 Defensiveness is a deterrent to productive communication. As soon as you get your hackles up, a new conversation begins — and this one is all about your reaction! The original topic is derailed.
As Debra Roberts, interpersonal communication author, writes in Inc., we can easily spot defensive reactions in others, but it can be harder to spot them in ourselves. We all wear emotional armor and often feel threatened when it is pierced. Defensiveness is a form of self-protection that can present in many forms: Making excuses, ignoring or talking over the other person, criticizing the behavior of the other person, or becoming highly emotional. To curtail defensive reactions:
What do you typically do when you start to feel defensive? If its an over-reaction, do you think you can break the cycle? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to hear about your experiences! For more details on how to respond non-defensively to criticism, check out our BreakThrough Conflict curriculum. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.
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 If you're struggling with turnover, or looking to solidify what's currently working in your organization, you've likely been thinking about employee engagement plans. With the media continually talking about attrition and “quiet quitting,” this seems an urgent topic to address.
Organizations need engagement plans that resonate with employees, writes executive coach Robin Camarote. Yet too often such plans are a hodge-podge of initiatives. “Engagement is separate from compensation policies, rewards, and appreciation efforts, like parties and gifts,” says Camarote. "We work best," concludes the author, "when we are invited to participate in arriving at solutions to our day-to-day struggles." The most effective employee engagement programs consist of a series of conversations among leaders and staff that address four essential pillars of engagement: Purpose, Communication, Workplace Environment, and Relationships. These four engagement pillars can include as much or as little formality as desired. For a more simple approach, consider hosting a series of open-ended discussions focusing on one pillar at a time. To learn more about structuring employee engagement conversations, check out our Hardwiring Teamwork curriculum. What is your organization doing to enhance employee engagement? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  “There are countess ways to screw up a meeting,” writes contributing editor Jeff Haden in Inc.. In fact, many employees view meetings as “costly” and “unproductive.”
Research shows meetings are even less useful when they start late and when there are too many of them. They are especially counter-productive when participants complain in ways that express futility. Killer phrases like “Nothing can be done about that” or “Nothing will work” can set off a chain reaction of negativity that — as you can imagine — lessens the odds of productive outcomes. Yet, Haden says, smart leaders know how to convert even a sense of futility into effective problem solving. Here’s how: Begin setting an expectation that requires everyone to reframe objections or different opinions as questions. If a participant says, ”There’s no way we can get everyone to work overtime this weekend,” the leader can reply, “Please reframe that as a question.” That might sound like: “How can we get our staff to work overtime this weekend?” Similarly, “We will never finish this job on time,” becomes “What actions can we take to finish this job on time?” Soon enough, such reframing becomes a habit! Now, you’re in problem solving mode. Many of you have experienced our Hardwiring Teamwork course that offers step-by-step guidelines on how to make meetings successful. Check it out here. What do you do to ensure your meetings are productive, and what do you avoid? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  It’s easy to enumerate the qualities of a good leader (inspiring, authentic, collaborative, empowering), but what are the actions that enable leaders to personify these qualities? According to Inc., contributing Jeff Haden, great leaders carry out several of the following strategies:
Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Let's face it: The last year has been disruptive for many, and universal stressors may have taken tolls on your relationships. We cannot always change circumstances, but we can change our responses. Instead of navigating through important moments of communication on automatic pilot, reacting from emotion rather than intention, we can transform our relationships by being proactive with positive communication. As we approach 2023, consider making a resolution to practice 12 months of healthy communication.
As communication researchers and partners in work and marriage for decades, we’ve experienced both the joy and challenge of personal and business communication and have found some simple steps to resolve conflict and build trust in relationships:
Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy, communicative 2023! Do you have a New Year’s resolution that involves communication? To join the conversation, click "comments" located just below the photo for this article. We'd love to hear your feedback!  Some people use the phrase “I’m sorry” reflexively, even if they didn't really do anything wrong. In the workplace, this might make people think less of you, in addition to weakening the power of future heartfelt apologies. The habit itself may spring from insecurity, says Patrice Williams Lindo, CEO of the consulting firm Career Nomad.
According to Lindo there are many viable and effective options to over-apologizing at work, for example:
When was the last time you apologized at work, and how did you do it? Any insights you can share? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Sixty-two percent of Americans say they feel unsafe expressing their political opinions. When the right and the left are so polarized, it is tough to have a conversation that doesn't get overheated. But, according to Monica Guzman, who works in Communication at the nonprofit Braver Angels, and who authored the new book "I Never Thought of It That Way", says divergent viewpoints don't need to obliterate relationships.
Guzmán notes that we have sorted ourselves into silos where we rarely have to confront those with different ideologies, making it easier to dehumanize them. But, she contends, we can have manageable conversations across our self-assigned blocs if we replace certainty with curiosity. Guzman proposes that we can all have INTUIT moments (“I Never Thought of It That Way”) if we:
This may sound simple, but simple is not the same as easy, writes Lisa Selin Davis, discussing Guzman’s book in The New York Times. But with consistent effort and an open-minded attitude, we may be able to reclaim some lost relationships. Have you had a recent conversation with someone on the other end of the political spectrum, and how did it go? Any insights you can share? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Research shows that workers who quit are leaving managers, rather than companies. Managers can increase retention, and productivity, if they learn to lead people while managing the work. But along the way, writes INC. contributing editor Marcel Schwantes, all managers “must confront a few hard truths about how to effectively inspire and get the best out of their people.”
