 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.
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 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. |
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