Taking a break

As this semester is going full steam now, I’m beginning to realize that I need to streamline the tasks that I take on.  So with a little bit of regret, I am taking an indefinitely break from blogging.  I’ve looked back over the year plus that I’ve been blogging, and I’ve noticed that the times [...]

Childhood Lessons We Forget As Adults

Today’s post comes after a conversation with someone starting a new job this past summer.
As children, we were all taught to say “please” and “thank you” at appropriate moments.  I can still remember my mother saying “now what do you say?” over and over until it was drilled into my head—when you want something, say [...]

Out of Office

This is the first week of school at my university, and I’m slammed with the typical first week adjustments and transitions.  I’ll be back with posts next week, beginning Wednesday, Sept. 9.

Cautions about Emotional Intelligence

I had students present last semester on emotional intelligence.  I was talking with someone who guest lectures for me from time to time, and she also mentioned it.  Emotional intelligence is achieving buzzword status, but I think there is some clarification and caution that is important to consider.  First, self-awareness and knowing your own emotions [...]

Renewal

As an academic, I have a privilege that few outside of teaching enjoy.  I’m not talking about “3 months off” in the summer.  I’m talking about the rhythm of the academic calendar, where things completely reset several times a year.  As I start a new academic year, I do so having learned from last year’s [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Communication Competence

One of the things that interests me as an organizational communication professor is communication competence.  There are a lot of definitions of what makes a competent communicator, and a lot of research goes into trying to determine what leads to such competence.  I read an article a few weeks ago that really made me think.  [...]