You’ve let me scratch my rock & roll itch in this blog, but I thought you might be interested in Rolling Stone Country magazine’s picks for their 200 Greatest Country Songs. Country music has been described as three chords and the truth. Start with #200 and don’t let ...
read more →
I suspect that you’re aware of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), which actually don’t just occur in some kind of prescribed, neat, predictable order; it’s more complex than that. (Trust me.) But conflict can also be defined in five stages....
read more →
We teach classes to help clients and other students understand and deal with public and stakeholder anger, emotion and opposition. Developing better emotional intelligence makes a world of difference in accomplishing things that matter. And it’s not just about them, it’s also about you and me. Emotional intelligence means understanding ...
read more →
Meetings get a bad rap and I confess that I’ve sometimes been guilty of piling on. Traditional public meetings are often the least effective way to engage a community, in light of all the other options and formats. But it’s not necessarily the meeting itself that’s the problem, but how ...
read more →
A full third of all internet traffic today is generated by “bad-bots,” computer programs designed to do bad, malicious things: SPAM, Malware, other kinds of attacks that overwhelm legitimate websites or take needed services offline, and some that just spread dangerous lies and effective bull$%&#. The bad guy ...
read more →
Somebody said to me recently, “You must be a real extrovert to do what you do.” As a guy who has always avoided large social gatherings, that made me laugh until tears ran down my leg. But I’ve discovered that I might very well be an ambivert. Until recently, I ...
read more →
Your body language and vocal tone have an oversized impact on the message you’re delivering – meaning how you’re delivering what you say. When the audience’s trust of you is low and their concern about the issue that you’re talking about is high, which is often the case in the ...
read more →
Mark Twain said, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” We see stupidity and confidence in any number of successful people these days. (I’ll let you decide who they might be.) Confidence comes in handy but, like beer, too much just isn’t ...
read more →
I was talking with one of our more experienced clients on the east coast the other day. She told me they’re encountering a consistent challenge with new hires, smart people often fresh out of school, who are really uncomfortable talking with folks beyond their own age bracket and out of ...
read more →
When the premise of democracy, statesmanship and compromise is under attack, as it is now, the mere idea of collaborating seems quaint and old fashioned. But the fact is it’s probably the only thing that will save us. Getting people to the point of willingness to collaborate is challenging. The ...
read more →
