Direct statements

Listen to this (3½  minutes)   We all have things we wish we could come right out and say, but often don’t for our own reasons. We may want to preserve a relationship, not hurt someone’s feelings, or reveal what we truly think. We beat around the bush hoping that they might pick up what […]

How the way we end conversations leads to confusion or action

Listen to this (2 minutes)   Have you ever worked with someone who uses confusion and complexity and avoids action? Instead of figuring out the next thing to do, they talk about how big a problem is. Instead of taking action, they freeze. I had a work colleague that used this tactic. In critical conversations, […]

Dealing with Resistance

Anytime we do important work, we WILL face Resistance.  It is pretty much a guarantee.  People won’t like what we’re doing. They may even let us know (to our face). They’ll cheapen our hard efforts and make us feel bad. And a common tendency would be to compromise – to give in and give up. Some […]

Behavior: getting from pointless to purposeful

Pointlessness. I hate it. Don’t you? I bet that you, just like me, have had pointless experiences. Pointless meetings. Pointless texts. Pointless phone calls. Pointless conversations. We can be tempted to say, “yeah, but even thru the pointless experiences, you can find meaning!” Or we might say, “even when things seem POINTLESS, there’s a bigger […]

Some write, others talk

It can be easy to think that other people in your life learn and process things the same way you do. For some, writing is a great way to figure things out. It’s a process that allows a person to get their thoughts on a page, see if they agree with them, and make changes […]