What’s your favorite childhood memory? Stop reading. Think about it for a couple of minutes…allow yourself the trip. What memories do you cherish?
Now fast-forward to the future. If you’re the parent of a young child, ask yourself the question my pal Jill Urbane (aka The Mentor Mom) asked recently in her blog post Then and [...]

I found myself in good company today. Mike Sansone, in his post BlogHer: Where the Women Bloggers Are, mentioned that he’s puzzled by the question, “where are all the women bloggers?”
I’ve watched the question considered on other blogs and seen plenty of debate about why there seem to be fewer women bloggers. Instead [...]

This post is a continuation of Stepping Up to Difficult Conversations: Know Your Strongest Hopes.
I wanted to know what my students would tell others about the act of stepping up to a difficult conversation, now that they had, albeit by force of assignment, completed their own. Here’s what they told me:

This post is a continuation of Stepping Up to Difficult Conversations: Fear Is Normal.
With the fears lingering in the air, I asked students their greatest hopes going into their difficult conversations. Hope can calm fear. Their hopes were simple and straightforward, neither grandiose nor insignificant:

This post is a continuation of Stepping Up to Difficult Conversations: What My Grad Students Taught Me. What I’m about to write will make more sense if you read that first!
I asked my grad students what their greatest fears were before having the difficult conversations they’d chosen. They named the kinds of fears you and [...]

In Interpersonal Conflict, my all-time favorite course to teach, there is an assignment that often strikes fear in the hearts of my students. I try not to relish their fear too much.
These are adult students whose ages typically range from 30-60, all studying for a master’s degree in mediation and applied conflict studies. I announce [...]

Some of us avoid stepping up to the important conversations, particularly at work or when we’re new to a group, because we want others to view us as nice. Or gentle. Or easygoing. Or ____ (fill in the blank with whatever view you want people to have of you).
Women, more frequently than men, tell me [...]