Doorways to Compassion

Cognitive Empathy

As you gather with your family and attend holiday parties, empathy and compassion can help you navigate the difficult conversations that are bound to occur in the aftermath of the year’s destructively contentious election season.  (Even if everyone agrees to avoid talking about politics, fear and anger can be easily rekindled.) To open the doorway to compassion with our family, friends and coworkers, we need, at the very least, to understand people’s perspectives or have … Read more…

Listening and Questioning Tied to Empathy and Compassion

Listening and questioning, which we have been examining for the last five weeks, are actions we can take which are tied to empathy and compassion.  Both empathy and compassion seem appropriate for the season, so we wanted to delve in again with our post from November 11, 2015. Tina Turner’s 1984 Grammy Song of the Year asks “What’s love got to do with it?” It turns out that compassion—an element of love—has everything to do … Read more…

Asking Questions of Genuine Curiosity

Asking great questions is an important partner skill to good listening skills.  In this season of political upheaval paired with many opportunities to gather socially, questions of genuine interest will be a valuable tool.  To elaborate we are re-posting our original blog on this topic from November 4th of last year. Listening (“Go-To” Skill #1) and asking questions of genuine curiosity (“Go-To” Skill # 2) are the keys to the kingdom of understanding and working … Read more…

Focus on Listening with Responsive Behavior

Since August, I have been sharing key practices for joining with others to productively address complex problems we face in our lives.  Just over a year ago, I wrote about listening and its value in problem solving.  Listening is such an important skill to bring to our work with others that last week and over the next few weeks I am giving attention to four characteristics of good listening. In addition to quieting oneself to … Read more…

Focus on Listening by Choosing Appropriate Behaviors

Since August, I have been sharing key practices for joining with others to tackle the complex problems we face in our lives at work and in our communities.  A year ago, I spent time exploring specific skills that support those practices.  One of those skills is listening.  Listening is such an important skill to bring to our work with others that over the next four weeks I want to give attention again to four characteristics … Read more…

Getting Stuff Done by Connecting

In celebration of the release of my book this October, I will be highlighting content from “Talk Matters: Saving the World One Word at a Time” here in my blog. I hope as you read, we will grow as colleagues because I’m looking for people who will save the world with me. Specifically, colleagues who will save the world by talking better together—together with those we must work with to get things done for our … Read more…

Agreeing or Disagreeing ≠ Listening

When Roger James and I teach listening skills, we ask people to look at a list of “non-listening behaviors.” The list includes thirteen actions including the usual culprits of interrupting, advising or persuading, and pseudo-questions (“Don’t you think that…?”) When we ask people if there are any surprises on the list they invariably ask why “agreeing or disagreeing” is on the list of non-listening behaviors. Here’s why. When you listen you are trying to understand … Read more…

Winning Often Means Losing

In an interview on June 30 on NPR’s KHSU* about my forthcoming book, Talk Matters! (stay tuned), a dear colleague phoned in with a delicious question: “If you could wave a magic wand, how would you change how we approach public hearings?” My answer included ideas and examples of how to make such gatherings engaging and participatory. Here I add an afterthought: the importance of opening up the solution space by creating win/win interactions. When you … Read more…

A Prisoner of Bad Meetings?

The doodle above is my colleague Michael Kraft’s “notes from a recent meeting.” It reads like a note from a prisoner on death row. You don’t have to be a prisoner of bad meetings! Honestly, you don’t. Or, not most of the time anyway. You have options. At least two people are responsible for you being a prisoner in a bad meeting: you and the person who convened it. You are probably already familiar with … Read more…

Do No Harm

To honor the 49 people who were killed and the 50 who were injured in Orlando on June 12, I offer reflections on doing no harm. The grievous harm that occurred in Orlando has me wondering about two things. First, how significantly will the unthinking or deliberate political vitriol unleashed in the media in reaction to this tragedy feed an already antagonistic environment in this country? Second, how much will we let this environment affect … Read more…