Difficult conversations with clients: 5 tips to jump-start dialogue

I’m contributing this week and next over at Notes on Design, offering up a 6-part series called Dialogue Jump-Start: 5 Tips for Difficult Conversations with Clients.

The first post went up today and I hope you’ll drop by Sessions School of Design’s blog to say hello, check out their other terrific content (but fair warning: I got lost in there for over an hour on my first visit, reading through all the compelling topics and tips), and join in the conversation.

To whet your curiosity, here’s what’s on tap: [Read more]

For women, more options than fight or flight

It all started with a joke among scientists in a lab: When the women scientists experienced stress, they cleaned up the lab and bonded together over coffee. When the men were stressed, they “holed up somewhere on their own.”

That joke lead to a ground-breaking UCLA study that turned five decades of stress research on its head. Most of that research was conducted on men, and you’re no doubt familiar with the results: When we experience stress, our bodies’ hormones tend to trigger either a fight or flight reaction.

But when researchers took a closer look at women, they found [Read more]

The secret to recovering from a foot-in-mouth moment

Open mouth. Insert foot.

We all have our foot-in-mouth moments, those times when we utter words we wish, just moments later, we’d had the foresight to prevent from ever seeing the light of day. Those moments we wish we could melt into the floorboards or reverse the universe’s clock. Those moments when our colleagues, friends or partners stare at us in horror, then move a few inches away, as if to convey they’re not associated with That Person, the one clearly suffering from a terrible social disease.

Foot-in-mouth disease. [Read more]

Friday fare: how to save your relationship

A bit of light Friday Fare for you…

Many thanks to Savage Chickens creator Doug Savage for permission to reprint his cartoon. You can get your own daily dose of the chickens via Doug’s blog.

Happy weekend,

Gotcha! attorney demonstrates simple way to escalate a conflict

I recently found myself at a zoning board hearing about a cell tower proposed for my area. People in the vicinity of the proposed location, concerned about the impact on their own property values, health, and, in some cases, lovely scenic views, were asking demanding questions and airing their concerns.

The attorney for the cell tower company, standing at the front of the room, interrupted one speaker. Do you have a cell phone? he asked the speaker, in a pretty unpleasant tone. Then he turned to the room of us, “Ok, show of hands,” he demanded. “How many of you own a cell phone?”

Gotcha, I thought, he’s pulling a Gotcha. [Read more]

Changing the world one conversation (or blog post) at a time

A lot of the people around me want to change the world. My mediation students and faculty colleagues do and that’s what led us to the conflict resolution field. A lot of my clients do, as I tend to draw folks and businesses high on the social responsibility scale. A lot of my family and friends do, since many of them are artists, mediators, social workers, and higher ed folks, all working to change the world in their own ways. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who care about leaving the world better than when they entered it….something that feels pretty darn hard in the U.S. these days.

I think it’s one of the reasons I was first attracted to Liz Strauss and her blog back in early 2006. [Read more]

Now you can simply wash away your mistakes

Have you ever uttered words you wish you could take back the minute they leave your lips?

Well, thanks to my big sister, I have discovered the product that will set all wrongs right. It’s the Wash Away Your Sins moist towelette, which my sis gave me in a gift bag last weekend. Hmmm…have I been particularly foot-in-mouth prone lately?

The tagline is, “Right Your Wrongs with a Wipe!” and directions for use include the following: [Read more]

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