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 Staying Present

I love this cartoon. Being in the moment means staying present with whatever happens, including getting a phone call. It does not mean conforming to some thought or image about what the present moment is or is supposed to be. This is what mindfulness meditation is all about: becoming aware of what is actually happening, right now. And, when you are aware of it, handling it with care and skill. Such presence helps us get … 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…

Talking Better Together by Noticing Bias

Are you aware of how you react when you interact with people who differ from you?  Do your reactions differ depending on their race or gender? How might your reactions be influencing your behavior with them? According to neuroscientists at New York University, our biases influence how we “see” people’s faces. These visual biases unfortunately tend to conform to and confirm existing stereotypes of them. These biases then influence our behavior. In this recent study, … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Engaging Difference

Perhaps the most serious collateral damage from this year’s can’t-wait-until-it’s-over election season might be our ability to bridge differences. The ability to bridge differences and converse constructively is essential to the survival of our organizations and communities, our democracy, and, most likely, the world as we know it. By “constructive,” I mean conversing in ways that strengthen our capacity to get good things done together. Although survival for our long-ago ancestors depended on being part … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Pausing, Again

My Dad worked for Coca-Cola Bottling Company many years ago. If he were alive today, he would likely be surprised at the meaning I am about to connect with this old advertisement.  Notice how happy this woman is with her glass of soda? She’s off to a fresh start! What if we could get refreshed and off to a fresh start by simply pausing for a moment to connect to the current, living moment, and/or … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Pausing

Some days it feels like I am riding the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, a high-speed train): constantly thinking and doing. It reminds me of a train ride from Paris to southern France I took a few years ago. I got there quickly, but I missed the scenery along the way. As on the train, so in life, when you constantly think and do, the scenery gets hazy, indistinct. You are out of contact with … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Being Compassionate

At a meeting of 20 scientists and 6 lab technicians in a research and development company, one of the technicians, Sharon, unexpectedly bursts into tears. She describes how “pulled apart” she feels by all the competing needs and priorities of the scientists, and she wails, “I am so frustrated that I can’t do the quality of work I want to do because there is just too much of it, and there is no way to … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Opening to Change

Eighty people sit in groups of four around small tables spread across a gymnasium floor. The topic is water, always a touchy subject in California. This time, however, the problem isn’t having too little water; it’s having too much. The state “owns” the water and grants rights to use it to various agencies throughout the state. There’s a catch, however: If you don’t use what you’ve been licensed to use, you can lose rights to … Read more…

Talking Better Together by Clarifying Intentions

What do you want to accomplish at work or in your community? Who do you need to work with to get it done? What’s the most effective way to interact with them to achieve your goal? You prime how you interact with others by clarifying your intention towards them. Is your intention simply to look good, appear smart, and dazzle people with your brilliance?  Is it to convince them of the rightness of your goal … Read more…