communication Archives - Page 2 of 8

26
Mar 21
-

Stressed Out Talk Is Different From Normal Talk

Tags : communication good intentions leadership respect stressed out

A short fuse. That is a common descriptor for when our patience, energy, or control is right on the edge of a snap. Is your stressed-out talk different from when things are more calm or mild?

Everyone has a guideline that they operate from. It’s a way that they conduct themselves or their business. It is tempered somewhat, not exactly what may be brewing on the inside, but a more controlled and socially responsible version.

When people get tired, pushed, or otherwise stressed out, sometimes the Kraken comes out.

He blew up.

She lost it!

He totally freaked out!

While fuse length varies and is conditioned by many factors, nobody wants this to happen.

Is there something in-between the blow-up and the totally in-control you?

Stressed Out Talk

Authenticity matters but for everyone looking to lead there is a fine line or a balancing act for what you deliver.

When you set out to deliver your best you are probably being very tactical in your approach.

You may be conscious that you need to be kind, be patient, and have empathy. You might also be thinking about how to be more respectful, more generous, or mindful of navigating the rough spots.

It works for many, most of the time.

Yet there are occasions when the time feels short, something is overdue, or expectations have been thrown out the window.

That’s when our somewhat rigid structure of self-management begins to break down and slip out.

It’s not viewed as the normal you.

Interactions and behaviors are always about conscious choice.

An apology for a slip-up is a good idea. Behavior tempered, even when the fuse is short is much better.

Make conscious choices and have self-awareness. As a leader, you’ll contribute better with the proper intentions. It’s always better than needing to make an apology.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

18
Mar 21
-

Drama Habit, Do You Create More Of It?

Tags : communication drama habits respect workplace

Do you have a drama habit? What about members of the team, do they seem to thrive on it? Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that people like to have more of what makes them feel comfortable.

Did you grow up eating breakfast or skipping it? What about lunch, have you made a habit out of skipping lunch or do you always eat?

The same questions might apply for morning beverages, after hour beverages, or even when you brush your teeth.

Workplace Drama

Many workplaces are full drama.

Drama about how to get the next customer or close the next sale may not be a bad form of drama.

Drama about what Susan is wearing or whether Jack will use micro-aggressions with the boss today may not be healthy.

Certainly, it may go deeper than that. The drama may be about workplace romances and who does what during their off-work time. It may even dip into discriminatory patterns with racial undertones, gender issues, age, and many other areas.

Can you stop it? Should you?

Drama Habit

It is a truism that many people do what they do because they are seeking comfort. Consciously or subconsciously, this is often the case.

People reposition in their chairs, follow a specific daily routine, and seek comfort in repetitive social patterns.

In 2020, you probably started to have a meeting or two either via Zoom, Skype, or Microsoft teams. In other cases perhaps you were still meeting in the conference room, only everyone was wearing a mask. Was this different? Was it comfortable?

Workplace drama can come and go. When a drama topic starts to slow down and interest is less, surprisingly, or not so much, new drama will take its place.

If you have witnessed this you may be wondering what can you do? Is there anything you can do? Is drama here to stay?

Plan for Change

A plan by workplace leaders to be a catalyst for shifting the drama may be the best approach. If drama is here to stay, shifting it to more constructive approaches may be your answer.

In short, if all of the talk, the focus, and the chatter are about production, services, and helping the customer there is much less room for negative, degrading, and disrespectful drama.

Communication is everyone’s responsibility. Consider what your communication consists of and how to regain focus on what matters the most.

Are you part of the problem? Creating drama about the people who are the most dramatic may mean you’re part of the problem, not the solution.

It probably isn’t about the flip-flops Susan is wearing or whether Jack is bashing the boss behind her back.

Change the discussion and leave less room for all the stuff that doesn’t really matter.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

31
Dec 20
-

Communication Rhythms May Be Where To Start

Tags : effectiveness focus meeting management mindset psychology of work

What are your communication rhythms? When are the meetings, how long, and how often? Do you call, email, send text messages, or leave post-it notes?

