio” when talking with people he cares about.  [...]

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Are You Buying into These Career Myths?

March 29, 2012

Most of my ruminations on women and career tend to land over at the Women of HR site. This week, the site is wrapping up a great Women of HR Career Series. My post on the Four Myths of Self-Employment was featured last week. Following the myths theme, here’s a little “bonus track” to go [...]

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Sometimes You Just Gotta Suck It Up and Carry the Goat

March 13, 2012

We live in a Midwestern suburban area surrounded by pockets of farmland. When my son was in kindergarten, I chaperoned a field trip to The Critter Barn, an educational working farm with livestock.  I grew up in a farming community. My family didn’t farm, but many of my friends did, so I’ve seen the inside [...]

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4 Workplace Communication Tips for Twenty-Somethings

March 7, 2012

Patti Lamberti is a professional in residence who teaches courses in journalism and new media at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Communication. In her post Tech Savants, she gives us the rundown on what twenty-something’s think about a mainstream workplace communication tool: “Email is for old people.” Ouch. Anybody who’s had a conversation (or more [...]

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Are You Cut Out for Self-Employment?

February 22, 2012

In 1995 I started the consulting company SkillSource. Early on I made the strategic decision to function as a home-based solopreneur, meaning I am the primary service provider. When projects require it, I sub-contract out training delivery and consulting services.  For the administrative side of my business, I make use of a cadre of skilled [...]

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7 Questions That Help Conversations Move Forward

February 2, 2012

The other day I attended a webinar led by Al Switzler, co-author of the books Crucial Conversations and Influencer. During the webinar Al made this point about interacting with colleagues: If your response to frustrating conversations is to increase the frequency of your key point or the volume of your delivery, but you don’t change [...]

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Stack Your Phones at the Next Company Meeting

January 17, 2012

There’s a new game making the rounds these days called Phone Stack. Have you played it? The basic gist is this—when you dine out with friends, everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table and then embarks on a huge game of chicken— who  can resist the siren call of their phone for [...]

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“6 Rules Women Must Break” Debuts at WofHR

December 16, 2011

One of my favorite multi-contributor sites is the Women of HR site, a collaborative effort of (you guessed it!) women in the human resources community who blog to share career advice with their readers. My colleagues at the Women of HR site occasionally write blog posts centered around a theme. The stories are then published [...]

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