Advice

Negotiating over email is a train wreck waiting to happen. If you look at your personal experience, you probably can find plenty of examples of this. Research on where the information lies in communication bears this out.  One study says that as little as 7% of the total information resides in the words.  38% lies [...]

This post builds directly off of my previous one, about focusing on what you can control. I was in Chicago last week working with fairly senior consultants in one of the world’s largest professional service firms.  I was amazed at how DISEMPOWERED  these people feel in their professional life (maybe personal life too?). We had [...]

My last two blog postings came as a result of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland. While they might have seemed mostly philosophical in nature, there is in fact a direct connection to the advice I provide to CEOs and other Senior Executives to produce top-notch results in their negotiations: Focus On What You Control. [...]

Many of you know this familiar adage, and, many of us ignore it at our peril – especially in our hurry hurry world. Over the past week I have been engaged in a client situation where exactly this problem is at play.  The client has received a request from a department within their organization, and the [...]

This was an amazing week in the life of American politics, and in the life of democracy as a whole.  Whatever one's political views, it is difficult to describe the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America as anything but a sea change.  It is transformational – particularly in light [...]

Hi folks.  It's been over seven weeks since my last entry – ouch!  I guess the summer was just too much fun.  I just got back this evening from an engagement in the US with a multinational client of ours.  Over the course of the day, I was reminded again of an important principle we [...]

In my last two postings I discussed a situation with a long-time colleague where I created a problem by (a) ignoring my instincts, and (b) more specifically, ignoring my instincts that told me NOT to address a potentially sensitive topic in an email.   I'm happy to report that now, the relationship has been repaired.   [...]

In my last blog entry I gave an example of a situation where I ignored my instincts (or talked myself out of them), and made a mess as a result.  I can't count the number of times I've done that, and every time the story is the same.   If your gut is yelling at [...]

Late last week I ignored a piece of advice I regularly give to clients, and I am paying the price. The advice is as follows: If you have a sensitive topic to address, email is almost certainly NOT the right vehicle.   Well, I was reminded the hard way.  A sensitive subject came up through [...]

Just two days ago I posted an entry about this new topic I will be writing about.  I described my definition of "Sustainable Living" as including much more than "simply" living in a planet-friendly way (as if that weren't already enough of a challenge).  I defined it to include every aspect of how we live [...]