Following up yesterday’s post about conversational mistakes, here’s another I see all the time. This one is more serious than yesterday’s for two reasons. First, it will more likely kill a conversation. Second, people who do it seem unable to stop themselves, even when they realize the problem. It affects all types of conversations, but I’ll describe it in the context of my Meaningful Connection exercise. It goes like this:[…] Keep reading →

I see the following conversational mistake a lot. While it doesn’t necessarily kill a conversation, if you want to have great conversations, it helps to know what you’re doing. If you’re reading this blog, with the phrase “If you want extraordinary performance, know extraordinary performers” on the top left of the home page, you probably want to perform extraordinarily. It came up when I was coaching a friend on Meaningful[…] Keep reading →

“My manager sucks. How do I get them to manage me better?” People ask me this question all the time. The words differ for each person but the concept is the same. Probably every client I’ve coached, no matter what issue they started with, also wanted to work on improving their situation with their manager. Having coached enough on it, I’m putting the main concepts here. If I see demand[…] Keep reading →

Has anyone ever told you that even they’ve known you for a long time they still don’t feel like they know the real you? Has it come from someone you’re close to? It sucks, doesn’t it? Do you know people without really knowing them? Have you known anyone for a long time, even spent time with them, but never felt you knew the real them? It doesn’t feel good, at[…] Keep reading →

How do you discipline a friend? Even when you feel they deserve it, it’s not so easy. Too harsh and you lose a friend. Too soft and they’ll do it again. I generally advise against giving advice to someone who hasn’t asked for it, but sometimes you know someone well enough. To me friendship means you’re responsible to help a friend. Below is an example of balancing things effectively. Not[…] Keep reading →

The more I teach and coach leadership, the more value I see in low-level instruction. Possibly because people think of leaders having high-level positions in organizations, I find the expect high-level instruction for leadership. I find beginning with the opposite—low-level instruction—more effective. Like piano lessons begin with scales, dance begins footwork, and many sports begin with basic cardiovascular and strength training. Sadly, most of what I learned about leadership in[…] Keep reading →

When confident, assertive people with effective communication skills feel wronged, they tell the person who they feel wronged them. Maybe not in all cases, but they can. Once they do, they can do something about the problem. People who don’t assert themselves or who don’t have the skills to communicate their feeling wronged often, instead of telling anyone about it, simmer in their feelings. I refer to them as suffering in[…] Keep reading →