Other People’s Stress

Do people ever enter your office or workspace stressed out?  Do they vent their stress to you, hoping for understanding?  Does that stress ever rub off on to you?  Or, if it doesn’t, do you find that they get frustrated that you are not as stressed as they are?  I have noticed that, when people [...]

Work Is Not Family

I’ve posted before about my research linking our expectations about our work to what we see on television.  One of the findings from that research is that coworkers are often out to get each other, except when times are generally tough.  In truly trying circumstances, coworkers stick together.  Lichter, Licther, and Rothman (1994) found that [...]

People Are The Problem (Part 3)

I am the problem?
Be very careful before you point the finger at other people’s bad behavior.  One of the most interesting (and at times, most convicting) communication theory that I remember from graduate school is Smith and Berg’s theory of paradox.  There’s more to it than I can get into here, but part of their [...]

People Are The Problem (Part 2)

Who Started The Problem?
One of the points that a group presenting in my class made this morning is that often, difficult people look at others and think that the problem lies with the other people in the office.  For example, Joe and Sally are talking.  Joe thinks Sally is so rude, and so Joe begins [...]

People Are The Problem

One of my classes is giving presentations this week, and I am struck by the topics they have chosen.  The assignment directs students to choose a topic that is relevant to a large number of people in a typical workplace and design a training program to improve worker’s skills relevant to that topic.  Interestingly, 2 [...]

Out of The Office

I’m out of the office this week and next.  I’ll be back on April 20th.

How to Win Friends

If you want to know how to make people like you, learn to recognize the gifts that others have.  Don’t worry about making sure people know how good you are at something.  Don’t brag about your accomplishments.  And certainly don’t harp on others’ mistakes.  But don’t make empty compliments.  Learn how to see people’s strengths [...]

Nonprofit Organizations–Pay Attention to Motivation

I’m on the tail end of a project examining communication in nonprofit organizations (Click here for other findings).  The project connected several variables to volunteers’ communication with paid staff.  The idea was that, just as employees have valuable feedback to give supervisors, volunteers may be able to provide useful information to paid staff.  One finding [...]