Posts

The Power of Promising: Listener + Do + Due 

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How to get yourself to Do something you don’t want to Do? Add a Listener and a Due date. Here’s how.

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Want Something? Get Specific.

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Wishing is a waste of time. Invest some brainpower in getting clear about what matters.

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Give Your Goals a Little “Infrastructure” for Success

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You can make a resolution to reach a goal – just include a communication plan to support your successful change.

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Time to Talk? Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

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Improve both efficiency and effectiveness with a clear and complete request.

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No Closure, No Accomplishment

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A normally upbeat and productive guy was suddenly downcast and discouraged yesterday morning. I went in to see Chuck and talk about progress on his most important project – implementing an employee development program – and he wasn’t even interested anymore. Wow. “This project doesn’t matter,” he said. “I thought it would make a huge […]

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Attitude Can Cause Blindness and Ignorance

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  After years of saying that a consultant’s job is not to change people’s attitudes, I might need to eat my words. Here’s what I learned from reviewing a Harvard Business Review case: a bad attitude can blind an employee – even a good one – from seeing who to communicate with and who needs […]

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Unreasonable Request Saves the Class

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If you find yourself in a difficult position, make an unreasonable request – you might be surprised by the result. On Friday, April 13 Jeffrey received an unreasonable request from a colleague at Benedictine University. He asked if Jeffrey would come to Benedictine and teach an Executive Ph.D. course on organization change the following Wednesday, […]

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The Missing Conversation(s)

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A program director in one of the colleges here at Ohio State is paying the price for not having the appropriate conversations with his boss, the dean of the college. Kevin, as director of programs, is responsible for admissions into the undergraduate and graduate programs in his college.  In a recent conversation, he pointed out […]

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Understanding Does Not Mean Agreement, Acceptance, or Action

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One of the myths the students and managers in my leading and managing change classes persist in believing is that people don’t “buy in” to a change is because there is something they don’t understand.  They are mistaken. Implicit in this “myth of understanding” is the belief that understanding is the key to agreement, acceptance, […]

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