Many workplace professionals express the need for more effective communication. Have you really thought about what you communicate and how it conditions everything that happens next?

It matters for identifying priorities, it affects the sales funnel, the supply chain, and even involves stalled work and dead ends.

Sometimes knowing where to start gets its start by simply starting something. It may be as simple as picking a place and digging in.

A good place to start improving your workplace communication may be by developing a more thorough understanding of exactly how it works and what it impacts.

It impacts everything, but how?

Communication Rhythms

What gets discussed sets the tone, the mood, and the energy. This is the building block for how it works.

Are your meetings spent talking about wrongdoings, shortcomings, and poor behavior? Are they spent talking about why sales are down instead of where the next opportunity exists? Is there an analysis of gossip, rumors, and drama?

Certainly, all of those things are a part of the culture. Make them the smallest piece instead of the largest.

Focus on behaviors that are connected to where you want to be, not where you are now, and especially not where you were last month.

What you talk about, whether you are leading or following will be what develops as the focus. It creates a mindset for what happens next.

If you’re struggling and don’t know where to turn, it might be time to change your rhythm.

Get a new beat.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

06
Nov 20
-

Communication Pace Helps Curb Conflict

Tags : delivery messages pace regret words

Do you know someone who is a little bit witty? Do you occasionally pop off a good one-liner? Have you ever had a slip of the tongue in the workplace? Communication pace may be what you need to consider.

Whether it is with serious intent in the meeting, with anger when expectations aren’t met, or as a playful joke, what you say can have lasting consequences.

I’ve said a few things I wish I hadn’t. I’ve also messed up a word or two here or there. In some rare cases, I may have even used a word that doesn’t exist.

Often it is the pace of our communication that gets us in trouble. The pressure to deliver now, on the spot, in the moment creates more risk for a big mistake.

Slowing down helps.

Communication Pace

When you stop trying to finish people’s sentences. When you exchange the statement you want to blurt out into a question, or when you refrain from being the class clown, your results improve.

Finishing sentences is often positions you as an egotistical know it all.

Rushed statements with a commanding voice invoke fear or anger.

Being the clown or having a joke for every moment means others won’t take you seriously when you have something valuable and important to offer.

Slow It Down

Removing words you’ve spoken is like a bad tattoo. Not everyone will see it, but those who do aren’t quick to forget it.

Perhaps some patience will help. Slow down a little. Consider the consequences and consider how you might feel if you were the recipient.

Second chances are valuable but they don’t always wash away what happened first.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Oct 20
-

Meeting Decisions May Be The Hold-Up

Tags : balance choices decisions meeting management time

Is your workplace culture caught up in meeting decisions? Decisions that are always contingent on holding a meeting?

Meetings often feel necessary and certainly, many of them probably are. Meeting effectiveness matters because too many details, a lack of fact-finding, or the wrong people at the meeting can derail even the best intentions.

Most of the best work that you do comes when you find the right balance. The balance between too much and too little, too authoritarian or too relaxed, and even too fast or too slow.

Size Matters

In the smallest of businesses, the owner makes the decisions. There is a time to contemplate and study, and also a time to act. The owner can, at his or her descrestion, act fast.

Big companies have different hurdles. The decision-making process is often slower, seemingly more calculated, and often tied up with too many people having a hand in the pot.

Decision quality is often a concern. One side believes the decision was made too soon and without enough information. The other side believes there was analysis paralysis and too many details.

Who really suffers?

Meeting Decisions

Ultimately, it is likely the customer who suffers the most.

They have to deal with delays, less quality, and often rising prices.

Who has the bigger advantage? The big company or the small company?

While the big company has more market share and thus exposure and reputation, the smaller company is nimbler and more flexible. Decisions mean outcomes and outcomes mean action.

Your next decision and the time it wastes or maximizes may not only be holding you up, but it may also be holding you back.

Are you surfing the status quo or are you blazing a trail for future success?

It’s probably a balancing act.

