Think about the last time you tried to get a refund at a store, get an extension on a deadline, or even asked a child why he didn’t complete his chores? It’s unlikely that the response was something you wanted to hear. As such, we go into such discussions defensively as if we know conflict […]
This week’s blog post is a guest post by Workplace Culture Expert Michelle Howison. Michelle holds Master’s degrees in Behavioral Sciences and Industrial/Organizational Psychology. It was this training that sparked her interest in the psychology of company culture: What happens in organizations that makes people stay or go. Michelle started her career in organizational development […]
As some of you may remember, I wrote a post awhile back about the 8 Reasons Organizations Need Standard Operating Procedures. Although I know they are time consuming to write and can be a challenge to keep current, I hope you agreed after reading the post, that it’s critical that organizations have them and why. […]
In January of this year, I first met Tinkerbell. At the time, her name wasn’t even Tinkerbell, she was just “Female, black, Chihuahua, stray,” at the animal shelter where I volunteer. After adopting her, I took her to her first vet appointment. The first question they asked was her name, and “Tinkerbell,” came out of […]
I probably lead a difficult people workshop at least once a month. For some reason, a lot of people seem to have difficulty dealing with the different personality types in their lives. Go figure! One of the things I like to do when I kick off a workshop is to have people take a selfie […]
I wrote my first blog post on May 31, 2011. The title of the post was “What Everyone Ought to Know About Communicating Successfully.” In it, I stated that my goal for the blog was for all of us to grow our communication skills and that I needed you, my readers, to help with that. After I’d published […]
Whether we blame it on auto complete, or we cover ourselves with an automatic disclaimer on text messages and emails, such as, “This message was sent from my phone, so ignore my sloppy writing,” we need to stop blaming our communication devices for the poor messages we send. A recent survey found that spell check and […]
Interpersonal Skills are the emotional, verbal, and nonverbal skills necessary to successfully interact with others and build one-on-one relationships. Since interpersonal skills aren’t generally taught in school, we take what we learned in childhood from our parents, and go forth into our lives doing the best we can. However, sometimes our best isn’t good enough […]
In the almost 30 years I’ve been in the adult working world, I’ve found that people vary greatly in their ability to keep from sharing personal business at work. There are some people who have all types of personal problems or issues going on in their lives and no one at work ever hears about […]
We all know the importance of giving feedback to others, especially employees, but what about seeking feedback? When was the last the time you asked your boss, employees, customers, and even your family members, “How am I doing? What could I be doing better?” Never assume that people will let you know if there’s something […]
