Not naming names, but somebody in our town just lost her job because she didn’t know how to conduct a productive dialogue with the people who work for her. She stayed on her very high horse at the top of the hierarchy, and held dialogues only with those in the layers directly above and beneath her. […]
You know that person who says they will do something and then doesn’t do it? The one who says he’ll be at your place at 10:00, then shows up 15 minutes – or an hour – late. Or the one who says she’ll email you that document as soon as she gets back to the […]
The Four Conversations aren’t just for the office. We communicate in our real lives too. I just had some great results out of having a “closure conversation” with a dear friend. She had been unhappy – and unusually touchy – for several months. I had been patient and kind with her, because I knew she […]
A recent survey of workplace challenges listed one old favorite: Dealing with the “lazy people” in the workplace. These are the people who have clear assignments and do them fairly well, but never step outside their narrow boundaries. Why this hasn’t been solved is a mystery to me, as it’s really pretty easy. There are […]
Give closure conversations a try – they can remove speed-bumps in everything from personal relationships to organizational change initiatives. Believe me: I have a million stories on this. Here’s one. I went to a not-so-great educational program this past summer. The fairly small audience – about 35 people – was made up of some people who were on […]
Jeffrey spent Labor Day weekend painting the living room and kitchen walls. I spent the weekend untying lots of those “ties that bind”. I tossed things out, put things into the recycle bin, and filled up 2 bags of stuff for Goodwill and/or Salvation Army pickup. Then I went through my Outlook list of past business […]
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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