I was a go kart passenger driven by a daring, competitive 9-year-old this weekend. Lap after lap she held off the other drivers so that we would round the track in first place every lap. The photo above didn’t capture our crash and burn finish. We crossed the finish line and were told to “brake,

I guess it’s not really a matter of earning the right to celebrate Effective Communications Month, but rather what are you doing to communicate effectively? There are a lot of bad communicators out there – heck, that’s what keeps me in business. Are you one of them? Are you the bad communicator that makes others

Meet Chloe. Chloe is a thinker. She understands the value of solid preparation. For example, Chloe writes her to-do list at the end of each day so that she is organized for the following day. She sometimes reviews her to-do list in the morning to make she didn’t miss anything. She wants to get it

Meet Nancy. Nancy likes excitement. She loves to spend time chit-chatting with coworkers and is highly energetic. Although she can appear disorganized sometimes, she thrives on variety and spontaneity. Sometimes others get frustrated with her because she wants to spend more time thinking up ideas rather than executing them. If you asked Nancy’s coworkers what

Meet Jennifer. Jennifer is a really friendly, likeable person. She’s the first person to check in on her coworkers just to see how they are doing. In meetings she is agreeable (except when she takes her frustrations “off-line” and vents to people who are not on her team). Everyone likes Jennifer. If you asked those

Meet Kelly. Kelly likes results. When Kelly arrives at work she gets right to business. People who work with her think she is a little cold and intimidating. She sees herself as efficient. Kelly rarely chit chats with co-workers because she thinks it is a waste of valuable time. Sometimes her team gets frustrated when

Last week I worked with a group of 28 professionals to help them discover how they might be making their coworkers crazy and how to stop it! The topic was better interpersonal communication. It has been one of my most favorite skills to help leaders and their teams learn for the past 27 years because

We establish what is acceptable behavior and what isn’t by what we permit. This is true in relationships, and it is true in communication too. When someone talks over you, do you just wait until they are done? If someone uses language that makes you cringe, do you stay silent? What about letting someone take

Have you ever … stuck your foot in your mouth? wished you could go back and say it differently? confused someone with what you said? filled space without adding value? overwhelmed someone with information? Our brains process speech in 600 milliseconds. Wow! That’s fast. It’s so fast that it makes it incredibly easy for you

  What an amazing and stunning beautiful natural spring this is: the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. From a distance it is a multi-colored wonder of water that took my breath away. What a pleasing sight for my eyes! When I got closer, it suddenly looked like a steaming, hot, bubbling mystery. Monday