Listen

I’m going to ask you to do something that I admit I need to work on as well.  In fact, one of my goals for this year is to listen better.  One thing that you can do to really separate yourself from others is to listen.  Don’t listen so that you know what the person [...]

Process in the Workplace

I am working on a research paper right now that looks at several aspects of organizational communication, and one of the things that I say in that paper is that these aspects must be considered as a process rather than an event.  I think this is relevant for you, regardless of what aspect of organizational [...]

Stories at Work

What stories do you tell?  Do people at your work share stories about times when your founder really exemplified the values of your organization?  Do you tell stories at work about times when people really supported each other?  Are there tales about employees who thought creatively and changed the way the company does business?  Think [...]

Public Speaking

As I sat through an executive’s disastrous presentation last week, I was reminded of the importance of public speaking.  This top-level executive probably didn’t lose any accounts because of today’s presentation, but his credibility suffered.  I found myself thinking, “why would someone put him in charge of something?”  If you are less than confident in [...]

Your Actions Always Come Back to You

Everything that we do has consequences—I don’t have to tell you that.  What’s interesting is that there are those consequences that we can anticipate, predict, and use to make decisions, and then there are those consequences that we never see coming, what scholars sometimes call “unintended consequences.”  As soon as I mention the term, perhaps [...]

Followership

Have you ever thought about what it means to be a good follower?  There are probably more books about leadership than anyone can count, but there are far fewer books on followership.  Does that mean that being a leader is more important than being a follower?  I was talking to a business leader recently about [...]

Wisdom, Learning, and Office Politics

A few days ago, I was talking to someone about wisdom, and two things really struck me from that conversation.  First, a wise person is teachable.  He or she doesn’t feel the need to have all the answers and doesn’t feel the need to “fake it” instead of saying “I don’t know.”  Second, a wise [...]

Speak Up

I’ve posted before about how television affects our expectations for our workplace.  One of the things that I notice on television is that there is a no shortage of employees who speak up at work, but typically, their dissent leads to nothing.  Most dissent from employees on TV is either ignored or outright rejected by [...]

Pick your Battles

We’ve all heard that saying about having to pick your battles.  The idea is that if you are always competing with others, you won’t have any friends in the workplace when you need them.  One way to approach this is to think about the issue and decide how important it is that you get your [...]

Getting Through the Obstacle Course

The other night, I was watching a television show in which contestants have to pass through an obstacle course while competing for time against other contestants, all of whom are vying for a prize.  Ever feel like your workplace is designed on a similar model, where you have to dodge obstacles thrown at you by [...]