I used to think everyone wanted to know more about “productive communication”. People are only interested in productive communication in the areas of life where they have some commitment. That seems obvious now, but I didn’t always know how to find out about people’s commitments. Here’s my latest method: look at how long it takes them […]
I did a survey in one organization. The two places most managers wanted performance improvements were (1) communication, and (2) accountability. OK, no surprise there. Better communication and more accountability would make a manager’s life easier, right? But 6 months later, guess what they hated most… Communication about accountability. Dave, a mid-level manager, said on the comments […]
A colleague called, sounding ½ angry and ½ upset and said he thought I was supposed to attend a professional meeting last week. No, I told him, I’ve got a book to write and will not be attending those anymore. He growled, “I thought you were going to support us until you retired.” I am retired […]
We did a little survey in a group of managers, asking them about the biggest communication problems in their organization. Here’s a winner: “How do I get people in different silos to cooperate with each other rather than butting heads?” They called it the Silo Effect: when you are trying to communicate with people outside […]
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