Ending the meeting or holding one will help you find the right balance.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

22
Oct 20
-

Workplace Intentions Forge Stronger Connections

Tags : communication connections empathy intentional relationships

What are your workplace intentions? Are you striving to do good work, have effective communication, and foster stronger workplace relationships?

There is almost always some difference between what is said and what is heard.

It may be because we haven’t planned our words wisely, our emotions jumped in the way, or the receiver of the communication misunderstood.

Chances are good that both parties have some responsibility.

It’s true for working with peers, direct reports, and your boss. It is also true when communicating with the customer.

Much of what we hear is based on our expectations. You can recognize a difference in the flow and understanding when someone says, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Workplace Intentions

Those differences between what one party says and the other party hears are enough to breakdown trust, sour the relationship, and cost the organization money.

An angry customer who feels insulted may leave forever. Their emotion of anger and insult is likely the result of their expectations not being met. Their expectations are often driven by their past experiences or clever advertising, marketing, or sales presentations.

What was the intent?

With co-workers, friends, or customers, your intent compared with their expectations will either forge stronger connections or tear them down.

It may be a good idea to express where you are coming from.

When everyone understands your intentions there is more empathy for communication that feels like a pinch.

Consider the value of recognizing when a salesperson is selling, the boss needs you to shift directions, or your co-worker is giving you some advice. It’s an opportunity to adjust your expectations.

Stronger connections are intentional.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

15
Jul 20
-

Professional Contributions Will Change Outcomes

Tags : decisions management meeting outcomes professional conduct

There is always a choice at the meeting. Will you deliver professional contributions or just what feels required to get by?

The first time with a seat at the table and you may choose to just observe. Once acquainted with the audience you may proceed with caution but you’re optimistic. It is placing a toe in the water.

What is your long-term contribution?

Meeting Performance

People don’t know what they don’t know.

We’ve all heard, “Ignorance is bliss.”

There may be some truth to that idea. When you don’t know the background, the skeletons, or what has been sent to the graveyard and by whom, you’ll just openly contribute. You don’t know the history.

Your intentions are often good, yet, sometimes you learn that the outcomes are not so good. You regroup, hold things tighter to the vest, and become more calculated.

In other cases, you learn what people want you to say.

In the meeting, you respond to the affirmative. You agree, you do not tactfully challenge or question.

Decisions are made. It seems everyone agrees.

After the meeting, in a more private conversation, you truthfully admit the decision seems like a bad idea.

Why did you agree?

Professional Contributions

You have at least three choices.

The first choice is to arrive unfiltered. Arrive with innocence and express your best thoughts. Enter with the excitement and enthusiasm of involvement without the history.

It is the spirit of the novice. Sometimes, it is refreshing.

Your second choice is to arrive as a professional, making professional contributions.

You’ve studied the data, you know the history, and you’ll be brave enough and vulnerable enough to take greater risk. The risk isn’t personal, it’s professional.

Risk means you’ll push for what is right, do the right thing, serve the client, ask the customer, and deliver what is promised.

Unfortunately, sometimes the third option is the easiest. Just agree and move on. Meeting over.

Doing what is right is worth more than doing what is easy.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

02
Jul 20
-

Bright Futures Start With Your Story

Tags : culture future narrative stories

Are you a product of your story? The easy answer is, yes. Bright futures start with the story you are telling. Without a good story, the future may be dim.

The interesting aspect of any story is its purpose. We tell stories for warnings, pleasure, humor, advice, branding, fear, and especially to promote change.

Think about your conversation yesterday, and the one you’ll have today. What is its purpose? Is it for preparation, strategy, or change?

Social media tells a story. So does the mainstream news.

Your co-workers have a story, what are they telling?

Your boss has a story, so do the investors.

There is a story at the barber shop, a story on the radio, and a story in your email in-box.

Certainly, it makes sense to stay on top of some news. It also makes sense to think for yourself about the information you receive. Question the motive, the reason, and the purpose.

Everyone claims to want a bright future, yet what is their story?

Bright Futures

Is fear more attractive or interesting than success?