Among these truths:
Can you tell us about a leadership lesson you learned “the hard way?” To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  A significant part of a manager’s role is staff development. But if you delegate a task to someone with no prior training simply because you are too busy to handle it, their chances of succeeding are marginal. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Art Markman, PhD, professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas, says managers should stop thinking of handing off responsibilities as delegating (thereby potentially setting the stage for failure) and start taking on the mindset of a trainer instead.
Markman suggests managers actively look for ways to begin upping the responsibilities of your team members:
Taking on some direct reports as apprentices takes effort and extra time, notes Markman, and you will also have to review their work carefully at first. But by adopting this approach, you are helping your associates reach their career goals, and creating a team of trusted colleagues who can step in when you are overwhelmed or unavailable. When was the last time you delegated a task, and did you provide any training to your associate? And what experience have you had when people asked you for help? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Neuroscientist Glen Fox has spent his entire adult life studying gratitude. He is convinced that “grateful people tend to recover faster from trauma and injury, tend to have better and closer personal relationships and may even have improved health overall.”
The study of gratitude is a relatively recent phenomenon, and emerged from the field of positive psychology. Yet the practice of gratitude has consistently been shown to lower stress, reduce pain, boost immunity, and improve blood pressure and heart function. To find out, Fox did an experiment using brain-imaging scans to map which circuits in the brain become active when we feel grateful. “We saw that the participants’ ratings of gratitude correlated with activity in a set of brain regions associated with interpersonal bonding and with relief from stress,” he said. To up your conscious gratitude, Fox suggests keeping a gratitude journal. On a regular basis, write down what you are grateful for, even if those things seem mundane. The positive effect is cumulative so it’s a good idea to make this a habit. He also suggests writing letters of gratitude to those who have helped you along your way. Says Fox, “I think that gratitude can be much more like a muscle, like a trained response or a skill that we can develop over time as we’ve learned to recognize abundance and gifts and things that we didn’t previously notice as being important,” he said. “And that itself is its own skill that can be practiced and manifested over time.” When was the last time you actively expressed gratitude, and how did it make you feel? And what experience have you had when people shared gratitude with you? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual courses, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Connecting with a friend just to say “hello” might seem like an insignificant gesture — a chore, even, that isn’t worth the effort. Or maybe you worry an unexpected check-in wouldn’t be welcome, as busy as we all tend to be. But new research suggests that casually reaching out to people in our social circles means more than we realize. Peggy Liu, Ben L. Fryrear Chair in Marketing and associate professor of business administration with the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Business, studied this phenomenon and found people tend to underestimate how much friends like hearing from them. She and her team ran a series of 13 experiments, with more than 5,900 participants, to see how good people are at guessing how much friends value unexpected contact. In some of the experiments, participants reached out to a friend; in others, they got in touch with someone they were just casually friendly with (a “weak tie”). Those reaching out were asked to rate how pleased and grateful they anticipated the contact would be to hear from them. The researchers then asked those on the receiving end of the check-in to rate how much they appreciated the contact. Across 13 experiments, those who initiated contact, significantly underestimated how much it would be appreciated. Theirs is not the only recent research to emphasize the power of small moments of connection. Another study, published in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that even small positive social interactions is linked with a sense of purposefulness in older adults. We have all heard there is a pandemic of loneliness. So social psychologists hope these findings will underscore the need to connect with others on a regular basis, and encourage people to see friendship as an important component of personal health, even if reaching out sometimes feels awkward or time-consuming. When was the last time you texted a friend just to check in and say hello? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We'd love to hear about your experiences. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual courses, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.
 These days there is plenty to argue about: Politics, health, money, even the climate. Some say we’re arguing too much; some say we’re not arguing enough. But the real problem is we are not arguing well.
Bo Seo, a 28-year-old two-time world debating champion, says the problem of polarization stems from most arguments being “painful and useless… We spend more time vilifying, undermining and nullifying those who oppose us than we do trying to open or change their minds.” In his recent book, Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard, he argues that if more people took their cues from the world of competitive debate, it would be easier to get people to reconsider their views or at least consider those of others. Writing in The New York Times, columnist Pamela Paul outlines some of Seo’s key principles:
Do you think you could have done a better job during a recent argument? What might you have changed? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We really want to hear about your experiences. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual courses, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  In many organizations, our leadership readiness is measured in part by what we say in meetings. So says Allison Shapiro, who teaches “The Arts of Communication” at the Harvard Kennedy School. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, she adds, “How we speak off the cuff can have a bigger impact on our career trajectory than our presentations or speeches, because every single day we have an opportunity to make an impact.”
Shapiro offers strategies for speaking up effectively:
And she also offers advice for when to hold back:
What are your criteria for when you should and should not speak up in a meeting? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Being a successful leader is tricky business. “You can't have results at the expense of people. And serving your people well without getting results sets you up for failure,” notes Marcel Schwantes, contributing editor for Inc Magazine, and founder of Leadership from the Core. In a recent article, Schwantes describes six strategies that help leaders strike the right balance and actually make people want to work for them.
Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  Being vulnerable can build trust and closeness, but self-disclosure can also make us fear judgment or rejection. If you’re nervous after having divulged something personal, you might be experiencing what Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, calls a “vulnerability hangover.” You might wonder: “Did I display a weakness?” or “Am I safe?”
As Holly Burns writes in The New York Times, “A vulnerability hangover might be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be debilitating — and it can even be helpful.” If you are “hung over” here’s what to consider:
When is the last time you shared something quite personal, and how did you feel after? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to hear about your experiences! Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022. |
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