When your employees make a bonehead mistake, do you give them a good whack upside the head to show them the error of their ways? No of course you don’t. If you’re a good boss (and I know you are) even though you might be tempted to give them a little thump, instead you offer…
Communication
Independence Day and Gratitude
Every summer just before our nation’s Independence Day holiday, they appear like magic – little American flags planted along the treelawns of our street.They proudly stand street-side sentinal for a few days, then once again vanish until the next year. It’s the handiwork of our neighbors; a patriotic gesture that visually unites the…
TEDx Grand Rapids – Making Meaning of Connections
It’s six days out from last week’s TEDx Grand Rapids event and I’m still processing. TED events are well-known for their brief, powerful speaker presentations proffering Big Ideas (see my list of quotes from the 2012 TEDx Grand Rapids speakers). Frankly, A TEDx event can be daunting—such BIG ideas, presented by people with amazing stories…
Do Your Words Encourage or Deflate?
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. …
4 Workplace Communication Tips for Twenty-Somethings
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…