As conveners and managers of people who have challenges and need to solve problems, we’re usually asked to help groups figure out what their members collectively think – what the priorities actually are. That sounds simple enough but it almost never is … thus we facilitate those conversations.
People and ...
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Roger Schank is a cognitive scientist who said, “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” The days of experts delivering data and facts to educate and motivate people are over. We love stories because we’re able to inject ourselves into ...
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Once again, the following article feels like it focuses on internal business problems, but the fact is that it works in just about any kind of issue. Whether you’re working with difficult people in your office or facilitating a public meeting full of upset people, many of the principles are ...
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This is a story about water allocation in Saskatchewan. Unless you happen to be a water policy geek, this probably sounds like a snoozer, but bear with me. This is actually a story about empathy and a lesson learned from a seemingly unlikely source.
Creativity, adaptability, persuasion and empathy are ...
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My colleagues and I have the privilege of working with lots of smart people and over the years we’ve seen inevitable changes supported by new research that shows we’re slowly losing some innate and critically important abilities. Interpersonal communication skills are waning in people who have been focused on pure ...
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Politics has always been and may always be a blood sport with one goal: win, to gain and keep power. And I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily bad, you’ve got to get the job to do the job, but it’s different than governing which, in a democracy, usually means working for ...
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People who deal with tough public policy, stakeholder conflicts and upset people much of the time can become jaded, skeptical and even cynical about working with the public. You begin to wonder if people are truly as unreasonable and crazy as broadcast, cable and social media news coverage makes them ...
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Successful public speaking requires people who listen. One way to get and keep their attention is by emphasizing the space between your words – varying your pacing, slowing down, pausing, then sometimes pausing and repeating what you’ve said. Letting the quiet settle over the room. They’ll notice and focus better ...
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I rarely run across anyone who likes to use a microphone. When they’re handed one, people say, “Oh, I don’t need that, they can hear me, I’ll talk louder.” But increasinglythey – the audience – can’t. And when people can’t hear you or have to strain to do so, it ...
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One of the secrets to (re)building trust really isn’t much of a secret, but it also isn’t exactly intuitive. The clients that we work with almost always feel that they need to project professionalism and confidence in their dealings with the public. That may certainly be true in almost all ...
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