You can have all the right processes, procedures, and skills in place, but without communication, empathy, and trust, the work is not getting done as effectively or as powerfully as it could be. It doesn’t matter how clear and admirable your strategies are if you're lacking a positive culture. And it doesn’t matter how positive your culture is if you're lacking clear strategies. Creating that alignment can be tricky, so when I facilitate for clients, I rely on my Navigating Challenging Dialogue® Approach to Strategic Dialogue.  

Carlo was a recent hire to a manager position in a company that had just come through a year of difficult leadership change. Carlo had successfully held a management position elsewhere, and this was a step up. But according to his supervisor, Carlo was having some challenges in this new position. What was missing for Carlo was time with his boss to integrate into the work environment, set expectations, and understand the culture of the working relationship.

Is there something you are so passionate about that you have an abundance of great information to share? Do you love sharing and are deeply invested in other people learning as well? That is an amazing and remarkable gift. Your synapses are firing and each statement you make triggers another piece you want to share. It is an amazing feeling. Contrary to what you may feel at the moment, it’s actually time to embrace the pause rather than go faster. Taking a pause may conflict with the energy and excitement you are feeling, but here’s an exercise that will help you to reflect on how a pause creates more engagement, not less.

When you speak in generalities and use terms like “professional conduct,” you aren’t being clear about what you are expecting and why. The lack of clarity makes it nearly impossible for the people who are trying to fulfill your expectations to do so.  And when you do clarify, if you aren’t open to dialogue and feedback about these kinds of subjective expectations, you are likely to be met with backlash and lose an opportunity to learn and expand your own lens on the world.

Recently I was struggling. I was experiencing conflict between myself and someone I care about. I felt stuck and frustrated. The feeling of being stuck began to creep into many other aspects of my life. I wanted to get unstuck but didn’t see how that could happen. I didn't have the insight to do it by myself. I knew I needed some outside guidance to find my way through this emotional place.

During celebrations the stress hormone, cortisol, is reduced which helps you to become more relaxed and cope better with challenges. You can clearly see the benefits to your own sense of happiness when you take a moment to lift up and celebrate others. Celebrations don’t have to be complex or over the top …

The same curiosity that motivated child-you to develop new skills and learn about the world is deeply beneficial in your adult life. But too often in life, expertise is valued over curiosity. In the traditional workplace, often those who get rewarded are those who demonstrate knowledge instead of those who practice curiosity. 

Here’s what we can do when we want to remain connected with someone but their venting is just wearing us down. Especially if the person chronically vents and never takes action to remedy the situation.

When we attempt to remain silent in situations like this, eventually our frustration and fear turns into anger and resentment, and comes out when we least expect, or want, it to. Some event or conversation is going to spark emotions to take over and you will react or respond in a way that you didn’t intend. Communication coaching teaches you new skills, so you can effectively speak up even in charged situations.

For a long time, it was commonly believed that communication style is something a person “has” or “doesn’t have”. Companies weren’t interested in helping people develop these skills.  I am here to tell you that with the right coach and mentor, you can absolutely build on your communication strengths and close your communication gaps.

For the majority of us who work with and on teams, authentic coaching skills are a necessity. More businesses than ever realize how critical coaching is to success. Yet the number of professionals who understand what authentic coaching truly is, remains quite low.

There are going to be times when you are faced with answering an unanswerable question. Maybe it is from one of your children, or a friend, a co-worker, a boss, or a direct report. This Navigating Challenging Dialogue® tool applies to any situation where you are faced with providing answers to a situation or question that you aren’t ready or equipped to answer.

My top tip for getting people to speak up in meetings is to increase your skillfulness as a facilitator who builds an emotionally safe and trustworthy environment for engagement. There are 5 important components that assist team members to participate in group dialogue. 

Coaching doesn’t always happen one to one. As a team leader, you can deploy group coaching to enhance and improve team outcomes. When you use coaching questions with a group, you are modeling the behavior you desire in others. Getting comfortable with using coaching takes nothing more than learning authentic coaching skills, self-awareness, practice, and self-reflection on which questions were generative and inspiring.

The term “managing up” has different meanings to many people. Most leaders tell me that they wish their staff were more skillful at managing up. Almost every leader tells their team that the skill of managing up is desirable. But in my experience, almost no one knows what exactly they are being asked to do. Many leaders don’t have the focus, time, or even skillfulness to communicate how you can best be helpful to them when it comes to managing up.

When you hear a peer struggling to solve a problem  or make a decision, you can simply ask, “Hey, I hear you are struggling with this. Would you like a little coaching to help uncover a path forward?” And then accept the answer. In a coach:coachee relationship, both participants are equal. You don’t have to be the guru or know all the answers. In coaching, the person receiving the coaching is the expert on themselves. They know what risks they are willing to take, what consequences they are open to (positive and negative), and what actions they are willing to take. 

With the help of a therapist, I started noticing when my thoughts were of lack or resentment, and then pausing to consider what I was grateful for within it all.  It was uncomfortable and unpleasant in the beginning. This intentional practice requires new neural pathways and patterns to be built, much like building a new road through uncharted territory. It just isn’t easy. Because this is an ongoing practice, this is the process I still follow.  

Chronic complainers are exhausting. They deplete the energy of everyone around them. The challenge is that they often don’t see themselves as complainers. But nevertheless, a chronic complainer must be dealt with before they bring down an entire team.

This week’s post is brief on purpose because I’m sharing a podcast interview that I think is important that we all listen to. The interviewee is Dr. Paul Conti, author of “Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It”.  Full disclosure, I’ve not read the book yet, but when the podcast was shared with me, I was enthralled with the words and wisdom of the Stanford-trained psychiatrist. His suggestions felt so relevant, important and doable. 

Are you an interrupter? I know I am. I get really excited about my own thoughts, the connections that I make between what someone else is saying and what I’m thinking. I love a fast-paced conversation where everyone is engaged and rifting off ideas.  But, guess what. That kind of energy doesn’t work for everyone and certainly doesn’t work in every situation. Often it is interpreted as taking up too much space in the conversation. Here’s what you can do instead.