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 ...
read more →
Because it isn’t a business, it serves a different purpose and the goals just aren’t the same. Government can learn a lot from good companies and C-suite managers, but government isn’t a capitalistic enterprise and it shouldn’t be. Sometimes corporate arrogance oversteps wisdom when executives make the jump to the ...
read more →
Power and control usually manifest as arrogance and that makes people angry. We use different terms and euphemisms – reducing public anger and outrage, calming the waters, lowering the temperature, building trust – for the same basic goal: getting people to the point of having a reasonable dialogue or debate or interaction ...
read more →
|
One of the outrage factors that we talk about in our two-day course deals with issues and events that people find most memorable. And the things that we find most memorable tend to be the more negative and emotionally sticky events of our lives....
read more →
Most people working in public service come to it with advanced degrees. They’ve usually learned a specific way of presenting factual information and arguments. That scientific method works great for scoring good grades but not so much for public presentations and documents. Leading with the main point is important. If ...
read more →
Spoiler alert: Although it wasn’t intended to be, I see this next piece of research as a pretty good argument for skillful facilitation. The social dynamics of the groups seem to be the root cause. This only references one study from Virginia Tech, so take it for what it’s worth, ...
read more →
|
We talk a lot in these emails about understanding and dealing with public conflict and anger but we don’t often get into the subject of online bullies and trolls. Fact is, humans are naturally wired to cooperate, but online anonymity is a game changer – trolls have nothing to lose ...
read more →
Some of our clients’ problems seem hopeless, with consensus among the varying parties feeling inconceivable. But we’ve found, over time, that getting the parties together creates the atmosphere where much is possible....
read more →
