 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.
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 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.  Asking for help can be daunting: We don't want to impose, and we don't want to be rejected. But new research reported in The New York Times suggests “many of us underestimate how willing — even happy! — others are to lend a helping hand.”
The study, published in the journal Psychological Science this month, included six small experiments involving more than 2,000 participants — all designed to compare the perspectives of those asking for help with the perspectives of helpers. The bottom line: Across all of the experiments, those asking for help consistently underestimated how willing friends and strangers were to assist, as well as how good the helpers felt afterward. The researchers believe those incorrect calibrations might stand in the way of people’s asking for help in ways big and small. What is the most effective way to ask for help? Researchers are looking at that dynamic as well. Dr. Wayne Baker, a professor with the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and author of All You Have to Do Is Ask: How to Master the Most Important Skill for Success, encourages people to be deliberate about making a thoughtful request. Dr. Baker promotes what he calls the “SMART” system for asking for help. Although it was initially designed for workplace settings, he believes it is applicable across contexts. As much as possible, requests should be:
Afterward be sure to communicate your heartfelt gratitude! When was the last time you asked for help, and how did you do it? Was help given? And what experience have you had when people asked you for help? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would like to hear about your experiences. Create lifetime communication mastery online, with our virtual programs, awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.  It's inevitable that at some point we will all be the targets of insults, admonishments, or negative feedback. We may be advised to “shake it off” but that’s not so easy. We tend to remember criticism more than we recall praise — due to a phenomenon called the “negativity bias.” This universal tendency for negative emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones is evolutionary, in that it causes us to pay special attention to anything that might be a threat or put us in danger.
According to Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at the University of Queensland and co-author of The Power of Bad: And How to Overcome It, "Our ancestors who had that [negative] bias were more likely to survive.” However this tendency does not serve us very well on a daily basis. Baumeister believes that until we learn how to override the disproportionate impact of the negative, it distorts our view of the world. Of course, the impact of being criticized varies from person to person. But receiving and internalizing negative comments can increase stress, anxiety, frustration and worry, says Lucia Macchia, a behavioral scientist and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. "Dealing with these negative emotions has a great impact on our body as they can even create and exacerbate physical pain," she adds. The good news: Scores of studies have shown that people tend to look on the bright side as they become older. Scientists refer to this effect as the "positivity bias" and they think we start to remember positive details more than negative information from middle age. Baumeister believes this is because we need to learn from failures and criticism in our younger years, but that need diminishes as we age. To reduce our negativity bias sooner, it helps to remember that our genetic programming could be at the root of our ruminating about criticism. Simply recognizing this negativity effect can help us override undesirable responses — and it can also be useful to remember that some criticism says more about the giver than the receiver. Have you ever given more credence to a criticism than it probably warranted? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would really like to hear about your experiences. Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning programs.  Leaders consistently rate their own meetings much more positively than attendees do. When managers assume their meetings are going smoothly, they are less likely to solicit feedback and seek opportunities to improve. As a result, frustrations that attendees experience don’t get fixed (irrelevant agenda items, unnecessarily long duration, lack of focus), leaving employees disgruntled and disengaged.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Steven G. Rogelberg, Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and author of The Surprising Science of Meetings, helps managers improve their meeting skills. Among his tips:
What have you done to improve the caliber of team meetings? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. If you would like to learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication, visit our online learning programs.  In a commencement address at Stanford, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke four words that encapsulate years of research on the psychology of human motivation: "Reward effort, not outcome.”
Pichai is tapping into the power of creating sources of intrinsic motivation: People are moved to do something because they enjoy it, love the challenge, or find it intriguing…not to gain a reward or avoid punishment. This strategy he says, works well not just with your employees but also with your kids. Although it might seem counterintuitive, science backs up this approach. Here’s why:
When was the last time someone celebrated your effort regardless of outcome, and how did you respond? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to about your experience!  As any manager who has tried it can tell you, onboarding new employees remotely is a challenge. And a bad onboarding experience can have long-lasting negative fallout. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, James M. Citrin and Darleen DeRosa, co-authors of Leading From a Distance: Practical Lessons for Virtual Success, offer recommendations for companies large and small who want to make onboarding strategies succeed.
 You don't need to be on a dating app to be ghosted, a sudden and unexplained ending of all communication. Increasingly, people report being ghosted by potential employers during job searches (sometimes even after they’ve gotten a verbal offer), by clients they were pitching, and by people with whom they were networking.
Why do people ghost? It's often to avoid an awkward situation or anything that might lead to conflict. But it could simply be because there is no news to share, or because they are maxed out by their own work. Why not just let it go? It turns out we’re not biologically wired for that. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Kristi DePaul, founder of Nuanced, a thought leadership firm for executives, says, “Ghosting is an action that tugs at our psyches. When something is unresolved, our brains tend to linger on it (a phenomenon called the Zeigarnik effect). This underlying cognitive tension encourages us to continue seeking a satisfactory resolution.” So, what to do? DePaul suggests being patient for a few days (they might genuinely be preoccupied). Then, if silence persists, consider that the person doing the ghosting might now feel there is no way to bring the conversation back online gracefully. You can offer them a way to save face by sending “a brief, lighthearted message [that leaves] the door open for them to reconnect, or to simply let you know what’s going on.” Have you ever been ghosted at work, and what happened if you attempted to follow up? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.  As the pandemic lingers and economic insecurity looms, stress and uncertainly are pervasive in the workforce. Since uncertain environments make people more likely to engage in uncivil, and disrespectful communication—rudeness is on the rise, and so are its repercussions
According to Shannon G. Taylor and Lauren R. Locklear, writing in the Sloan Management Review, “Employees who experience incivility at work perform worse in their jobs, are less helpful to colleagues, and are more likely to steal from their employer. Rudeness also hurts employee retention and the bottom line. According to one estimate, handling a single incident of rudeness can cost an organization more than $25,000.” So what should managers be doing to keep rudeness from begetting more rudeness in a vicious cycle?
 Brent Gleeson, a Forbes contributor, first learned about effective leadership in chaotic environments as a Navy SEAL. “Many, if not all, of those basic principles apply in business and life in general,” he says. Among the most widely applicable lessons he cites:
They know the difference between “activity” and “results”: SEAL teams say, “find work.” If you find yourself at the end of your To Do list, that’s not when your contribution to the team ends. Make a new list of priorities and execute -- not busy work, but activities that align with team goals.
 In most organizations, compensation is not made public, but what if you stumble on information that alerts you that a peer is making more than you in a similar position? Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Rebecca Knight, a senior correspondent at Insider and former Wesleyan University lecturer, suggests what to do — and not do — in this situation.
Do:
As for the don’ts: Don't be rash or rude. Don't mention your higher-paid coworker by name (focus on you). And don't stay in a job any longer than you must if your company refuses to pay you market value for your role. Have you ever had to address a salary discrepancy? How did the situation resolve? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to get your feedback. |
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