In conflict and negotiation, it’s a common mistake to assume you have less power than the other person, particularly in workplace situations where the other person is your supervisor or someone in higher positional authority. In any conflict or negotiation situation you have more possible sources of power than may immediately be obvious.
For example, [...]
Every summer, when National Geographic sends me my annual renewal notice, they remind me that I’ve been a “proud member since 1972.” My mother started me on NG when I was just a kid; she was a wise woman who understood how important it is to understand ourselves in the context of the greater world. [...]
“I hear you” has gotten to be a tired phrase. And why is it that it seems to come out of the mouth of the person whom we believe, at that very moment, isn’t hearing us at all?
Instead of saying “I hear you” to let someone know you understand, actually say back the essence of [...]
In a long-ago article, Face-to-Face Negotiation Better than Email, I wrote about a Harvard B-school study on negotiation, conflict and email. Professor Kathleen Valley found that about 50% of negotiations conducted by email end in impasse, while only about 19% of face-to-face negotiations do so. She also concluded that we behave differently by email [...]
A client, Meg, told me that in conflict at work she finds it difficult to “think through the noise” in her head. That phrase really resonates with me because that’s my experience as well. I suspect Meg and I are not alone. Here’s some of the “noise” that goes on in my [...]
You just never know how your articles will be put to use. I certainly could never have imagined that one of mine would be used in an asparagus patch!
A while ago, I wrote a little post, Beware the Conflict Replay, in which I cautioned against creating certainty about “what really happened” by replaying disputes [...]
You’ve probably experienced an elevation in your mood when in the presence of someone upbeat, or starting to feel more negative when around someone angry. There’s good science that explains this phenomenon, along with a few other ways that you’re subconsciously influenced by those around you. In Angry/Negative People Can Be Bad for [...]