Is anger more desirable than peace?

What is your top story? What are you going to talk about today?

Maybe the story you want to tell isn’t the story that will help create the path to the future you desire.

Whatever narrative you are listening to, or telling, it will have a lot to do with what happens next.

What is your language describing? Does it matter?

Bright futures start with a story.

What is your story?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

29
Jun 20
-

Workplace Confusion, What’s Really Going On?

Tags : confusion effective teams mission statement stories

Do you know what’s really going on? The end of workplace confusion starts by understanding the story.

“Get buy-in for the changes we just discussed.”

Have you heard this one?

As people we want to understand the story.

Stories Lead the Way

Someone asks, “What’s the story on this?”

Employee teams expect an understandable answer. It is often how the buy-in process starts.

We often wonder about the story. Without the story we feel sort of lost.

What may be worse is that without the story people tend to make up a story. Their quest to understand prompts them to create a reason.

Cindy is late for work. Oh, I’ll bet her car battery died again.

New orders are down this week. The marketing plan isn’t working.

Why does the boss have her door closed? I’ll bet someone is getting fired.

Every time we don’t have a story, we can easily create one.

Do you want to end workplace confusion?

Workplace Confusion

Your organization should have a mission.

A succinct mission statement would not only be nice, it is needed. You should have a strategic plan, goals and objectives, and the team should understand and be prepared with tactics for the pursuit.

The absence of a succinct plan means someone is probably making up stories.

Worse, no one knows the real story. From manager to manager the story changes.

When you have a solid mission and strategic plan and follow the metrics and measurements as outlined in the plan, teams know the story.

Knowing the story and having a united effort to accomplish it, makes a difference. It ends the confusion about what is really going on.

Employees shouldn’t have to ask, “What’s the story?”

Leaders should be making it come to life.

End workplace confusion.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

20
Apr 20
-

Measuring Information Quality and Outcomes

Tags : communication effectiveness information meetings quality

Are you a good communicator? Are you or the people around you measuring information quality, and if so, how?

There is a tendency to measure information quality by its likability factor.

In other words, if you like what you hear or read, it is good information. If you don’t agree or dislike the information it is bad.

Information should not be judged by its likability.

Quality Judgement

In the workplace people tend to lack comfort in the meeting that puts them on the spot. The meeting that makes them more responsible and accountable, or the one that examines performance.

The information exchange in these cases may be considered good or bad, yet it is often judged by the likability factor. If you like it, it was good, otherwise it was bad.

If your doctor suggests losing some weight, or the dentist has to recommend a root canal. Was this bad information?

Quality should not be a measurement of its content.

Measuring Information Quality

Workplace leaders can and should take special care when delivering information. Especially information that may be unpopular or performance improvement oriented.

Telling people what they want to hear may create a happier moment, yet it is not sustainable.

The best communicators are able to deliver all information, good or bad, with professionalism.

They often do this with honesty, integrity, and with high levels of transparency. Trust becomes a long-term factor for information quality.

If you’re judging the quality of information by the likability factor, you’re going to face a lot of disappointment or the consequences of misleading those around you.

What is worse? Trust will diminish or be non-existent.

Measure information quality by its honesty and integrity. Consider the professionalism involved in both the passion and compassion of the message.

Care about the quality.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Category Archives: communication

Mar 21

-

Stressed Out Talk

Mar 21

-

Workplace Drama

Drama Habit

Plan for Change

Dec 20

-

Communication Rhythms

Nov 20

-

Communication Pace

Slow It Down

Oct 20

-

Size Matters

Meeting Decisions

Oct 20

-

Workplace Intentions

Jul 20

-

Meeting Performance

Professional Contributions

Jul 20

-

Bright Futures

Jun 20

-

Stories Lead the Way

Workplace Confusion

Apr 20

-

Quality Judgement

Measuring Information Quality

Search This Website

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Blog (Filter) Categories

Follow me on Twitter

Assessment Services and Tools

Recent Posts

Email Signup

Subscribe to newsletter

Contact Info